This past weekend was my second time at Road Atlanta.  Back in March when I was at Road Atlanta for the first time, I was quite nervous about all the elevation changes and blind curves.  I was able to go into this weekend much calmer than before and hoping to improve on what I had learned before. 

In the few weeks since last month’s event at CMP, the cobra received many new gifts, including a new set of track tires (still the Nitto Extreme R Autocross tires), an AutoPower roll bar, a larger radiator from Fluidyne (hoping to alleviate those heating issues where the supercharger cuts out), a Steeda rear suspension subframe bracket kit, and an oil separator kit.  For fear of being miserable during the weekend (I had heard that last year’s NASA event at Road Atlanta in August was brutally hot), we decided to rent an RV for the weekend.  This way we could stay on track in air conditioning the entire weekend rather than being exposed to all the elements during the day and only having access to air conditioning at night back at the hotel room.  As it turned out, the weather this past weekend turned out to be beautiful (a bit warm, but not overly hot).  And unfortunately the RV could not tow the weight of the cobra, so we still had to drive two separate vehicles up and back.  Regardless, the RV still made the trip a lot of fun and was a great decision.

The July NASA event was back at CMP, which made this my third time out on this particular track.  In preparation for the event, my father put a larger heat exchanger from Steeda on the cobra to help alleviate the issue from Barber where the supercharger cut out the last session of each day. 

He also put a different computer program in from Steeda that boosted the engine approximately 30hp.

When the weekend schedule was posted online, I tried to see if I could be switched to the run group that leaves earliest on Sunday in order to help out with my long drive home. 

 A small mix-up occurred, so I ended up missing my first session of the weekend.  Everything got straightened out with plenty of time for me to run in the 2^nd session.

I’d been told that Barber Motorsports Park feels more like a country club than a track, but I don’t think I really knew what to picture.  The drive into the park consisted of rolling hills lined with trees and perfectly manicured grass being watered for the evening.  Due to a number of small events that slowed my drive to the track down, I made it in time to register on Friday evening but not with enough time to get the car to tech.

Roebling Road is definitely a different type of track than Road Atlanta, Sebring, or CMP.  Rather than multiple straightaways and tight turns, Roebling is a series of rather high speed gradual sweeps and carousel turns with only one significant straight to speak of.  I was able to drive up on Thursday night after work, managed to catch a few hours of sleep, and be at the track Friday morning for an event called Seat-Time run by Jon Krolewicz.  My instructor at Seat-Time turned out to be the son of the instructor I had at my very first track event down in Sebring two years ago.  The Seat-Time event runs approximately the same as the NASA HPDE events, but since there are a total of 4 run groups everyone gets a lot more track time during the day.  The run groups are also much smaller which helps reduce traffic jams on the course.  And Roebling is a course that is more susceptible to traffic jams since there are very few passing zones.