Last Autocross of '08 - Report and Pics!

[housegsx]

Yesterday was event 10 of the Steel Cities Region. And the last of the year. There were 73 drivers so it was a great turnout heading into mid October and we couldn't have had better weather. This autocross is at Consol Energy Park again.

My girlfriend came out to support me and go for some rides with me as she has done for all but one autocross this year. She's great, although she's starting to get some remarks from other autocrossers that she should be getting behind the wheel soon.

After emptying out the car, walking the course, chatting, and attending the driver's meeting I was in the 1st group to run.

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I was in the SM/street tire class again. My car generally places 1st-3rd raw times in the tire class, but the street tire class is placed by pax times. And being that my car is catagorized as an SM car otherwise, I generally PAX horribly. My car is far from a full out SM car. That said, I don't really care because first and foremost I go out just to have some fun.

As I walked the course I knew I was going to have my hands full. There were some extremely tight turns and the first one just happened to be in a huge pile of dust. I guess they were doing so constuction next to the lot recently so some sections were more like being in a rally. I'm sure it was much worse for people on slicks... but I never feel bad for them.

The course started with three slaloms then braking hard for a tight right, left, right. This is the section that was covered with a lot of dust. It caught a few people out for sure. You can see how much dirt is being kicked up in these pictures.

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After the roostertailing it was into a wide D right hand turn. I set up this turn wide to set to get through the following right, left as straight as possible.

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Next it was into a a right hand loop...

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Followed by a left exit...

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and into a 3 cone slalom to the finish...

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My best time of the day was on my 4th run, closely followed by my last run. I managed a 35.778. Times were anywhere from a 31.9 set by a national level BSP STi to 45+ seconds.
I think the fastest SM car was a hillclimb/autox Evo with a 32.5. He was on corded slicks by the end of the day so I'm sure he would have been a bit faster on new tires.

Like I said, my car doesn't pax well due to being an underprepped SM car. I think it was something like 48 out of 73 entries.

Now that the season is over I can concentrate on doing some preparation for next year. We'll see what the budget can take but I neeeeeeeed seats. I tossed around my girlfriend enough that after one run she admitted to almost grabbing the parking brake to stay in the seat!! WTF That one gave me a laugh.
Hopefully I'll be able to pull out some more random weight and get a decent alignment bare minimum. We'll see how it goes...

 

[D_Eclipse9916]

Nice I always like your reviews with lots of pictures and just the right amount of description. You definitely need seats, the stock ones are horrible. I ran with a sparco speed for a while, and it worked awesome, it actually surprisingly helps your times because your focusing on driving, not how to stay in the seat.

You remove your spare, jack, etc al that when your autocrossing right?

 

[hatch]

I was looking at your profile, are you running an internally stock motor? How much power are you making with Evo3 16g and supporting mods, spool time?

I'm asking because I should have my 1g back auto-xing pretty soon and I currently have a pretty worn out Big 16g and I'm looking to replace it but I want something that spools up fast for better driveability on course. I'll be running a 2.3l motor with a bit higher compression than stock but other wise I'll have a pretty similar set-up if I go with the Evo3.

 

[tsiboosted]

Nice write up and pics Erik Its been said but you need some seast in that thing man. You will see faster times with real racing seast in there. You want be sliding all over the place looking for things to hold on to. Nice job again.

 

[talonTSIDriver]

Good job!

Once you get really competitive, car preparation becomes very important. Lots of stuff you can do in SM so you should have some work ahead of you over the winter.

 

[housegsx]

Nice I always like your reviews with lots of pictures and just the right amount of description.

You remove your spare, jack, etc al that when your autocrossing right?

Thanks! And yes, I remove my spare, jack, tools, etc.

I was looking at your profile, are you running an internally stock motor? How much power are you making with Evo3 16g and supporting mods, spool time?

I'm asking because I should have my 1g back auto-xing pretty soon and I currently have a pretty worn out Big 16g and I'm looking to replace it but I want something that spools up fast for better driveability on course. I'll be running a 2.3l motor with a bit higher compression than stock but other wise I'll have a pretty similar set-up if I go with the Evo3.

Yes, stock internals. Nothing has ever been apart on the motor other than the front case to remove the balance shafts.

As for drivability in autocross, it's usually not too bad unless it's a real tight course like this one was. Sometimes it's a little slow for instant 2nd gear power. A 2.3 with higher compression should be no problem. One thing that has helped is shorter tires. The gearing advantage seems to help and is even noticeable on the street. I'm running 245/40/17 btw.

Nice write up and pics Erik Its been said but you need some seast in that thing man. You will see faster times with real racing seast in there. You want be sliding all over the place looking for things to hold on to. Nice job again.

Thanks again Eddie! Seats are a definite. I feel like they'd help me keep focus and be more consistant.

Good job!

Once you get really competitive, car preparation becomes very important. Lots of stuff you can do in SM so you should have some work ahead of you over the winter.

Yeah, the prep work should be interesting. A real alignment will be a good start to that. If I wasn't looking to buy a house in the Spring I'd be building some coilovers and getting some decent rubber under the car. ...Still, there is a lot to be done, including my driving.

Oh, nice avatar!