New Road America F500 Track Record Lap

[Michael Mueller]

This past weekend during the SCCA Milwaukee CAT National event at Road America I set a new Formula 500 track record with a lap of 2:20.882. Here's video of the lap.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7TyN...ELwBzlfJ7_3l8A

We had some unseasonably cool weather conditions for July in Wisconsin that were nearly identical to race day at Runoffs last year, temps in the high 50's and perfect air.

Glad to see the entry numbers so far for Runoffs are up this year...let's hope we can get 30. Look forward to seeing everyone in September for the 50th!

[mblanc]

NICE JOB, !

have to admit it though,
I liked it better when the Fords were faster than F5 at RdAmerica


Wow you guys must be making some horsepower now,

Congrats !

[racerdad2]

Congrats ! That looked very fast...

[Stan Clayton]

Congrats Michael...isn't that a bit quicker than the FF record?

[Michael Mueller]

We haven't really made big horsepower gains in recent years…we're just getting better at applying it. The 2-stroke motors really love cold air like we had at CAT National. I'd also like to think that my driving has something to do with it.

Tim Kautz currently has the fastest Formula Ford/Honda lap at 2:20.563 during qualifying at Runoffs in 2012. The fastest Formula Ford/Honda race lap still belongs to Reid Hazelton at a 2:21:053 from 2011. So I'm just a few tenths off Tim's record lap, but I lost time by not pushing full out in Canada Corner for a local yellow on my quick lap…so I think it can be beaten.

Tim & I were discussing the performance comparison between the F500 and the FF cars in tech post race on Sunday. In the F500 we are 300lbs lighter than the FF's, so right there is a big advantage. This is why we seem to be better under braking and initial acceleration off the corners. The CVT is also a help in getting us off the corners better. The FF still has us beat on top end speed and maybe a very slight edge on high speed cornering.

Overall it seems that both cars are capable of roughly the same lap times but the strength of each type of car is in different places, which can be frustrating for drivers in both classes when racing in the same group as each other. It seems that everyone has done a good job with the grouping this year in giving each other respect and room to race.

[Marty Nygard]

Do F500's ever try the same narrow tire strategy used by FF's at Elkhart?
Marty

[Michael Mueller]

Marty, there have been a few F500's that have tried it but found the loss in cornering speed wasn't overcome by a gain in straightline speed.

[GP15]

Nice job Mike! You looked like you were on rails in your video.
BTW - I dug thru some old results from the 1967 Can-Am.
Denny Hulme's fastest race lap in a M6A was a tick under a 2:15
They were still running the small blocks so his engine size would have been a 5.9L motor.

So your 0.5L car was within 5 second of his 5.9L car!
I couldn't find any posted times but I think you would have been close to Jerry Hansen's F5000 lap time from that era too (his average speed was around 98mph for the Badger 200).

Amazing how much faster modern tires are!

[reidhazelton]

Dude...shift! Your shift lights were about to give me a seizure!

Really, nice lap. Looks like you have that thing rotating just how you want it. T5 looked perfect.

Well done.

PS. Thanks for posting videos. Good laps are always fun to watch, and see where different classes are faster/slower compared to other classes. Most guys hide video like that, so thanks for sharing.

[Northwind]

Micheal,

Watching go thru corner 8 on Saturday showed that you have the set up perfect. A very short slight push followed by a perfect 4 wheel drift thru the rest of the corner. Great driving on your part. Congrats on the record. Well deserved.