07/10/2025
\\\OPTT #3 Stars & Stripes Time Trial @ Nelson Ledges///
Hands down my favorite event of the year so far even if everything didn't go as planned.
First time running the S2000 in Tuner with its new coilovers & swaybars. Wasn't aligned yet, but close enough for testing for the weekend. First session on Saturday just getting used to the balance. I hear a noise under the car as it goes through the kink traveling well north of 100mph. REALLY a bad time to find out something is going wrong. As I turn in for T13 I heard a large bang from under the car. Still rolling I decide to make a quick duck into the pits before anything else happened. Turns out the sway bar arm that goes between the spline bar & endlink slid off. After that the endlink stood no chance at keeping it on the car. Thankfully Nelson Ledges safety crew grabbed it immediately. Couldn't run the front bar again since the endlink split, so decide to also disable the rear bar so the car wasn't a drift machine. As I have the car in the air I see a wall of black clouds heading for paddock. Got the car down just before the monsoon hit us. Thankfully it didn't ruin the day since the sun came out immediately afterwards and we all only lost one session as a result. I cranked the shocks the whole way up to help compensate a bit for the lack of bars and ran the S the rest of the weekend without issue. Just wasn't anywhere near last events PB times because the car handled like a slug, but I was happy to finish regardless. Big shout out here to Brian over at Karcepts for helping to inspect the arm over email and tell me how to fix up the damaged splines. New endlinks are on the way and the rest of the swaybar arms will get a retorqued before going out again.
Saturday's excitement continued as we rolled into the Enduro with Matt Haskins taking his first ever stint followed by Mario. Things were going great with Matt's session as the Sentra battled its way through the field. It wasn't till it came in for fuel and to put Mario in the seat that things seemed off. First the car wouldn't start. When it finally did and started making laps again it sounded pretty bad and was seconds a lap down from before. The decision was made to call it and bring the car in. After some testing the whole engine was down on compression so that was the end of that.
However outside of my swaybar leaving the chat and the Sentra pulling half a enduro it was a great time outside of that. As the sun was going down the S2000 got its first on track roller shots so I can't wait to see those. Atomic Autosports hosted a taco dinner on Saturday night which was fantastic. Spent the evening with friends gathered around outside Mario's trailer. This included Mark Aubele who I haven't been to a event with in years so that was awesome. Not to mention this event also marked the return of Manfred Woodall to the TT grid which was great to see. As well as a large contingent of our Pittsburgh hillclimb group Wankerville! Around midnight a large group of us headed out for a late night track walk and well...if you know, you know. Came back and got to experience camping at Nelsons which involved the showers having water pressure issues, sleeping on a hard floor because I didn't have a pad under my sleeping bag, and peeing in a field barefoot in wet grass at 2:30am is something I won't ever forget lol.
Sunday with me being somewhat sleep deprived and the car not exactly in top form I decided to just get my times and pack it in. While it was another class win for me I don't feel it was fair since the S2k had a big power advantage over Lanny's Datsun 510. And out of the two Lanny's car is the FAR better looking car IMO! Massive thanks to Brandon Anderson and everyone else at NeOhio SCCA for pulling off a great Time Trial experience. These kind of events, the competition, and the general vibe is what I like to see in OPTT 🤙
