2015 WRX Project Northstar – CSCS Round #2 Recap

Slightly behind schedule but wanted to provide an update on the car for it’s last track outing which was for Round #2 of the CSCS Time Attack series. This round was held at Toronto Motorsports Park in Cayuga, Ontario and I am very familiar with this track having turned quite a number of laps on my race bike and in different cars. Unlike DDT, which is very much a drivers track, TMP is much simpler which usually makes the competition much tighter. It also definitely helps to have decent power here as the 2 straights can be a huge difference and to put in perspective on a previous date Project Blackout was hitting 192KM/h and Northstar is only capable of 168-170KM/h. The only major change I made for this event was to put on a set of Hankook RS-3 Tires in a 245/40R17 size which are the staple for most street class competitors. These are 10mm wider then the stock tires and have a treadwear of 200, I’ve driven on them before and for the money they are a veyr good performer. I was running the Hawk HPS 5.0 in the front and StopTech street in the back for this round as I wasn’t sure the StopTech’s in the front would last the event.

The weather was HOT!!! Exterior Temp gauge in the car was showing 32C so i’d imagine closer to 40C with the humidity. This was definitely going to hurt all of the turbo cars on track with heat soak. First session out to scrub in the new tires and immediately I noticed how much more grip the new tires had right away. I was placed in intermediate for qualifying/practice which proved to make it very difficult to get a clean lap in and there was a lot of poor decisions made by other competitors which made it a little frustrating. First session cruising around just to get the tires up to temp the best lap was a 1:24.813 which was only 0.050 slower then my previous best time which isn’t too bad. Came in and checked everything out, reset the pressures and let the car cool down. As i’m not too concerned with not qualifying every qualifying session I like to take friends, customers or family out to show them what it’s like on track. While this will make the lap time suffer slightly due to the added weight it’s not been an issue yet. Second session was the first qualifying session and there was a lot of traffic but the first clear lap I was able to get down to a 1:23.359 on my 4th lap. I was pretty floored to be able to hit this sort of time as I figured the tires would be worth about 1 second a lap at TMP but this was already 1.4 seconds down. With the new tires the car was very different, it had more grip everywhere and the way I had been driving with the stock Dunlop’s was not working as well for the Hankooks as the car just hooked up so much better. 3rd session, second qualifying session, I was able to take out my young cousin out who loves cars, trucks etc. I actually was able to set my fastest qualifying time of 1:23.134 with him in the car which was awesome and he was super excited. When we came in he asked my aunt if he could go again as he loved it that much….hoping I have planted the seed for him to get into some karting!

The next session I tried to focus on consistency and worked on getting a good exit out of turn 1 and 6 which are very critical to putting in a solid lap. The car ran consistent all day with no issues with oil temps, coolant temp etc. The Hawk HPS 5.0 impressed me with how much more consistent they were then the Stoptech’s on track. The brakes still fade considerably and my braking markers were way too early due to the lack of good calipers. This is still probably the weakest point of the car IMO and I’m hoping to address this soon once StopTech releases their ST-40 BBK for the front. Last session was cut short due to a car spilling oil on the track and there wasn’t much to talk about. As I mentioned earlier, TMP usually makes the times much closer and this was definitely the case with Street AWD seeing 2nd through to 6th place all within about 1.5 seconds of each other. Friend and Team mate Project Blackout was about 2 seconds ahead of the 2nd place qualifier. I ended up qualifying in 5th with my time so I was the second last car on track.

On track I warmed up the tires, made sure traction control was off and reminded myself of the areas to focus on. The first hot lap ended up being my fastest at a 1:23.058 followed by a 1:23.187 and a 1:23.517. I am very happy with how close the laps were together but slightly disappointed I wasn’t able to drop time each consecutive lap. On the second hot lap I ran a few feet too deep past the kink and ended up going two wheels off in the left hand turn which ruined the last sector and threw me off for the start of my last hot lap. That’s part of racing though and is a lesson learned. Even with all my effort I unfortunately finished in 6th place, yes that’s last placed for the time attack session. I believe there was 8 or 9 entries for Street AWD which is awesome to see. The positive side of things is that between 2nd place and me in 6th there was only 0.6 seconds separating us. This is awesome competition and is great to have things be so close! It also doesn’t make me feel so bad as the WRX is pretty out-gunned in the class right now. With some good calipers (Brembo, StopTech, AP Racing) and actual track/race pads I think the car could go quite a bit faster but I won’t get into any keyboard racing. Once again congrats all of the competitors and winners, it’s been awesome this year with a lot of friendly competition and no drama.

All day I used an AIM Solo, which is a very accurate GPS lap timer, to record lap times and data to look over afterwards. After taking the time to clean up the data for consistency and only looking at the clean laps there is definitely some improvement to be made as the car sits now even without any upgrades. A good GPS lap timer, like the AIM Solo, is a great tool to help you become a better driver and figure out where the strong/weak areas are. Some of the most revealing information was that if I strung the last sector of the first hot lap with the next 3 sectors of the second hot lap I would have achieve a 1:22.837. This just proves to me that I need to continue to focus on consistency and accuracy in all areas. It also shows me my theoretical best lap based on the best section times recorded. This is a 1:22.576, something to aim for in the future for sure! I won’t bore you with too many more details but if you want more information check out https://www.jamescolborn.com/aim-data-analysis/ for some great tips on how to use a lap timer to improve your driving.

Round 3 is coming up this weekend in Quebec and we’re hoping for a good result with no changes made to the car.

Thanks to these companies that are helping with this Project
COBB Tuning – COBB AccessPORT and COBB Cat-Back
Mad Graphics – Full Vehicle Vinyl Wrap and Side Graphics
Grimmspeed – License Plate Relocation Kit
Turn In Concepts – Shifter Bearing and TGV Deletes
Killer B Motorsports – J-Pipe
OnPoint Dyno – Dyno Tuning and Testing
Uni-Body Collision – Paint Work (Emblems, Lip, Trunk Spoiler)