This month the drama surrounding the event started a day early on Saturday. After trying to get ahold of my new graphics sponsor all week I was told that my decals would be available on Saturday and that I could swing down and pick them up after work. Knowing this I figured I'd bring the talon in to work that day so I could give it a good free cleaning at the dealership. After un-successfully trying to reach the owner of my sponsor company I decided I'd just head off in the car and meet him at the shop to pick everything up. On my way out of the dealership though our #1 salesman backed into the hood of the talon as I was waiting to pull out of the lot. Luckily there was no extreme damage but this hood is done for and the fender is going to need a little repair of its own as well. So at the end of the day I'm stuck with no graphics and a damaged hood and fender now, not the way I wanted to start my weekend really.
Good news is that the current hood will be replaced with a new lighter carbon fiber unit along with a carbontrix hood vent for it as well.
Fast forward to the morning of the event and Kendal (my fiancee) decides she wants to get into autocrossing with the talon and wants to come watch how this event is run and ride along on some of my runs. We get up and get everything thrown into the car (except for the custom fiberglassed headlight intake which I've forgotten for two straight events) and head off to the track with a completely full tank of 94 sunoco and about 13psi of boost to try and keep tire spin to a minimum. Thanks to my graphics company falling through (still haven't heard from them
and now I think they're avoiding my calls
) I had to dig out the old numbers and throw some masking tape lettering on the car.
After signing in at the event I stake out a relatively close spot to the action and get everything unloaded and proceed to get the vehicle teched in. I double check the tires and then begin to check out the competition. In our particular region we've started up a street mod street tire class which has absolutely taken off in popularity, at this event alone we had 22 entries in this class. Tires are limited to the normal street tire class rules, but everything else follows street mod rulings. This new class (SMS) has even earned the nickname of Street Mod Subaru by those of us not driving them. At our event I was the only dsm racing compared to about 15 subaru's in the various classes. About an hour or so after showing up I start to notice a couple of the heavy hitters rolling in. Todd James is our local solo director and runs an 04 sti with Tein coilovers, Hawk brake pads, boost controller, and Falken RT-615's. He won our first event, and I know I'll be lucky to get close to him this time. Chris Smith is another strong subaru driver but he's brought out his 04 sti with springs and hawk pads this week instead of his normal sti swapped 2.5rs. This means he'll still be damn fast and to boot he's got a co-driver for the vehicle which means I may be losing to this car twice today. Other than that the class is its normal mix of wrx's, honda's, and mustang's. Any of which could put down a good time, but none I'm terribly worried about.
Looking at the course it appears to be similar to the one we ran at our last event here which means I can apply some of the things I learned to todays track. Turns 6 & 7 for example are the exact same corners we ran last week as corners 6 & 7, although this also means that they'll be extremely bumpy as they were last week. The good news is that the first three turns and the final four are wide open switchbacks. Once I get the car into second gear I should be able to hold a solid 40-60mph through the first three turns and the last 4 turns are similar to the first 3 but narrower and probably in the 30-40 range. After the opening set of 3 switchbacks you enter the first of two optional slaloms. Due to their layout taking the wrong entrance to one of them means you're doubly screwed for the second one. Luckily the second slalom is plainly obvious as to which way to go, the only question being how to start the first so your transition into the second is the smoothest. Since the first slalom puts you into a predicament where your first right turn will be off-camber I play into that fact to help the car rotate and decide to start the first slalom on the right hand side.
The nice thing about being in the same class as the regional director is that you usually get to run first, work second, and then you can relax during the hottest part of the day. Being #97 I of course get gridded clear at the back of the run group. After hearing the opening times from the two sti's (both dual driven -todd's wife is running his car in SMS) I can already see it's going to be a quick course out there meaning that there won't be much room to make up for any mistakes out there. Although since I'm traction limited the fact that this course has alot of sections were your vehicles transition speed will be the limiting factor it means that my rather light vehicle has a good chance of placing high. Todd turns in a blazing time of 38 seconds on his first lap (not surprising given he designed todays course) and Chris follows with a 41.8 second time obviously still getting used to racing the STi as compared to his RS. I've got Kendal riding shotgun and a full tank of gas so I'm just hoping to get a good feel for the course on this first run.
They've got me launching off of a small rise in the lot which equals wheelspin and then I have to accelerate over a washboard section at a 45 degree angle. This is about the absolute worst start I've ever had to deal with and the car is slow off the line as a result. I short shift to second and lay into the throttle as I make the first left turn at about 35 mph. Still accelerating through the second corner at about 45mph and into the third corner at 50 the rear end steps out a bit as the rears are still cold and the extra weight of kendal and the full tank of gas means the car's handling different than what I'm used to. A quick right flick and I'm into the first of the slalom's. It feels terribly slow through here at about 25mph and I'm starting to question if I'm taking this slalom right. The second slalom I pick some speed back up and accelerate through a mild 45 degree kink and into the bumpy 180's of turn 6 & 7. Coming out of 7 I'm back on the gas in 2nd gear and back up to 45mph. The next set of corners are setup so you have an easy right turn followed by a tight left. Two combinations of like that to slow you down to about 25mph through the finish. At the end of the run I turn around knowing I'd lost some serious time out there to see a 41.1 popup on the screen.
Kendal decides to take 2 more runs with me before taking a couple in Todd's STI. Todd and Chris both drop their times down to 37.8 and 40.9 respectively at the halfway point and my times are still at 40.4 so I'm doing good. But Chris's co-driver rips off a 38.8 and a couple of the other wrx guys knock off 39's pushing me to around 5th place at the midway point. At this point I talk to some of the other drivers and they tell me they're having better luck going to the left on the first slalom so I figure I'll give it a shot. On the next pass going left and without my fiancee in the car I ripoff a 39.8 putting me into the 39's finally and but still in 5th as the other driver's are improving as well. I stumbled on the first slalom since I wasn't used to going that way, but now that I've got it figured out I crank off a 38.9 on my 5th run putting me into 4th as Chris is now going right and just joined the 37 second time club with Todd who set FTD with Kendal as his passenger. I'm starting to wonder if I should have her riding with me for good luck now.
Going into the last run of the day I'm going to be the last one to run so I can get a good feel for where I am and know just how much time I have to shave off. I've just about counted out the top two positions as I don't think I can come up with a whole second out on course. Maybe a couple tenths, but I just can't match the acceleration of the sti's out of these 20mph corners. The 6th runs start and some fast times start flying in. Todd's off-pace with a 38 but his 37.5 is still atop the field. Chris comes through the lights also a bit off pace with a 38.1 but once again he's got a 37.7 to fall back on as well. Out of nowhere, Jeremy Jacobs in his 93 Civic hatch scorches the lights to the tune of 38.6 seconds, over 2 seconds faster than any other run of his all day
. Chris's co-driver heads out and is well off pace with a 40 second timeslip but is still ahead of me with a 38.821. This means I'm sitting in fifth only a tenth behind 4th place. I head off onto the course and proceed to clear the first half fine. Coming into the 180's though I lockup the inside right tire and I'm a little slow through the first corner. I try to make it up and absolutely nail the last section.
I roll through the lights, turn my head and see the final number. 38.827, .006 behind 4th place
So close yet so far away. I end up in 5th, still shaking my head over that civic dropping 2 seconds. He's never finished close than half a second behind me, either way the 5th place finish was a vast improvement over last month's 13th.
Now it's time to tear some things down. Car's getting a new input shaft seal, new hawk HP Plus pads all the way around and of course the new hood once my friend's insurance company cuts me my check for him hitting me. Pics to come.
Sorry to hear about all the problems with your graphics sponsor... I could tell you some stories about some of the flakes I've had to deal with but we won't go there.
