209 replies to this topic

[Dirtcircle86]

This is the only car I've ever raced.  Same one I started with, just been totalled three times and rebuilt.  I've been running it mashed.  I've been staying away from Crawfor County Speedway because of the knuckleheads racing there.  I've listed the car for sale locally, and even as the fastest FWD in 4 states, the best offer I've had was $800. Ya, it's ugly but I'm not willing to sell the fastest car around for peanuts.  I may run a couple more times this year and mothball it for next year.  It's still stupid fun.

[Andy69]

Looks like I'll be in town for this weekends track event at MIR. I have a free weekend coming for winning NXE last year. Given my experience in autocross I might be able to get through HPDE3.

[Andy69]

not quite as exciting as the SCCA runoffs, but I had my first track weekend yesterday and today.  almost 4 hours total driving time.  I'm WIPED OUT.

 

Here is my 4th 20 minute session from yesterday.  Skip ahead to 4 minutes or so to get through grid and caution.

 

[Andy69]

Took the car to Jackson TN for the last Hub City Speed Club autocross of the season.  One of their members attends most NASA and SCCA events in Memphis, and he's been chasing me all season.  He's been trying to get me to race him on his home turf, and this is the first time I've been in town all year.  It was interesting.  They race in a smallish parking lot at the local semi pro ball park, and insurance requires they keep the speeds below 40 mph or so, so the courses are tight and slow.  I also like that you only get 4 runs, so there is no time for wasting runs learning the course. 

 

Not only did I win my class (Super Unlimited, because of the r-comps) but I took FTD by 2 1/2 seconds.

 

fastest run of the day

 

[Dirtcircle86]

Haven't been around here in a bit so I'm checking in.  First season practice is on the 28th so I'm gonna bang out some dents, repaint, and let my daughter play with it this year.  I'm rebuilding an old B-Modified to play with myself  Over 300 track miles going into it's third season and the A1 is just starting to smoke and it's barely detectable.  Pretty sure it's just sucking a little oil past the valve stem seals.  My buddy Poe is building an F20 2G CRX that I won't be able to beat on a short track so I'll just let the girls play with it.  If TSS (big track) lets us run any, I'll be back behind the wheel. 

 

OH! I never updated my 60mm H throttle body install.  It pulls very noticably harder at race rpm's and a blip of the throttle shoots it to redline WAY too fast.  amazing what 5mm can do...

[Andy69]

How's it going?  I was out of the country for a few months.

 

Had my first autocross since January.  It did not go well.  I was last in Super Unlimited and a full 8 seconds off the pace.  I didn't have a clean run, but even my best would have been 4 seconds off the pace.  A few people went and got seriously fast over the winter.

 

I blame part if it on  my tires.  They were heat cycled out after a track weekend last fall, and they are track tires anyway, not autocross.  The car was sliding all over, especially in the turns. I ruined an otherwise good run because the car pushed out on a sweeper and then suddenly caught and the car went hard right before I could correct.

 

The good news is I picked up a set of 13x9 wheels with almost toasted A6s, which I'll use next weekend for grins before I plunk down $1000 on a new set of 255 A7s

[Andy69]

This weekend was better.  I missed Saturday (I promised my daughter I'd take her to AnimeCon), but Sunday I did better than I expected. 

 

Since the local NASA region seems to have abandoned autocross, we had about 3x the normal entrants.  I managed 8th in raw and 3rd in PAX out of 25 entries.  My tires are still old, but at least the warmer temps allowed them to get some heat and retain it.  I think with fresh rubber I would have done much better.   I would have been 5th overall but on my best run I whacked the timing gear at the finish for a DNF.  Fortunately the gear was OK but it did a number on my front end.  YIkes.

 

Best clean run.  Looking ahead is good but my hand position needs some attention.

 

Edited by Andy69, 11 April 2016 - 10:01 AM.

[Andy69]

How's it going?  I was out of the country for a few months.

 

Had my first autocross since January.  It did not go well.  I was last in Super Unlimited and a full 8 seconds off the pace.  I didn't have a clean run, but even my best would have been 4 seconds off the pace.  A few people went and got seriously fast over the winter.

 

I blame part if it on  my tires.  They were heat cycled out after a track weekend last fall, and they are track tires anyway, not autocross.  The car was sliding all over, especially in the turns. I ruined an otherwise good run because the car pushed out on a sweeper and then suddenly caught and the car went hard right before I could correct.

 

The good news is I picked up a set of 13x9 wheels with almost toasted A6s, which I'll use next weekend for grins before I plunk down $1000 on a new set of 255 A7s

 

 

The official results were finally posted.  It was even uglier than I thought.  I did not have a single clean run all day.  I was dead last of 7 drivers in Super Unlimited.  Even if my fastest run had been clean I still would have only been 4th.  I was 8th overall out of 16.  I just couldn;t get anything going. 

 

Oh well.  It's a great little club.  They do a nice job with what they have to work with and the courses are usually very tight and very slow, often too tight for the CRX steering.  I had a thought that night that I could have blown the middle cone on this one slalom that we had to do twice and taken the 2 second penalty and ended up with a net gain.  LOL.

[gustav129]

Nice to see some other Auto-Xer's since I have become non active here.

 

Andy69, where are you located at?

[Andy69]

Memphis.

[Andy69]

two day SCCA event this weekend.

 

I still have the hard tires from last year.  I managed a 4th in PAX yesterday and a 3rd in PAX today, out of around 20 drivers.  Raw times I was quite a bit lower, but that's to be expected.  The site was slippery with dirt and weeds and I couldn't get much tractions.  Today was better.  I came within one hundredth of a second in PAX from beating one of the national caliber drivers.  I should be quite a bit quicker once I get the new rubber on the car.  I got ahold of a set of spun steel 13x9 wheels.  Theyre a little heavier than the Keizers but the price was right (free!).

 

 

Edited by Andy69, 15 May 2016 - 05:22 PM.

[Andy69]

Went to Blytheville for the 4th ARSCCA event.  Some very fast drivers there, like the 3rd place finishers in SSM last year in Lincoln.  I like going there, as I get a chance to run on some more open courses.

 

The old tires really limited by times.  In fact, my best time was on corded fronts :-)  Ended up 18th of 42

 

[Andy69]

anyone else racing this year? :-)

 

First day of a two day NASA event.  Fast course at MIR - the Corvettes cleaned up.  I was 13th out of 22, but I won NXE handily.

 

It was also my first day with 255 A6s of 13x9s. 

 

Grip.   grip grip grip grip grip.

 

and this was with worn out A6s that barely were sticky even at full operating temp.  I can;t wait to see what the A7s are going to be like. 

 

One thing I noticed is the A6s require a lot less air pressure than the Hankooks.  A lot.

[Andy69]

Two day SCCA Solo event this last weekend in Millington.

 

I had fresh 255 A7s

 

It took me a while to figure out the air pressure.  I was running 225 Hankook Z214s prior to that and had 44 front and 32 rear.  By the end of the first day I had dropped it down to 37f and 27r, and I set cold pressures at 36f and 24r for Sunday.  In the future I'll have to reset pressures between runs and check tire temperature, which isn't something I've done but is a good habit to get into.

 

It also took me a while to figure out where the limits of grip are.  I'm still not sure, but there were a couple of times I came into a corner what a thought was WAY to fast, only to come out the other side not only ok, but FLYING.

 

I was also going fast enough through a series of offsets that I was having trouble steering fast enough.  That's happened on tight slaloms before, but never on the type of offsets this course designer likes to use.  That's a new and very exciting development.

 

All in all, the car was A LOT quicker - you can see it in this video compared to others.  There is still time out there, and still improvements to be made to the car, but the car and driver are getting faster.  I was 3rd RAW 2nd PAX of 14 Saturday, 6th RAW and 3rd PAX Sunday of 28 drivers.  One thing I have to say is, I'm improving, but so is everyone else.  We may not have the biggest turnout, but it sure is competitive and fun.

 

[CRXer87hf]

Thanks for posting these updates.  They help guys like me who are starring over the shoulders of those who are spending the time to get the most out of their cars, while preparing their car for battle.  Keep up the good work!