Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Autocross and Open Track Ran open track at MAM this weekend

Hey guys, thought you'd all like to know how the tour did on an open track event. We ran at Mid America Motorloex which is a 2.25 mile road course by Omaha, Nebraska.

In the rain I had a pretty good advantage on Saturday and ran the second quickest lap of anyone there on some skinny little 215/50/17 Firehawk SZ50EP's. An 03 cobra on v700's with tread had me by about .375 seconds on an overall of 2:29.xxx lap time. We both outrun everyone including some instructors by about 3 seconds to the next closest set of times.

Once it dried out I put on my race tires and ended up besting the same car by .2xx seconds in the dry. Best lap all day was turned by an S2000. He ran 1:47 in the dry and I ran a 1:52 as my best. In the dry I still ran better than about 80-90% of the cars for overall lap times and only got 2 laps in on my race tires before going off track and having to be pushed out of the mud so I was done for the day.

Sunday we didn't run with timers but I know I picked up some time as well as everyone else. The cobra would barely pull me in the straights but I could run him down a little in the corners. Unfortunately on my second run I had a small electrical fire in the trunk so I called it a day rather than patch it back together and risk it happening again. Other than that the car performed flawlessly except for some very high oil temps. Anyone ever seen a 270 oil temp in a contour!

Overall with similar experienced drivers I think the car would edge out the cobra on this particular course which is pretty high speed. The front straight I was topping out about 122 at the braking zone. Fastest I heard of this weekend was only 125 from a full race prep car.

The TCE brakes with race compound pads were simply awesome. First run in the dry I had to stiffen up my front struts as I was actually lifting the rear and causing it to hop.

Thoughts/comments?

Thanks,
Rick

Awesome!

Glad there weren't any tire barriers on the side of the course....or was there? :-)

Mostly open runoff area. Very few tire barriers and you'd pretty much have to brake mechanically or fall asleep at the wheel to hit them.

Rick

Very nice. Sounds like a blast!

The funniest thing about this weekend was Rick calling me on his way back on Sunday... He started off by saying something about "having a great weekend and not having any breakdowns", but then going on to say his trunk caught on fire from a turn off switch short. For anyone else, that would have been devastating, but for Rick it was a great weekend. I guess it qualifies since none of the "fun" parts got broken. LOL!

270!!! Holy crap, you're running the upgraded pan, right?
I thought it had a larger surface area to allow better cooling. . .
That's pretty high, did you cool down in between laps??

Awesome times, congrats on whopping everyone out there. . .do you think you could've placed the same without the engine mods, ie was it a driver's course, or were there a lot of straight aways that you could make up time on. . .

Actually I'm still running a stock pan. I don't think it's really got any increased surface area though. I actually think part of my oil temps were due to running a 0-40 oil which happens to hold more heat than a 30 weight oil. So I'm going to change that out as well.

As far as the course goes, it's a combination course as it has a nice long straight (1/2-3/4 mile) then a few turns and a couple high speed sweepers plus a few smaller straights. There's nothing quite like coming out of a long left hander running 90+ and grabbing fourth gear while your straining hard against the 4-point harness. It's fricking awesome.

Rick

Man that is so awsome to hear that you ran with the big bad cobra. I can only imagine your topend power. I bet you really like the Contour with all that handling and power. I car were built for his kind of racing and we do well in it too. Nice Job man

Have any of you guys run events at Heartland Park? Seems like every time I'm out there I see a Contour (usually silver, one maroon) but I never get a chance to introduce myself/ask who it is. I have a calypso green '92 mustang coupe I run on track days.