SCCA Arizona Region Snowbird Majors Race 2025 - Podium Club

Jan 18 & 19 2025 Arizona Region SCCA Majors race at Podium Club @ Attesa, clockwise. Cold weekend - morning sessions were in the high 30F, afternoon in the 60F. Friday open practice went fine, for me more of a shake down with some new parts (brakes, 1 Ft hub) & rear of car had been off to check the clutch bearings (fine). Sat early morning qualifying was a disaster - major throttle / running issues, couldn't 'blip' the throttle for down shifts & eventually broke the dogs on 3rd gear going into turn 1 (dog ring too). While I thought about it, even with the low humidity carb icing now seems to be the culprit. Missed Sat race as I didn't have the trans back together in time. Saturday afternoon qualifying went OK - a bit hesitant to push the car, making sure shifting was OK (90%?). Had to change 2nd, 3rd & 4th to get a good spread - so my shift points were out the window. Sundays race went fine, ended up blip-ping the throttle twice to make a good down shift - worked most of the time. After reviewing the video, with the different gear ratios I should have kept 4th in turn 7~8, down to 3rd between 8 & 9. Can also see that every time I let lapping traffic through it cost me .5~1.0 sec and every troublesome down shift cost around 1.0 sec. Fun event, great group of drivers - without the shift troubles and not being so polite to lapping traffic I should have been able to stay with the 33 car (winner) and we could have had a battle to the finish.

[@ZizinRacing]

How necessary is blipping the throttle when downshifting? I've tested just going clickclick with the shifter right before turn-in with no blipping and as long as I move the lever fast and don't skip gears it just pops into gear without complaint, my dogs don't seem particularly worn when I do this.

[@jbhowland]

4th to 3rd not too hard, but I find 3rd to 2nd difficult - but that's something I'm going to play around with.