Our first scheduled event, a COMSCC time trial at Loudon in early April, was snowed out! There was still over a foot of snow on the track when I drove up there a few days before the event was supposed to happen.
We did several non-competitive days on the track early in 2001 to help get ourselves back up to speed and also to get a handle on how the Cobra was working with the Kumho DOT-legal race tires we bought at the end of 2000.
The first of these was a PDA event at Lime Rock in mid-April. The snow was gone by then and there was a mob of participants, eager to flog their cars after a long, cold winter!
We were on schedule to get there early, but our trailer rig got rear-ended about 2 miles from the track. The resultant time lost with officialdom and jury-rigging the broken trailer to get it off the road meant we arrived at the track less than ten minutes before registration closed.
By this time, the fastest run groups were full, and we were relegated to the slowest run groups. With the hugely crowded track, this resulted in an exercise in frustration, as both of us fought to pass slower cars for lap after lap. It turned out to be a day of passing practice rather than a day of lapping practice, as Nate got only two clear laps the entire day, and I got only a handful.
By the fourth sessions, some people had gone home, and I had a few clear laps, which were much more enjoyable. We were happy with the car, although I didn't quite match my best time from the EMRA event last fall. Nate's best was a 1:10.78, and I managed a 1:09.19.
Because there were no more COMSCC events and few other available events in our area in the spring, we decided to take advantage of the availability of open test days on certain Thursdays at Loudon.
The first of these, in April, was fantastic. The car ran like a train, and we pounded around lap after lap for the whole morning. The track was almost deserted, and we could run as we liked, since there were no separate run groups. We each got in plenty of clear laps, and we enjoyed it tremendously.
The exhaust pipes had been hitting on the ground in a couple of places, and near the end of the morning, one of the headers lost a couple of bolts. That ended our day, but we were both satisfied.
More crucially, however, the rear suspension had been bottoming in turns 4 and 10. This led us to embark on a suspension development project which would occupy the entire summer and transform the handling of the car.
Loudon test days always use the South Oval configuration. With the stock suspension and Kumhos, I managed a 1:17.52 and Nate did a 1:19.32.
By the time we'd done our second test day, in June, we had installed a brand new $1000 fuel cell made by Fuel Safe. This proved to be our undoing, however, because after only a few laps the engine lost power and wouldn't even pull redline in 3rd gear. We suspected a fuel pressure problem, and I went off to find a new fuel filter but by the time we got it installed, the session was over. And it didn't help anyway.
The problem turned out to be some powdery debris that apparently had been left inside the fuel cell during the manufacturing process. It took us several weeks - and dropping the fuel cell and removing the fuel pump several times, a nasty task - before we discovered the debris accumulated on a small screen inside a filter sock on the bottom of the fuel pump. Fuel Safe and their retailer were absolutely no help at all; we only learned about this from other FFR Cobra owners who had experienced the same problem.
This problem would come back to haunt us again later in the season.
By the third test day we did at Loudon, in early July, we had some of the new suspension bits on the car, but not enough to make it lap noticeably faster. Nate's best was a 1:18.30 and I was only fractionally quicker at 1:18.24.
We also did a Tuesday practice at Lime Rock. In the old days there used to be a Tuesday practice almost every week, but since the Skip Barber Racing School located there, the number of test days has declined steadily so that now there are only a half dozen per year.
Again, the place was mobbed! This time, because we have a Cobra, which looks powerful, they put us in the fastest run groups. But unlike PDA, which was comprised mostly of people who occasionally drive their street cars on the track, this test session was full of SCCA hotshoes in 800 hp Trans Am and GT-1 cars, with a smattering of 1000 hp vintage IMSA GTP cars thrown in. Our 225 hp Cobra replica, with its unsorted suspension, was sadly outclassed.
The result was a harrowing day, this time with tons of practice in getting passed. My overriding recollection is of constantly watching my (tiny) mirrors, trying to avoid turning in on some monstrous vintage NASCAR sedan about to thunder by me on the inside.
It was nerve-wracking, and it made it impossible to concentrate on my line and braking points. About the only marginally fun memory was getting passed by Paul Newman in his ground-shaking Camaro Trans Am car, and then later seeing him sitting quietly under a canopy in the paddock.
By this time, I had discussed our suspension issues with Doug Arnao. He had a set of 800 lb springs in the shop, and he kindly decided to meet us at the track with them. We installed these and found they made a big improvement. The car didn't roll as much and didn't pitch as much with throttle and brake application. Doug drove the car briefly but without proper shocks and anti-roll bars felt it was too far away from what it should be to push it hard.
Here's a report I wrote to a friend shortly after the event:
With Doug Arnao's help, we figured out that the front springs were horrifyingly soft, making the car extremely unstable at the limit. Also we had a problem with the new fuel cell (now resolved), and assorted other minor niggles that took time and energy to sort out.
We've got new springs now (800 lb vs. the 450 lb stock springs) and have a bunch of anti-roll bar parts on order. We also plan to get new shocks as soon as I can afford my half of the expenditure, and hopefully will get new brakes this winter.
We had a chance to try the new springs out at Lime Rock this past Tuesday. Unfortunately there were so many cars there that it was a nightmare, except for the final session when a lot of people had gone home.
Also, we were in the wrong run group (again!). This time we were in with cars much, much faster than us - mostly SCCA GT-1 cars, Trans-Am cars, NASCAR stock cars, and a couple of IMSA GTP cars. Nothing with less than 500 hp, I'm sure, and probably most of them had far more - and all were on slicks. And us with 225 hp and street-legal tires. It was a horror show, amplified by our terrible mirrors.
Anyway, the new front springs made a big difference. My third flying lap was my fastest ever, a 1:07.7, but I never went faster because on the next lap I was overtaken by a horde of monstrous stock cars, Trans Am cars, and other gigantic beasts.
This destroyed my rhythm and undermined my confidence. Without proper mirrors, I couldn't see if anyone was trying to pass me on the inside, so I could never properly commit to the corners on turn-in. There were so many cars that it was impossible to track cars individually in my mirrors.
Doug was there (he drove up from New Jersey to see us and brought our new springs!) and he did a few laps in the car, enough to find that he wasn't comfortable with the pedals, the steering wheel, or the seat, and that the car is drastically under-damped.
Fortunately Nate got an excellent run at the end of the day, with a bunch of clear laps, and he set a new personal best of 1:09.9. And I was very encouraged by the improvement the new springs made, and am looking forward to the addition of anti-roll bars (which will also allow us to go to stiffer rear springs) and shocks (soon, I hope!)