Lister open track videos

[Alan Blair]

This was from my last event at Firebird West. Steve Goldenstein was out there in his Lister as well and hopefully he will post some photos soon. It was a free members day so as usual everyone and their grandma were out on the track.As you will tell from the videos it is a tight and technical track and it sure wears me out with that manual steering. My shoulders were ready for a break after each session.By the way if you prefer to watch the videos full screen just do a right mous click on the video and select the option to watch it on vimeo. for some reason the full screen function on this VRL web site does not work with Vimeo even though it works fine for others.Session 1 - http://www.myvrl.com/video/early-morning-cold-tiresThe day started off with my really old and cold heat cycled front tires giving me fits and provided a nice contrail of smoke every time I even thought about leaning on the brakes. But with all the traffic is was a nice and safe warmup, albeit slow. And best of all no agricultural racing episodes. Camera shut off early for some reason so thats actually all the video I have of this session except sitting on the grid which I spared you of watching.Session 2 - http://www.myvrl.com/video/rush-hourThe front tires were a bit better but the traffic was much worse. Some folks were taking some real interesting lines, not looking in the mirrors, and holding me and a line of cars behind me up. I don't mind a little friendly competition but some of these folks should not have been out there in this group because they were clueless. I later found out that there were too many folks for some of the other groups so they were allowing them to move up a group or two. Not real smart in my opinion. I did get a bit impatient and did a few rather dumb passes, especially with the front tire lock ups still happening a bit. Notice the turn where I pass that blue Mustang with the big goofy wing and then almost hitch a ride on the back end of that old yellow Camaro. That was as direct result of not being able to slow the car down. I ended up just letting off the brakes, turning the wheel, and hoping for the best. Once again the camera shut off early so unfortunately some of the dicing back and forth and some of my other forced passes are only a distant memory. I did pass that Camaro a lap or two later at a pretty good speed in the sweeping right handed dog leg. He was pretty fast on the straight stuff but real slow in the corners. Once again no off track excursions.Session 3 - I have no video of since I gave a ride along to my son-in-law's buddy who drives an WRX out there and my mount places the camera a bit too close to his head to be safe.Session 4 - http://www.myvrl.com/video/clear-track-warm-tires-lifeWas great. Tires still warm and a lot of the cars had left for the day. Looking at my times for this session compared to the last event at that track it appears that I was running 1 - 1.5 seconds faster. The new coil over shocks felt great and I would like to atribute the better times to that upgrade but its hard to say since the weather was pretty hot the last time on this track and this time it was pretty cold. In any case I am still a couple of seconds off my best times on that track and with my old setup. I know I need a rear suspension alignment since I have only done my own setup since I replace just about everything in the rear of the car. Its probably not way off but its also probably not all that accurate either. I also need to start tuning the shocks a bit but I think I will wait until I get the alignment done first and only change one variable at a time.All in all a great weekend. This coming Sunday I will be at Firebird Main. It was last April when my Dana-36 went out since I have been on that track so I am looking forward to it. Bob Seigel will be in town and plans to come and watch for a while so if any of the other Lister gang in town care to swing by we may just have to do a group photo or something.

[Bob Brzezinski]

Alan, nice videos. Looks like a lot of fun, although there were some real yahoos out there by the looks of it. I guess you get that at pretty much any track day, although the ones I've been able to do recently appear to be less well-attended than yours.

Here's a couple of links to some short videos from my most recent autocross:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icVDMrV4DI0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD86VmFZU2E

Bob

[Alan Blair]

Thanks for the video posts Bob, looks like a nice couple of runs. I like that camera perspective that you have been using, I think I will try it next time out. Every time I watch somebody run an autox course all I can do is wonder if I would be able to follow the track or if I would end up in a construction zone... ;-)

My event was crazy that day since it was free for members. Usually its busy but not like that. Lots of folks I have never driven with before were out there. I later found out that there were so many folks attending that they had to move some folks from the more junior groups to the more advanced groups to keep it somewhat less congested. The event we just had 2 weeks ago was much different and it seemed like most of the time I had clear track in front of me. Really nice to be able to really stretch the car's legs and validate some of the modifications I have made. The rear of the car is very well planted now but I have been experiencing a fair amount of push on the front so I need to do some fine tuning with shocks and/or alignment or start to think about replacing the front tires. Still have plenty of rubber left but they are a bit heat cycled. I wonder if any of those tire conditioners really work? I may just have to give it a try.