Honda S2000 Js Racing - J Isn't Just The 10th Letter In The Alphabet

Armed with a new setup it was time to take the car out to the track again, this time though I had a real driver to take it out. Andy Hope of Sport Compact Car was at Buttonwillow doing testing for an article so I was able to have him take out the car. In the new setup he was able to get a 2:06, which is 21 seconds faster then my personal best of 2:27. While I already knew that there is no way my novice driving abilities would come close to Andy's but having him drive the car gave me some excellent feedback. For a driver of Andy's ability that can control oversteer, my car's setup had too much understeer due to the staggered tire setup and the addition of the big wing. For competition purposes, I would need to go to the 255 front tire setup, matching the rear 255 tires, and add a front splitter to complement the downforce in the rear with the J's wing. If I did those changes Andy felt he could knock off at least two seconds. Since I'm still in the early stages of learning how to drive on the track, this setup was perfect for me. With my setup having a slight bias for understeer it is a little more forgiving when I come into a corner too hot. If I had the more aggressive setup I would be more likely to spin and going off track is never a fun thing.

At the end of the day, my car is more than setup to be able to put some decent times down at the track, now it's time to work on the driver. With road racing it's not like you can just show up to the track and one day be breaking Super Lap Battle records, it takes time to really learn how to handle a car let alone learn a specific track. Granted road racing isn't the cheapest sport to get into but you can find NASA track days for around $150-$200, you break down how much track time you get and it can come down to under $2 a minute. So next time you feel the urge to dial that 1-900 number just think how much more satisfied you'll be if you went to the track instead.

By Elliott Moran

Enjoyed this Post? Subscribe to our RSS Feed, or use your favorite social media to recommend us to friends and colleagues!