One Lap of America Civic Si

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OneLapCivicSi

OneLapCivicSi

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Missing the two sessions at NOLA (a track we knew) on Tues. and not getting scored for the afternoon at ECR bumped us down into 3rd in class, but we were determined though to claw back as much as we could. For Weds. we were scheduled for two sessions at AMP and one at Lanier Speedplex, a 3/8th mile oval. AMP is an awesome track, but it’s one I was only familiar with by watching videos. There are many blind turns and lots of elevation change. It’s an awesome track that flows really well, but it took me a while to get up to speed on it. We finished 37th for the morning session and unfortunately, 4th in class. At the time I was pretty disappointed with my drive, but considering how tired we were from the drive (I maybe got 3 hours of sleep while Chris drove the last stint) and knowing that the car was working well, I’ve since come around to it being an ok effort. I also was able to chase down a Camero ZL1 and he actually slowed me down a bit on my last lap. Our pace in the Civic relative to some other car/driver combos really impressed us all week. However, when you watch the video from the session you’ll have to forgive some mistakes and a bit of timid driving.

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I was really excited to drive the afternoon session and correct my mistakes from the morning, but that was not to be. AMP has a strict sound limit of 97 db, and in the first session a lot of cars were over that with the top one being measured at 109.7! The track made the call to cancel our afternoon time. This was a real let down at such an awesome place. I think there was a lot more the event organizers should have done to address this, but we sucked it up and moved on to Lanier.

Chris was up for the short oval since he is an oval expert in iRacing. He was really excited to drive here and had some pretty wild setup ideas to help the car rotate. The goal was to keep the inside left tire planted as much as possible and get plenty of rear rotation. To accomplish this we ran the rear shocks at full stiff, the front right shock at -6 clicks, and the front left at -8 clicks. We also ran a large tire pressure stagger, with the left front at 20 psi, front right at 32 psi, the rear left at 36, and the rear right at 38. He also wanted some toe out and positive camber on front left, but I veto’d that because I was too exhausted to redo the front alignment.

The oval event was run “grudge match” style with two cars entering the oval together and trying to chase each other down. We also got to pick our own partners, so naturally we challenged the Subaru/Yokohama team. Rally Dave and Chris really got into this format… you’ll have to keep an eye out for the Yokohama event recap videos to watch how heated it got… lol. I think we all enjoyed the oval more than we expected. It was cool to see all the cars up close and fun to watch people try something new. Chris’ wild setup worked awesome, he won our class and we finished 25th overall! After a long day in Atlanta, we loaded up and struggled through the 9 hr transit to Summit Point. At 12:30 when we finally stumbled into our hotel room, the day held one more surprise as we walked into a room with 2 people already asleep in it!! We quietly exited the room, turned off the lights, scolded the front desk, got an unoccupied room, and passed out.

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OneLapCivicSi

OneLapCivicSi

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Thursday the 8th was day 6 of 8 for the One Lap. Everyone is tired at this point, but we were feeling better than AMP after 6 hours of sleep. We arrived early at Summit Point because we knew we had to change brake pads to the XP12s to handle the high braking demands here. Summit was Chris’ track since he is familiar with it from iRacing. We knew this track would be a tough one for us because of the long straights, but we were hoping to improve on our tie for 3rd in class. Chris finished 43rd overall and 4th in class. He suffered a bit from the same issues with learning a new track as I did at AMP. We identified a few areas to improve on in the next session, but it was obvious that this would be a struggle for the Civic with our power deficit.

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I was watching from behind the flag stand for the second session and was very impressed with the pace the car was showing. The video below shows the view of the car coming down the long straight. The lack of top end on the Civic limited us to a 128 mph top speed, way down to most of the field, but still hauling for a Civic on a track.



I took that video as Chris was starting his final flying lap for the session. Unfortunately, right after that, I heard over the radio from the starter stand a call for a red flag for heavy contact with the tire barrier at turn 5. My heart sunk because I knew that’s where Chris was on course, and after a few moments the station worker confirmed that it was our car. I watched the ambulance and wrecker rush to the scene, and I was told to stay near the starter to get updates. I couldn’t see the part of the track where the incident was, and it was too long walk to get there. It seemed like forever, but it wasn’t too long before Chris called to let me know he was ok. Thank God.

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He lost the car on turn in the very high speed turn 4. Braking before this turn was 110 mph down to 92ish as you turn down the hill. The rear came around as he turned in and the car slid into the inside tires. Chris had run this section well and wasn’t trying to push hard, but at those speeds small problems are amplified. Whether it was a bump, gust of wind, couple mph more on entry, etc., we aren’t sure, and it doesn’t matter. He did well to keep it from going off the other side of the track because that would have been way worse. The video below shows his whole afternoon session and ends with the crash. I’m posting the whole thing so you can see how there isn’t a noticeable difference between how he ran it before. His pace was awesome in the afternoon; he was running 2 seconds a lap faster than in the morning. We wear a Simpson Hybrid S head and neck restraint when we run, and I recommend this to anyone who is going to push this hard on track. The safety gear did its job, and Chris isn’t even sore.



Wrecking a car is never easy but doing it at One Lap means you are a lot further from the things you would need to help get it sorted. The staff at Summit Point were very helpful and considerate. They let us leave the car at the site while we went back to South Ben IN to get the truck and trailer. We were also fortunate that the Toyota media van was kind enough to take us to the rental car location so we could rent a car and start the 600 mile journey to get the truck. We made it about 2/3rds of the way back before we stopped for the night. The next morning, we drove the final three hours to get the truck, then we trailered the terrible Nissan Kicks rental back to Virginia.

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This morning, the 8th, we loaded up the Civic for the journey back to Texas. The car drove onto the trailer and at the moment we think the damage is cosmetic. We took some time to look at the corner again, and I'm very thankful and amazed that this wasn't a lot worse.. As I write this we are on the road back home from what turned out to be a way more exciting, yet challenging adventure than we expected. I'll keep this updated with some more thoughts on the event and what we do with the repairs on the car.

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OneLapCivicSi

OneLapCivicSi

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So how did the ALK bushings ended up ? I also wanted to install these ,but didn't after i saw they change the angle of the other bushings like you mentioned before.If they made lower ball joints that have adjustable caster and camber that would be much better.I know SPC has some on the older civics .I would push the caster as far as you can for the added dynamic camber.
I agree on the benefits of caster. This is why we went with a different camber/caster plate from Redshift. We ran the One Lap with the ALK kit on, and once I regreased it with the Energy Suspension stuff it was very quiet. I think in an ideal world, you get a rear bushing that doesn't change the geometry and then find the caster another way. That being said, I think the ALK kit did the job it was asked to, and I would recommend it for a serious track build if you want caster and don't have another way to get it.
 
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OneLapCivicSi

OneLapCivicSi

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Really sad to see this :( Hope there's some way you can rebuild, scavenge parts for the next build!
Yep, definitely not the way we would have thought the race would end. It's at the body shop now though, and while not cheap, it's getting fixed!

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Yep, definitely not the way we would have thought the race would end. It's at the body shop now though, and while not cheap, it's getting fixed!

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So sorry to hear about the crash. Does insurance cover any of the repair cost since it was on the track?
 

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So sorry to hear about the crash. Does insurance cover any of the repair cost since it was on the track?
I don't think so, so sad the end en this journey but at least the damage was not so bad on the chassis, be ready for the next adventure. :thumbsup:
 
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OneLapCivicSi

OneLapCivicSi

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We are paying this one out of pocket. We got quotes for track insurance, but didn't go that route. In hindsight, for a track like Summit Point, not having track insurance was a mistake.
 


 


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