Houston Raceway Park on 11/7/10 anyone?

jaybertx said:

Off topic but how dirty does Kona look while dirty? My previous GT was black and while I don't believe there is a nicer color when clean, it was high high high maintenance. I'm looking for a happy medium this time.

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It's not as bad as black. I agree with you that black is the best color when clean, but it's just really hard to keep it clean. Kona blue is better as the dirt doesn't stick out as bad as black. I think it's easier to maintain than black, but obviously the lighter colors are easier to maintain. I'm lovin the kona blue though.

02GTRX said:

Stopped raining a couple of days ago and its still dirty???!! I usually start cleaning mine once the rain turns to a slight drizzle, then the next morning ill go out ans shell be a shining diamond amongst all the other dirty cars

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Been too busy with work & various kid(3-kiddos) activities to have time to clean. Got stuff going on Sunday morning till noon. Gonna watch the the Texans-Chargers game till 2pm. then heading out to HRP. Monday I plan on doing a full detail!

d98gt,

Good luck at NMRA! I was going to go to NMRA with a co-worker, but I picked up an extra shift at work that weekend instead. Got Christmas coming up & taxes due in January so I kinda had to opt for working the extra shift. Otherwise it would have been fun to be out there.

It did not go exactly as I had hoped. The weather was nice. It was a cool 70-degrees & sunny. However, it's apparent I'm very rusty with my driving skills & that I need alot of practice driving this thing. I've been to the track once since '04 and that's when I took my 2010 GT last year. Did OK with that(13.88 @ 104 2.3-60ft.) but not great.

It's a lot harder to launch this car than it was my 2010. My first pass I spun the tires. I admit, the adrenaline was flowing pretty hard. Lowered the air pressure on my stock radials to 25-psi. My next two passes I hit the rev limiter trying to shift around 6800-rpm but obviously went too far. So, I let the car cool for awhile.

I start the next set of runs with a real boneheaded run. Left the traction control on! Felt like an idiot. The tire spinning, rev limiter hitting, & the boneheaded run really started to get me down. So, I decided to quit trying to slip the clutch out of the hole & just launch from idle. Also, out of fear of tripping the rev limiter again, I decide to shift at 6500-rpm. Running three more times back-to-back using this technique netted my best time of the day. My next run was 13.73 @ 108.9 2.38-60ft. Followed that up with two 13.90's @ 107 2.3-60ft. times. Car was really hot at this point so I let it cool down again.

Feeling more confident, I figured I'd try slipping the clutch out of the hole at about 2500-rpm. Severe wheel hop, aborted that run. Tried slipping clutch at 2000-rpm & had the same result. That's how my night ended. I would have hung around longer & kept trying, but my family was with me & the kids were hungry.

It's definitely a 12-second car...........with a 13-second driver. I guess I need a driver mod. Track is only open one more weekend till they close for the year, but I won't be able to make it. But I'll get back out there as soon as they open back up.