Crosser1:Awesome job at nationals Nate!! I am sure you are kicking yourself on the cones, but you should be DAMN Proud of what you acomplished. I can't wait to see how it unfolds as the car is developed further.
Eric (watching DSP turn into a very interesting class)
Thanks Eric, yeah, I'm kicking myself a bit. Hard to get too disappointed though, as I was NOT expecting to be serious threat this year at all. I knew going in I hadn't exactly picked an easy class and compounded that by picking a relative unknown (save for Eric's trail blazing) car. And I did accomplish all of my goals for this year, so it's not all bad. I actually threw away a shot at the jacket twice. The first was by totally missing the setup for day 1, the second with the cones. On Day 1 I anticipated the car picking up a push as the weather warmed and the line came in, so I loosened the car up. Boy was that the wrong direction to go! The car was an evil, over-steering monster on my first run, ruining any confidence I had in the car. I thought that it was mostly due to cold rear tires on my first run, so only made a small adjustment to tighten the car up. Not surprisingly, my second run was no better then the first. Going in to my 3rd run I tightened the car up further, but again not nearly enough. I had to put in a clean run as the first two were dirty. I put in a really tentative, "scared" run that I didn't really feel good about but was clean and somehow good enough to get me into the trophies. A better drive on Thursday might have been enough combined with my clean run on Friday to give me a shot at the jacket.
For Friday's runs I went back to what I'd run in the Pro Challenge rounds. That setup was what I felt to be a super conservative setup to deal with possible wet/dirty spots on course in the first round of the challenge. Turns out that setup is next to brilliant for HPT. The first run on Friday had a huge driving mistake but was up there with everyone else's first run times. My 2nd run was just a run to fix the one big mistake and put a clean one in the books. I was pretty comfortable with the time on that run, so went out on my 3rd with the goal of dropping a couple tenths. I was floored when I saw that 41.4 come up on the clock. True, if it had been clean I might be celebrating a national championship, but a bunch of other guys had cones on fast runs too, including Mike with his astounding 39.1 on the East course.
DSP is a fun class for sure, and the guys in the class were all great. The wife has approved further spending to develop the car, so I'll start burning the bridges to easily go back to DS now. This winters list:
1. Rebuild the engine, for real this time. The head is all set, so this time it will just be bottom end work. .010 overbore, new pistons, rings, bearings, and maybe I'll try my hand at blueprinting and parts-bin balancing....
2. Rebuild the trans. There is a bearing going bad, so I'll freshen up all the bearings while I'm at it.
3. Reduce weight. I missed my year 1 target by 75lbs. Next years target is another 50lbs lighter still, so I need to find a way to shed 125lbs this winter. This isn't going to be easy...
4. Tune the ECU. An extra 500rpm would have really helped on the west course, and more mid-range never hurts.
5. Some spring/bar experimenting. The springs/bars on the car were the same as at the first event of the season. The only things changed chassis wise throughout the year was rear alignment. I have some ideas on ways to improve corner entry balance and late corner rotation, so I'll be starting testing of those ideas at the next local event.
6. Flares. I gotta make this thing look like a serious car instead of a backyard hack job!
Things I learned at Nationals:
1. My car is really sensitive to tire pressure changes at HPT. "Too loose" on Thursday was 5lbs of air more in the rear tires then Friday's "brilliant".
2. When I pray for rain, I have to stipulate "no fawking mons00ns!!!!"
PS. It was awesome meeting all of you DSP guys. I look forward to beating you all... er.... seeing! you all again next year!!! 
PPS. I'll post some DL1 data logs later this week. Sustained g's and average speed through that finish sweeper should be interesting to compare to the BMW's!
Nate Whipple
NER
188/88 DSP ITR