sean
Probationary Member
- 27
- 0
- Aug 12, 2002
-
Knoxville,
Tennessee
On July 2nd the East Tennessee Region SCCA was back at the parking lot of the Oak Ridge Mall for the first time since last year. Unfortunately this would be the same weekend as the DoubleX Challenge in Atlanta so many of the locals were down there competing for prizes. With one driver at the challenge and another moving to a different and no new drivers showing up, there were only two cars in my class for the day; the Mini S and my DSM.
There seemed to be a few complaints about the course while walking it but in driving it turned out to be a decent set up, a little more favorable to the Mini though (as said by the Mini driver).
It started out going to the right of an offset cone into a medium 90 degree right hander. This led into an optional three cone slalom. The middle cone was offset to make entry on the left better, but entry on the right would cut off a lot of distance, the exit didnt seem to be a factor. It was really split through the day with probably about half going either direction. I ran 4 of my runs to the left and 1 run to the right. The slalom led to a long right sweeper that ended in a long straight with a few gates that were easy to make it through. This ended going the opposite direction through the original 90 (which was a bit tighter since entry was from a different angle) and opened up into a long left sweeper. This ended into what was basically and right pin cone and went straight through the finish.
My first 3 runs were basically the same time, leaving me well behind the Mini. I wasnt too worried about it but on my fourth run decided to basically drive like a maniac. After the finish I was expecting to see a terrible time but instead saw that I had just knocked 0.3s off my other times. So for my fifth run I take the same approach and take another 0.3s off from my fourth run which closes a bit of the gap between the Mini and myself. So in the end I was happy with my performance.
The heat was the big problem of the day (someone reported a temp of 101 from their vehicles thermo.). I had to spray my tires and lower the air pressure back down even after the first run (usually not needed until after the second run).
There seemed to be a few complaints about the course while walking it but in driving it turned out to be a decent set up, a little more favorable to the Mini though (as said by the Mini driver).
It started out going to the right of an offset cone into a medium 90 degree right hander. This led into an optional three cone slalom. The middle cone was offset to make entry on the left better, but entry on the right would cut off a lot of distance, the exit didnt seem to be a factor. It was really split through the day with probably about half going either direction. I ran 4 of my runs to the left and 1 run to the right. The slalom led to a long right sweeper that ended in a long straight with a few gates that were easy to make it through. This ended going the opposite direction through the original 90 (which was a bit tighter since entry was from a different angle) and opened up into a long left sweeper. This ended into what was basically and right pin cone and went straight through the finish.
My first 3 runs were basically the same time, leaving me well behind the Mini. I wasnt too worried about it but on my fourth run decided to basically drive like a maniac. After the finish I was expecting to see a terrible time but instead saw that I had just knocked 0.3s off my other times. So for my fifth run I take the same approach and take another 0.3s off from my fourth run which closes a bit of the gap between the Mini and myself. So in the end I was happy with my performance.
The heat was the big problem of the day (someone reported a temp of 101 from their vehicles thermo.). I had to spray my tires and lower the air pressure back down even after the first run (usually not needed until after the second run).
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