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The parking lot we picked was a local movie theater across the highway from Vorshlag, and by a large helping of dumb luck we just happened to see my 2013 Mustang GT parked in the same portion of the giant parking lot. Apparently my wife had snuck off to watch some sparkly vampire movie - on a vacation day she took from work that she "needed" in order to get ready for a Thanksgiving party we were throwing the next day. Sneaky. What she didn't know was that I had an extra key to this car... so we moved it to another lot about a half mile away and I waited for her panicked call. :)
It didn't take long - half an hour later I got the call, "The Mustang is stolen! Either that... or.... YOU took it!" She knows me too well. I told her where the car was parked and she hung up on me. Later that day she admitted it was a good practical joke, heh. We laughed about it for days!
The photos came out well and you should see one of the above shots in an upcoming GRM issue.
Two FT86 Track Tests @ ECR
At the end of my October post we had three track days in the works for October and November. Matt was out of town for the NASA event, where we ran two of the other Vorshlag shop cars and set some new personal best lap times (in our 2011 and and 2013 Mustang GTs). Then the SCCA Club Race/PDX event was cancelled (they had all of 37 people sign up...and we were 3 of those. Club racing in our region is virtually dead), but the Five Star Ford track day event was the first one where we had some FT86 content.
Vorshlag Picture Gallery - 5 Star Ford ECR Track Day - http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...ar-ECR-111712/
This November 17th event was an HPDE hosted by Five Star Ford of Plano at Eagles Canyon Raceway. We had fun at their event back in June so we signed up three more cars for their November 17th event. Amy drove the red Vorshlag 2011 Mustang GT to her new personal best at this track (1:57.70!) and Matt drove his 2013 Subaru BRZ (2:11.0). I was there for track-side help and in-car instruction, Ed was there to help with the three cars, and Vorshlag's photographer Brandon was on hand and took some great track pictures of many of the cars in attendance. Perfect weather, well run event, and we had about 63 cars in attendance, so we got a LOT of track time. Big thanks to Corey White for setting this event up!
Left: Matt's BRZ on course. Right: Britney and her FR-S.
Being a Ford dealership sponsored event there were a crap ton of Mustangs in attendance, and I will go into more of that in our next Mustang project thread post. Having two FT86s there was a treat - and in fact there was a third one, but it was still on the stock tires and had no lap timer (we ended up doing track preparation work to that car at Vorshlag in December).
Britney and Stephen also brought her FR-S to this event, and you can see me riding along with Stephen in the Asphalt Gray FR-S, below right. NASA Time Trial racer KenO took some hot laps in her FR-S during a later session, and I took some hot laps in Matt's BRZ at the same time (below left). We both had lap timers/data loggers on board, but unfortunately we didn't get any in-car video in either car that day. Still, we did get some good pictures and data.
The data showed what we felt in the BRZ - the new brake pads were working VERY WELL and I saw some braking data that I couldn't quite believe (1.5g peak braking?!). The harder I pushed the brakes, the deeper it would brake. This was just with Motul fluid, our SS brake lines and the Carbotech XP12 front / XP8 rear pads! No brake ducting, but we never saw any fade - and I pushed the brakes hard for about 4-5 laps. Lateral grip was also extremely impressive, showing sections of corners with sustained 1.3-1.4g lateral?!
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