{"id":1242,"date":"2011-03-07T12:08:19","date_gmt":"2011-03-07T20:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/?p=1242"},"modified":"2016-08-15T23:35:47","modified_gmt":"2016-08-16T06:35:47","slug":"march-4-6-2011-ed-nazarian-racing-acs-roval-season-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/07\/march-4-6-2011-ed-nazarian-racing-acs-roval-season-opener\/","title":{"rendered":"March 4-6, 2011: Ed Nazarian racing @ ACS Roval (Season Opener)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pntrst_main_before_after\"><\/div><p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/21010368\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" frameborder=\"0\" title=\"March 6, 2011:  Ed Nazarian racing his ST2 Evo 9 at ACS Roval\" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Ed is completely changing his tire setup this year going to full race slicks. Between this and changing the downforce setup with the added front splitter, this will be a learning year for Ed. He wont be going to the national championships because of some family obligations he has.<\/p>\n<p>Saturday was mostly a disaster dealing with the new tires and pressures.\u00a0Ed was busy again on Sunday getting his corded tires flipped\/mounted\/balanced, so he was late to grid again. He didn\u2019t have enough time between his qualifying session and the race to get everything done quickly enough to make it to the grid on time. He had to start in the back again.<\/p>\n<p>At the start the cars in front of him looked confused. Ed was able to capitalize on that and passed 3 out of class cars, and a fellow ST2 racer. He set his fastest lap of the entire weekend in lap 2 with a\u00a01:48.622. Unfortunately, his tires started cording again during this race also, but this time it was far worse than Saturday\u2019s race.<\/p>\n<p>Ed&#8217;s Full War Story:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The 2011 season opener was at ACS Roval on March 4-6.\u00a0 Up until last year our season opener has been at Big Willow in February, but NASA decided to cancel that event this year.\u00a0 It\u2019s really unfortunate because I love Big Willow.<\/p>\n<p>Before anything I want to say a quick thank you to Mike Welch (owner of\u00a0RRE), KC from\u00a0APR, and Art from RRE.\u00a0 Due to some personal challenges in the off season, I didn\u2019t have time to get ready for our season opener in a timely manner.\u00a0 I literally prepped my car a few days before leaving for ACS.\u00a0 Mike, as usual, was extremely helpful and generous.\u00a0 He even made the time to get my car on the dyno in the midst of a busy schedule to see how things were looking.\u00a0 KC from APR went out of his way by driving out to ACS on Friday to hand deliver a set of risers, that he installed himself.\u00a0 Since I had used the GTC-200 wing without the risers, I could feel they made enough of a difference.\u00a0 As for Art, he was there that weekend crewing for someone else but made time to check up on me.\u00a0 I was doing some work on my RF fender and had him come over to give me his opinion.\u00a0 He ended up doing some work on the fender also.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier I said that since I had some personal challenges in the off season I couldn\u2019t get ready in a timely manner.\u00a0 The major factor I didn\u2019t have time to sort out was getting my alignment adjusted for this event.\u00a0 And Robi (owner of Robispec) was going to be out of town during this event, so we couldn\u2019t make adjustments at the track like we usually do.\u00a0 I knew it wasn\u2019t ideal but I figured it was close enough from when I did a test day in November, so I decided I was willing to race as-is.\u00a0 Besides, I figured it would be a good learning experience.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SATURDAY\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Saturday was a day full of incidents before and during the race.\u00a0 I qualified P2 with a 1:48.745, but after qualifying I realized I was cording my RF and RR tires.\u00a0 Since our drivers meeting was after our qualifying session I didn\u2019t have enough time to get my tires flipped, get ready, and make it to grid on time.<\/p>\n<p>For Saturday\u2019s race our group had 2 rolling starts.\u00a0 Super Touring was with the 1st start, while GTS had the 2nd start.\u00a0 When I entered the track both groups were long gone.\u00a0 By the time I was approaching T9 the first group had already taken their start and the leaders were entering T3.\u00a0 A few seconds later GTS took their start.\u00a0 My only chance at that point was if there was an incident that entailed a full course double-yellow, or a pace car to collect the field.\u00a0 Due to a pretty serious incident, that\u2019s exactly what happened.\u00a0 As I crossed start\/finish to start my 1st lap there was a yellow issued before T3 due to an incident in T3.\u00a0 As I started my 2nd lap the pace car was entering T1 with a full course double-yellow.\u00a0 What are the odds?\u00a0 I had to do over 2 laps to catch the pack behind the pace car.\u00a0 It was unfortunate that incident happened, but it gave me what seemed like a one in a million scenario.\u00a0 I was in the very back of the pack, but at least I was with the pack.<\/p>\n<p>The race then restarted on lap 5.\u00a0 After 4 laps I closed in on one of my competitors, but there was another incident at the start of lap 9 which caused another full course double-yellow.\u00a0 The pace car was deployed again to collect the field, and our race ended as-is with the pace car.\u00a0 I have in-car footage of this race but there is no point in posting it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SUNDAY<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sunday was nearly a repeat of Saturday.\u00a0 I corded my tires again during qualifying and was busy after that rushing to get my tires flipped in time for the race.\u00a0 This time I just barely made it to grid in time, but as I was pulling in they were rolling out, so I had to start in the back.\u00a0 But at least this time I was able to start the race with everyone else.<\/p>\n<p>At the start the cars in front of me looked confused, so I was able to capitalize on that and passed 3 out of class cars, and a fellow ST2 racer.\u00a0 I then passed another Super Unlimited American Stock Car on the outside of T4 totaling 5 cars I passed by T5.\u00a0 So I started off pretty strong, and set my fastest lap of the entire weekend in lap 2 with a 1:48.622.\u00a0 I got into a decent groove and was ready to gradually push it a little harder, but I quickly realized something didn\u2019t feel right with my RF tire.\u00a0 So after lap 2 I focused on trying to maintain consistent and decently fast laps.\u00a0 Unfortunately, little did I know that my tires were starting to cord, but this time it was far worse than Saturday.\u00a0 If my tires didn\u2019t cord, I was on pace to run 1:47s all day from start to finish.\u00a0 And if I had the luxury of having [forum-restricted] there with me, I think 1:46s were within reach.\u00a0 At least now I know what I\u2019m capable of doing in a race with my new setup.\u00a0 Unfortunately, we will have to wait until next years March event to see what I can do at ACS Roval.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a breakdown of my lap times illustrating how badly my tires corded:<\/p>\n<p>Consistent and decently fast laps in the beginning:<br \/>\nLap 1:\u00a0 1:54.130<br \/>\nLap 2:\u00a0 1:48.622 (Fastest lap of my weekend)<br \/>\nLap 3:\u00a0 1:48.747<br \/>\nLap 4:\u00a0 1:49.094<br \/>\nLap 5:\u00a0 1:49.022<\/p>\n<p>Since my tires started cording I tried to maintain consistent yet somewhat fast laps:<br \/>\nLap 6:\u00a0 1:51.451<br \/>\nLap 7:\u00a0 1:51.376<br \/>\nLap 8:\u00a0 1:51.518<\/p>\n<p>I could no longer maintain those lap times because my tires were cording severely:<br \/>\nLap 9:\u00a0 \u00a0 1:53.155<br \/>\nLap 10:\u00a0 1:54.272<br \/>\nLap 11:\u00a0 1:55.658<br \/>\nLap 12:\u00a0 1:57.688<br \/>\nLap 13:\u00a0 1:57.187<br \/>\nLap 14:\u00a0 1:58.173<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"twttr_buttons\"><div class=\"twttr_twitter\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?text=March+4-6%2C+2011%3A+Ed+Nazarian+racing+%40+ACS+Roval+%28Season+Opener%29\" class=\"twitter-share-button\" data-via=\"\" data-hashtags=\"\" data-lang=\"en\" data-size=\"default\" data-url=\"https:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/07\/march-4-6-2011-ed-nazarian-racing-acs-roval-season-opener\/\"  data-related=\"\" target=\"_blank\">Tweet<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/div><div class=\"pntrst_main_before_after\"><div class=\"pntrst-button-wrap\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a data-pin-do=\"buttonBookmark\" data-pin-custom=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/pin\/create\/button\/\"><img data-pin-nopin=\"1\" class=\"pntrst-custom-pin\" src=\"https:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-buttons-pack\/bws-pinterest\/images\/pin.png\" width=\"60\"><\/a>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/div><div class=\"fcbkbttn_buttons_block\" id=\"fcbkbttn_left\"><div class=\"fcbkbttn_like \"><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/07\/march-4-6-2011-ed-nazarian-racing-acs-roval-season-opener\/\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\" layout=\"standard\"  width=\"450px\" size=\"small\"><\/fb:like><\/div><div class=\"fb-share-button  \" data-href=\"https:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/07\/march-4-6-2011-ed-nazarian-racing-acs-roval-season-opener\/\" data-type=\"button_count\" data-size=\"small\"><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ed is completely changing his tire setup this year going to full race slicks. Between this and changing the downforce setup with the added front splitter, this will be a learning year for Ed. He wont be going to the national championships because of some family obligations he has. Saturday was mostly a disaster dealing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[23,14,36,10],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1242"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1242"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6586,"href":"https:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1242\/revisions\/6586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}