[Jackal]

Hi everyone, just wanted to share something with you I have done a couple High performance schools to get my Solo Sprint pro race license earlier this year and I am 1/2 way done the season. I found there were a about 16 cars in my class so they had to divide the cars into 2 groups and there were qualifying rounds etc. Having never done track stuff like this before I was pleasantly surprise to find myself as the 7th fastest overall as most of the drivers had done this before and for at least a couple years or moe it turn out.

Basically the set up is 1 lap warm up then 3 to 5 balls to the wall timed laps using transponders on each car then 1 cool down lap.

Most of these Events have a qualifying round or practice round. This gives the officials a chance to see if some cars or their drivers have gotten faster than maybe the car that was ahead of them at the last event. Some people really get into it and improve their car and their driving between events.

Problem is that this past weekend we only had 6 cars meaning only enough to fill 1 grid, but we had to sessions booked at 5 different intervals though out the day. I thought great twice the track time for the same amount of money. Entry fee is $100 each event.

Stock brakes are OK for 4-6 laps and tranny about 5 laps long or if no cooldown time between sessions I lost several gears, the slow down screen kept coming up and by this time I only had 1st to 4th gear so I had to wave other drivers by me on the straight away, after about 5 laps I find the transmission will not shift in sport mode and I end up bouncing off the rev limiter switching to normal gives me about another 90 seconds so I can squeeze in about another lap and a bit then I have to go manual then I start losing 6th within seconds 5th is gone and by the time I am at lap 9 or 10 of 12 laps or lap 4 of 6 of the second set of laps. I was down to 3rd gear, when I tried to shift up the car would buck and surge and choke and backfire then power was lost then repeat the cycle so you keep downshifting til you find one that the computer will let you drive in.

After pulling into the pits the 3rd time a lap or 2 short of finishing the 2nd race of each session to cool the car down as I was doing nothing but impacting everyone else's lap time in a very negative way. After letting the car cool down for 40 minutes I took the car for a short drive to the nearest town 3 miles away as I was almost out of gas. The car was in normal and automatic mode and drove and shifted fine. I decided to only run the first race in each session as that was the limit to which the car would hold up.

Sorry for the novel, but bottom line I am pulling my car from Solo Sprint for this year and next until I get the brakes upgraded in a big way and have found a solution to our easily overheated Transmission. I will add that it was very hot that day about+ 31 Deg Celcius and +38 with the humidex.

I am looking for feed back from other fellow racers, not just dragstrip guys but autocross and other race class drivers. Also looking for solutions or aftermarket parts to aid in cooling the transmission, engine oil etc..

It was extremely embarrassing to have to pull over on the straight away to let a Ford Focus pass me because all I had was 1st 2nd and 3rd gear at the time, very humbling I will say and that was one of the few times I swore aloud that I should of got the Evo X.