Stapleton Event

[dlawson@ball.com (Dave Lawson)]

Thought I would give my perspective on the Stapleton event which
I enjoyed this past Sunday. There was a pretty good turnout for only
allowing drivers who had previously attended a drivers school, I think
over 30 drivers were enrolled. The q-net was well represented with
maybe 10 netsters in attendance(driving and viewing).

The track is huge, very  wide and very long, I think 3.1 miles in length.
I ran my 86 coupe GT with its new suspension and some new
Bridgestone RE71s sized 195/55/14. The GT performed very well,
but the long straights really showed its lack of power. If I wasn't in a
corner, I was at WOT, using all 110hp that the car had to offer. My
speed was maxing out at 95 mph before my braking points. A few
attendees were having some serious brake fade, but I didn't
experience any. I was running some metal masters and ATE super
blue in an otherwise stock brake setup. My oil temps did get up over
130 C under hard running, but came right back down when I eased
off.

If you are after track time, you should plan on attending an event here.
Between 3 and 5 pm I was on the track for over 1 hour. It was basically
an open track with maybe 5 cars out there at any one time. The track is
so wide that you can safely play with different lines. I was late apexing
turns, early apexing turns, double apexing and varying entry and exit
speeds just to see where you end up on the track. I also started playing
with trail-braking. It was a very educational day for me and I am still
trying to assimilate everything.

The Quattro Club of Colorado(a trend setting region of QCUSA)really put
on a fine event. A number of people expressed their appreciation for
putting on an affordable event (just $75 for the day) and working to keep
the costs down. As for where our $75 went, it paid for the the event. I 
think
Bob Polich said that our region made $69 putting on this event. If anyone
is interested in a detailed accounting for the event, Deb Polich said
to give her a call and she will itemize it.

Everyone had smiles on their faces all day, even Ben Howell did after
he turned the GO knob up a bit too high. The quattro crowd was there to
have fun and I am sure everyone did. At days end there was even talk
about maybe developing a formula-4000q club series so those who are
interested could step up to the next level. A little door2door action, just
between friends of course...
 -
Dave Lawson  dlawson@ball.com
86 GT
83 TQC -> franken-q