Tues 4.26

Tuesday, April 26, 2011. Hi Speed Motorsports brings two of its NASA GTS3 BMW's to Lime Rock Park for a Test and Tune day.  The weather is questionable, as storms to the west threaten the outcome of the track day. 

Thankfully, it stayed warm and sunny as Hugh arrived with drivers Cecil Ramotar and Luiz Serva around 11:00am in hopes to tune and dial in the suspension on both the #999 and #54 BMW's. During the race at NJMP Lightning just over a week ago, there was some understeer in both cars. The cars had a tiny bit of difficulty getting into the corner and exiting it smoothly without losing precious tenths.

The test and tune event was not crowded and normally only had 10-15 cars per group.  Cecil and Luiz both ran 3 sessions.  "Having Hugh there to help sort out the car was very, very valuable. I didn't go as fast as I wanted to though. I think I'm a bit rusty and I think the faster you go the more your perspective changes as you start to hunt down the milliseconds." Cecil said. "My best lap was 0.1 off my all time fastest which isn't too bad actually."

After close observation, Hugh was able to notice that Cecil was over braking a bit into the first turn, but was doing very well picking up throttle through the apex and track out. There was still some understeer, and what was concluded was that the #999 car has too much front swaybar. Adjustments will further be made soon!

For Luiz, the day was a bit more challenging. The car had some discouraging understeer on the second portion of big bend, and the car rotation wasn't excellent. Hugh made several adjustments to the suspension and nothing seemed to fully remedy this.

"I had a lot to think after yesterday and the car is just not all there... Yet" Luiz explained.

The reason for the understeer was found to be that the #54 has a lot of downforce from the carbon rear wing and not enough at the front. Even with the large splitter at NJMP, Luiz and Hugh both agreed that it was moving too much. 

"Splitters should not move at all otherwise their efficiency goes down real quick." Hugh said.

"To do a sub 59-second lap like Hugh's done, it requires great talent and a great car, but there's no reason why my car should not do high 59's with any of us driving," Luiz stated. He is looking forward to hitting that mark very soon.

Since then, Luiz has ordered a new front fascia including a bumper cover with carbon dive planes, and a new splitter from a company out in California. Hopefully this will remedy any handling issues with the car and then Luiz will be able to fully utilize the potential of his Moton racing suspension. All Cecil really needs is a few more tweaks and adjustments, and he should be good to go for the next race at Pocono, which takes place on the weekend of July 15, 2011!

-GG