Dai Yoshihara and Evasive Motorsports Complete Pikes Peak Official Testing
The test days before race week are an invaluable opportunity to allow the teams to test their cars and experiment without the pressure of qualifying and race week. Because it takes place on a public road, testing is limited to two days and begins at the crack of dawn before the road re-opens to public traffic.
The test sessions split the mountain course into two sections, unlike the official race week when practice is split into three sections. This gives teams a chance to run the mountain course in bigger sections and good idea of their performance for race day.
True to the arduous nature of Pikes Peak, Dai and Evasive ran into issues on the very first run of the morning. The car completely shut down momentarily at Gilly’s Corner when the alternator overheated and stopped charging the battery. Luckily, the power recovered after several seconds, allowing Dai to finish his run.
In order to keep the car running, the team redirected one of the brake ducts directly on to the alternator. The massive braking capacity offered by the StopTech brake system afforded them the margin to take cooling away from the brake components. The quick fix worked wonders and allowed Dai to run for the remainder day without issue. With the car running consistently, Dai was able to build confidence with each pass up the mountain and shave seconds off his time.
Unfortunately, plans for the second day of testing were changed due to an overnight rainstorm, leaving the upper section above Glen Cove icy and too dangerous. However, teams were allowed to run the bottom section again in a combined test group. The Evasive Motorsports team took advantage of the opportunity to give Dai more practice runs and test qualifying strategies.
Dai and Evasive Motorsports leave the Pikes Peak test days confident on their chances for the race. Dai said: “The car feels super-good and it was soooo much fun. I can’t wait to attack the full course!”
COMING UP
Stay tuned as race week starts with Technical Scrutineering on June 24th, followed by Practice and Qualifying leading up to Friday’s Fan Fest in downtown Colorado Springs, and then Race Day on June 30.
STAY TUNED
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