mavisky
DSM Wiseman
- 5,390
- 62
- Sep 13, 2002
-
Atlanta,
Georgia
Start out two weeks back before the shootout and a quick basic inspection of the car reveals that the front tires are down to the wear markers after only a few months. Some measuring quickly shows that adding in the caster camber plates has adjusted my toe settings and my poor Falken's are paying for it. A trip to my old dealership gets me an alignment and some new settings for the car. I dialed in about 4 degrees of static camber on both corners and a little bit of toe out. After looking at my pre-alignment settings (which I ran at the previous autox), I can't even believe the car was turning at all. I instantly found that the car had much better turn in and was exhibiting much better mid-corner characteristic.
Now on to the shootout. I get up around 6am to check the weather and Amy's under the weather so I'll be making this trip alone. Not a big problem, but after being on the road about an hour I realize I've left my phone and my tools at home which isn't always the best plan with a tempermental dsm on a 3 hour road trip. Luckily I arrive and pull in to pit behind some of my friends from Indianapolis. Jon's brought out his daily driven GT35r powered 2g Talon running on E85 and a splash of C16, while Ben has brought out his wife's red 92 Talon on a 14b looking for some 12's with her behind the wheel while running in the bracket classes.
It was a cold and windy day that saw a tricky track but alot of big name cars out looking to take advantage of the cold weather trying to break some record times, but unfortunately spending more time breaking a record number of parts. Marco Passante's 2g went down early on with a blown headgasket right around the 1/8th mile marker. AMS's evo broke down, apparently lunching some sort of rear diff or axle. A few of the Buschur cars went down too and we started the day with a much slower Quick 16 than we could've had. I was trying to help Ben's wife with her bracket racing and keeping a close eye on Jon's progress as well. Mandy was running low 13's at around 104-106 which is pretty good for a nearly full weight 1g, while Jon was busy granny shifting his way to low 12's in the 120's.
With eliminations starting in the Quick 16 class it soon became apparent that simply keeping the car running could win the event as we saw alot of breakage both on the strip and more uncovered back in the pits with numerous competitors not making the first round of eliminations after qualifying. I believe or 5 competitors who'd orginially not qualified made it into the Quick 16 this way. Mandy was giving it her best shot at bracket racing but was lined up next to an automatic Chrysler LeBaron (how this guy was even allowed to run at the shootout I have no idea and I'd love for someone from the event to explain it to me) who runs there every other night and was dialed in within a tenth or two of his times without even making any test runs. She of course stood no chance to someone who was consistently running 17.88's all day long and lost in the first round. Jon made an attempt at Diamond Star Eliminator but got treed pretty bad and couldn't reel in the guy who sold me all the parts for my first engine swap in my dsm.
As the quick 16 wore down more and more fell victim to the tricky track and breakage and eventually ended with the winner running a best of 11.02 for the day, hardly the quickest car out there, but the only one who could consistently make it out for every run. Jon returned to the staging lanes for a few more passes during open time trials and finished the day with another granny shifting 12.2 but at 129.95mph which is a pretty wicked run on E85 and a pump gas tune. This car's made almost 600awhp before on C16 and it's obviously not too far from that on good old corn fuel. Ben decided to take a few passes in his wife's car and found that the floormat was bound up underneath the gas pedal and wasn't up to temp so it was never running at full song. Within two passes he'd pulled a 12.5 @ 111mph out of it which is much more indicative of it's potential. Even better though was that as of today this car was sold to a long time friend of mine here in Fort Wayne who'll be taking great care of it and pushing it into the 11's on an evo III 16g by next year for sure.
At the end of the day I was able to hop in the car and make a relatively un-eventful drive back home (minus the rear end getting a bit happy on the offramps - stupid autox alignment is not the best for long trips) in semi comfor and I couldn't be happier that I kept the cruise control system on the car as opposed to saving those 10 pounds.
Autox
Moving onto the next day though and it's more automotive mayhem as I'm up at 6am and heading up to Auburn for the next to last autox of the year. Another cold day in the mid 50's means it's going to be hard to get much traction and the on and off rain we've been having all week means that the course is going to be gritty and slick. A quick walk of the course confirms my fears as the dirt on course is unbelievable, this is going to be half autox half gravel rally. Going through the first slalom is literally a two track affair with a wide berm of dirt on either side of the racing line and a fine line between the two tire tracks as well. Overall the course is pretty good though, a nice flowing course with very few actual straights, but alot of big corners where I can hopefully put the new alignment and wide tires to use.
Course Map - not my drawing, and much less square in real life
The course starts out with a pretty simple 4 cone mandatory slalom with decent spacing, just enough time to get up to 2nd gear and a little acceleration before the first cone. Going through here at about 30mph keeping a nice tight line we move into the first actual corner which is a 135 degree right hand corner that tightens at the exit and leads into the largest part of the course. The designers have built a crossover point here with a giant right hand skidpad as its main feature. You can carry alot of speed into this, then trail brake to slow the car down and get it rotating, carry this speed through a set of bumps at the top of the skidpad and then gather it again for a short little blast out of this interesting feature.
At the end of the skidpad was an increasing radius corner that led into a two offset before another 90 degree right hand. Think of this as one big 180 degree sweeper even bigger than the skidpad, but some yahoo put a slalom in the middle of it forcing you to tighten back up and negotiate it before continuing onto a short but bumpy straight (this is one of the roughest and dirtiest courses we run on all year). Another 180 degree left hand corner sends you back in front of the timing and scoring crew on the longest straight away of the course.
Just enough for me to lag the car a little out of the corner and get up to around 40-45 or so while trying not to break traction on the bumpy and dirty course. A 90 degree left hand corner leads you into another 2 cone offset here and finishes with a 180 degree corner back towards the final slalom, another 4 cone mandatory that leads into the finish line. All in all a quick course that promotes conservation of momentum and the ability to accelerate while turning as the actual straight sections are few and far between.
For today I had quite the support crew turn up including some of my local friends from the dsm world, my father, my girlfriend's parents, and even my uncle who was interviewing me for an article that should run in one of the local papers on Sunday the 21st. I'm hoping to get a copy of that to post here as well. He takes some photos and asks some questions while I get him setup in the 5 point harness on the passenger side and explain to him that the "Oh Shixt" handle to his right will be his best friend during this ride. We're in the third heat of the day so most of the dust and debris has been cleaned off the racing line, but it's very obvious that if you so much as stray from this line by a few inches you'll be playing with fire and doing all you can to just keep your car pointing in the right direction. We're waved up to the starting line as one of the first cars in the class and having seen the times from the other cars today it's obvious that any time in the 50's will be a good run with the best of the best running right around the 53-55 area. For the first run I head out on course for the first time with the new alignment setting and the car is moving well and gripping well given the conditions. Unfortunately the front is gripping a little too well in comparison to the rear and the ass end comes out to play on the first actual corner of the day, and proceeds to do so another 4 or 5 times during this first run. It's no doubt a wild ride and a fun experience for my uncle, but as we cross the finish line the display of 62.464 proves that we were well off pace of competitive. My uncle thanks me and we discuss the course and potential and I tell him that I believe that I could probably shave another 3 seconds off that run by the end of the day.
Moving onto the second run and I am finally starting to get a little heat into the tires on this cold windy day and the car is responding acccordingly. I've got the rear of the car dialed in pretty well, but I'm still getting alot of body roll up front and the car is scary with quick motions behind the wheel. This is definitely not a car you can grab by the scruff of it's neck and throw around today as the surface and setup will have you looking at where you came from instead of where you are going. I slow my movements down and concentrate on being smooth instead of fast and I'm rewarded with a 59.225 on this second run. A quick check of tire pressures shows they're holding steady as it's nearly impossible to overheat the tires on a day like today. I quickly chat with those I know to be contenders in my class and it's obvious that I've still got a little more work to do to stay competitive.
Eric Lawson has already turned in a 57.747 on only his second run (240sx) and no doubt has the potential to go faster if he can keep out of the cones and the dirt. Chris Smith in his 2.5 RS (swapped to a 2.0 Turbo Version 7) has turned a 56 second run on his first run and backed it up with a 57 second run on his next pass. This is a very quick and capable car and I'm already thinking he could have this one in the back after that first run. Jeremy Jacobs in his EG Hatch aren't far behind with a 59.8 and my barber Kyle Black is just ahead of me with a 59.08 in his silver WRX. I am focused on taking down one member at a time so my next big challenge is getting ahead of Kyle by sneaking ito the 58 second barrier and I'm able to do so by picking up the pace some more but keeping smooth and turning in a 57.996 which places me squarely in third place with a close eye on Eric's run.
Of the 5 of us I'm the only one to improve on the third run, but now my sights are set on those last few tenths to take second back from Eric. I bring the rear pressure up about 4 psi to try and keep the rear in check and proceed to pull off a 57.815, just thousandths off of Eric now. In fact Eric (who's gridded right behind me) turns in a 57.823 that run, just .008 seconds behind my time, but his second round time of 57.747 is still ahead of me. Chris goes apeshixt in his RS and pulls out a gorgeous 55 second place, firmly planting himself as the man to beat today in our class. Jeremy closes in with a 58 second pass, but still needs to make up some time to be competitive with us.
For the 5th run I decide to bring on board a new guy to autox who's at his first event, unfortunately he's a bigger boy and his 250lbs of mass get's the car sideways where it never had before and we cruise to a 58.501 second time, about 7 tenths slower than my best. Eric runs a 58 as well so he's not improved, but out of nowhere Chris's co-driver turns in a 57.950 putting himself hot on our heels going into the last and final run. Jeremy shaves a few tenths off, but still hasn't found the 57's yet and Kyle's wrx is apparently maxed out in the 59's as he's put together a few consistent passes there while we've been battling it out.
For the final run I'm forced to turn down a friend of mine who wants a ride so I can try to chase down Eric, I'm running before anyone else so even if I lay down a good time I still have to wait and see what they put in on their final runs. I start off good keeping nice and tight to the slalom, but apparently too tight as I pick up the final cone of the first slalom with the left rear (still getting used to the car being 3" wider than it ever has been) and know that my run is essentially over. Like an idiot I go bravely into the red mist trying to make up those two seconds for that cone (completely impossible) and proceed to fail massively at the first offset where the car gets crossed up and collects additional cones and rolls to a stop. I continue to cruise at a medium pace through the course figuring I've already pushed too hard and I'll save the car from any more abuse and myself from any more embarassment at this point.
Luckily Noone is able to significantly better their times so I finish in Third place behind Chris and Eric. It was a close run for 2nd through 5th as we all finish within a 0.229 second window of each other. I'm uploading a ton of photos that one of my friends took, but in the meantime here's a few little animated gif's of the car on course. (sorry still no video) The first is me powering through the finish (and you can see the car's a little rich right now), and the second is of me boldly exploring the realms of the red mist.
DSM Shootout
Ben's wife's car, now belonging to board member Stanford
RocktoberX
Pulling the inside rear off and locking it under trail braking
More photos to come as I upload them to this website.
http://gallery.indystars.org/v/members/Maviskys-Junk/13th14th/
Now on to the shootout. I get up around 6am to check the weather and Amy's under the weather so I'll be making this trip alone. Not a big problem, but after being on the road about an hour I realize I've left my phone and my tools at home which isn't always the best plan with a tempermental dsm on a 3 hour road trip. Luckily I arrive and pull in to pit behind some of my friends from Indianapolis. Jon's brought out his daily driven GT35r powered 2g Talon running on E85 and a splash of C16, while Ben has brought out his wife's red 92 Talon on a 14b looking for some 12's with her behind the wheel while running in the bracket classes.
It was a cold and windy day that saw a tricky track but alot of big name cars out looking to take advantage of the cold weather trying to break some record times, but unfortunately spending more time breaking a record number of parts. Marco Passante's 2g went down early on with a blown headgasket right around the 1/8th mile marker. AMS's evo broke down, apparently lunching some sort of rear diff or axle. A few of the Buschur cars went down too and we started the day with a much slower Quick 16 than we could've had. I was trying to help Ben's wife with her bracket racing and keeping a close eye on Jon's progress as well. Mandy was running low 13's at around 104-106 which is pretty good for a nearly full weight 1g, while Jon was busy granny shifting his way to low 12's in the 120's.
With eliminations starting in the Quick 16 class it soon became apparent that simply keeping the car running could win the event as we saw alot of breakage both on the strip and more uncovered back in the pits with numerous competitors not making the first round of eliminations after qualifying. I believe or 5 competitors who'd orginially not qualified made it into the Quick 16 this way. Mandy was giving it her best shot at bracket racing but was lined up next to an automatic Chrysler LeBaron (how this guy was even allowed to run at the shootout I have no idea and I'd love for someone from the event to explain it to me) who runs there every other night and was dialed in within a tenth or two of his times without even making any test runs. She of course stood no chance to someone who was consistently running 17.88's all day long and lost in the first round. Jon made an attempt at Diamond Star Eliminator but got treed pretty bad and couldn't reel in the guy who sold me all the parts for my first engine swap in my dsm.
As the quick 16 wore down more and more fell victim to the tricky track and breakage and eventually ended with the winner running a best of 11.02 for the day, hardly the quickest car out there, but the only one who could consistently make it out for every run. Jon returned to the staging lanes for a few more passes during open time trials and finished the day with another granny shifting 12.2 but at 129.95mph which is a pretty wicked run on E85 and a pump gas tune. This car's made almost 600awhp before on C16 and it's obviously not too far from that on good old corn fuel. Ben decided to take a few passes in his wife's car and found that the floormat was bound up underneath the gas pedal and wasn't up to temp so it was never running at full song. Within two passes he'd pulled a 12.5 @ 111mph out of it which is much more indicative of it's potential. Even better though was that as of today this car was sold to a long time friend of mine here in Fort Wayne who'll be taking great care of it and pushing it into the 11's on an evo III 16g by next year for sure.
At the end of the day I was able to hop in the car and make a relatively un-eventful drive back home (minus the rear end getting a bit happy on the offramps - stupid autox alignment is not the best for long trips) in semi comfor and I couldn't be happier that I kept the cruise control system on the car as opposed to saving those 10 pounds.
Autox
Moving onto the next day though and it's more automotive mayhem as I'm up at 6am and heading up to Auburn for the next to last autox of the year. Another cold day in the mid 50's means it's going to be hard to get much traction and the on and off rain we've been having all week means that the course is going to be gritty and slick. A quick walk of the course confirms my fears as the dirt on course is unbelievable, this is going to be half autox half gravel rally. Going through the first slalom is literally a two track affair with a wide berm of dirt on either side of the racing line and a fine line between the two tire tracks as well. Overall the course is pretty good though, a nice flowing course with very few actual straights, but alot of big corners where I can hopefully put the new alignment and wide tires to use.
Course Map - not my drawing, and much less square in real life
The course starts out with a pretty simple 4 cone mandatory slalom with decent spacing, just enough time to get up to 2nd gear and a little acceleration before the first cone. Going through here at about 30mph keeping a nice tight line we move into the first actual corner which is a 135 degree right hand corner that tightens at the exit and leads into the largest part of the course. The designers have built a crossover point here with a giant right hand skidpad as its main feature. You can carry alot of speed into this, then trail brake to slow the car down and get it rotating, carry this speed through a set of bumps at the top of the skidpad and then gather it again for a short little blast out of this interesting feature.
At the end of the skidpad was an increasing radius corner that led into a two offset before another 90 degree right hand. Think of this as one big 180 degree sweeper even bigger than the skidpad, but some yahoo put a slalom in the middle of it forcing you to tighten back up and negotiate it before continuing onto a short but bumpy straight (this is one of the roughest and dirtiest courses we run on all year). Another 180 degree left hand corner sends you back in front of the timing and scoring crew on the longest straight away of the course.
Just enough for me to lag the car a little out of the corner and get up to around 40-45 or so while trying not to break traction on the bumpy and dirty course. A 90 degree left hand corner leads you into another 2 cone offset here and finishes with a 180 degree corner back towards the final slalom, another 4 cone mandatory that leads into the finish line. All in all a quick course that promotes conservation of momentum and the ability to accelerate while turning as the actual straight sections are few and far between.
For today I had quite the support crew turn up including some of my local friends from the dsm world, my father, my girlfriend's parents, and even my uncle who was interviewing me for an article that should run in one of the local papers on Sunday the 21st. I'm hoping to get a copy of that to post here as well. He takes some photos and asks some questions while I get him setup in the 5 point harness on the passenger side and explain to him that the "Oh Shixt" handle to his right will be his best friend during this ride. We're in the third heat of the day so most of the dust and debris has been cleaned off the racing line, but it's very obvious that if you so much as stray from this line by a few inches you'll be playing with fire and doing all you can to just keep your car pointing in the right direction. We're waved up to the starting line as one of the first cars in the class and having seen the times from the other cars today it's obvious that any time in the 50's will be a good run with the best of the best running right around the 53-55 area. For the first run I head out on course for the first time with the new alignment setting and the car is moving well and gripping well given the conditions. Unfortunately the front is gripping a little too well in comparison to the rear and the ass end comes out to play on the first actual corner of the day, and proceeds to do so another 4 or 5 times during this first run. It's no doubt a wild ride and a fun experience for my uncle, but as we cross the finish line the display of 62.464 proves that we were well off pace of competitive. My uncle thanks me and we discuss the course and potential and I tell him that I believe that I could probably shave another 3 seconds off that run by the end of the day.
Moving onto the second run and I am finally starting to get a little heat into the tires on this cold windy day and the car is responding acccordingly. I've got the rear of the car dialed in pretty well, but I'm still getting alot of body roll up front and the car is scary with quick motions behind the wheel. This is definitely not a car you can grab by the scruff of it's neck and throw around today as the surface and setup will have you looking at where you came from instead of where you are going. I slow my movements down and concentrate on being smooth instead of fast and I'm rewarded with a 59.225 on this second run. A quick check of tire pressures shows they're holding steady as it's nearly impossible to overheat the tires on a day like today. I quickly chat with those I know to be contenders in my class and it's obvious that I've still got a little more work to do to stay competitive.
Eric Lawson has already turned in a 57.747 on only his second run (240sx) and no doubt has the potential to go faster if he can keep out of the cones and the dirt. Chris Smith in his 2.5 RS (swapped to a 2.0 Turbo Version 7) has turned a 56 second run on his first run and backed it up with a 57 second run on his next pass. This is a very quick and capable car and I'm already thinking he could have this one in the back after that first run. Jeremy Jacobs in his EG Hatch aren't far behind with a 59.8 and my barber Kyle Black is just ahead of me with a 59.08 in his silver WRX. I am focused on taking down one member at a time so my next big challenge is getting ahead of Kyle by sneaking ito the 58 second barrier and I'm able to do so by picking up the pace some more but keeping smooth and turning in a 57.996 which places me squarely in third place with a close eye on Eric's run.
Of the 5 of us I'm the only one to improve on the third run, but now my sights are set on those last few tenths to take second back from Eric. I bring the rear pressure up about 4 psi to try and keep the rear in check and proceed to pull off a 57.815, just thousandths off of Eric now. In fact Eric (who's gridded right behind me) turns in a 57.823 that run, just .008 seconds behind my time, but his second round time of 57.747 is still ahead of me. Chris goes apeshixt in his RS and pulls out a gorgeous 55 second place, firmly planting himself as the man to beat today in our class. Jeremy closes in with a 58 second pass, but still needs to make up some time to be competitive with us.
For the 5th run I decide to bring on board a new guy to autox who's at his first event, unfortunately he's a bigger boy and his 250lbs of mass get's the car sideways where it never had before and we cruise to a 58.501 second time, about 7 tenths slower than my best. Eric runs a 58 as well so he's not improved, but out of nowhere Chris's co-driver turns in a 57.950 putting himself hot on our heels going into the last and final run. Jeremy shaves a few tenths off, but still hasn't found the 57's yet and Kyle's wrx is apparently maxed out in the 59's as he's put together a few consistent passes there while we've been battling it out.
For the final run I'm forced to turn down a friend of mine who wants a ride so I can try to chase down Eric, I'm running before anyone else so even if I lay down a good time I still have to wait and see what they put in on their final runs. I start off good keeping nice and tight to the slalom, but apparently too tight as I pick up the final cone of the first slalom with the left rear (still getting used to the car being 3" wider than it ever has been) and know that my run is essentially over. Like an idiot I go bravely into the red mist trying to make up those two seconds for that cone (completely impossible) and proceed to fail massively at the first offset where the car gets crossed up and collects additional cones and rolls to a stop. I continue to cruise at a medium pace through the course figuring I've already pushed too hard and I'll save the car from any more abuse and myself from any more embarassment at this point.
Luckily Noone is able to significantly better their times so I finish in Third place behind Chris and Eric. It was a close run for 2nd through 5th as we all finish within a 0.229 second window of each other. I'm uploading a ton of photos that one of my friends took, but in the meantime here's a few little animated gif's of the car on course. (sorry still no video) The first is me powering through the finish (and you can see the car's a little rich right now), and the second is of me boldly exploring the realms of the red mist.
DSM Shootout
Ben's wife's car, now belonging to board member Stanford
RocktoberX
Pulling the inside rear off and locking it under trail braking
More photos to come as I upload them to this website.
http://gallery.indystars.org/v/members/Maviskys-Junk/13th14th/
