The first thrashing of the 2016 session, shakedown test at Ft Devens in Ayer, MA with the BSCC autox club.

Jim Schenck and I decided to bring our Challenge cars to autox with the perfect opportunity of getting some well needed testing verifying all works on the cars. Jim hasn’t run his car in quite a long time, and was good to get testing finding a leaking fuel line requiring tightening of the fitting. My car, #48, has a ton of upgrades over the winter and was good to get testing making sure new IRS works, ABS is drivable, and the huge brakes work. I left the car on super old 2011 Toyo RA1 full treaded (my street tires) with a ton of miles on them, Jim ran on some Toyo RR from 2013 (I think).

#48 is a rocket ship! after dyno tuning it pulls out of the turns and short straights with vicious acceleration. The IRS feels great and is super controllable. I felt I could drift the whole autox course with ease if I wanted to. No drama, no snap over steer, just felt great. The ABS was pretty intrusive activating under hard braking, but never got out of hand. I found I needed to bias the brake balance more towards the front then when ABS was off. Being on old tires really hurt my times, not the goal of the weekend, but as a competitor I wish I brought the Hoosiers! The car had an issue with 2 runs left, fuel pump not working at all! after diagnosing issue, I found the bulk head fitting inside the fuel cell had a wire broken off. Easily fixed at home. Positive test overall, and was glad to find the broken wire now instead on a race weekend.

I am on track starting Friday April 15, 2016 at NJMP Lightning and am very curious how the winter upgrades feel on a road course.

More pictures: http://www.johngeorgeracing.com/gallery/index.php?/category/11