Scott McIntyre
DSM Wiseman
- 309
- 44
- Mar 15, 2002
-
Halifax,
NS, Canada
Slalom @ Slemon. The premier event of the season in these parts.
This was a 3-day event with Friday being a Test & Tune, Saturday event #1 and Sunday event #2. Plus Monday was a lapping day at the local road course, but I'll write about that separately. All-in-all, it was four straight days of motorsports. Yay!
So I ended the weekend with a class win, and very respectable performance overall. Perhaps my season is turning around after all!
Here's some photos from the event. You can view the full albums here:
This was a 3-day event with Friday being a Test & Tune, Saturday event #1 and Sunday event #2. Plus Monday was a lapping day at the local road course, but I'll write about that separately. All-in-all, it was four straight days of motorsports. Yay!
- Day 0 - Test & Tune:
A small 30-40 second course was setup for the Friday practice. It was a good mix of typical elements. It had a slalom, sweeping offsets, hairpin, and short straights. You could essentially run as many times as you wanted. I did about ten runs, but in past years I've done as many as 30!
I was doing pretty good time-wise. The only street-legal car faster than me was a Z06, so I was pretty content with that.
At one point in the day I let the local hotshoe take my car out for a few runs, and he could only get within a 1/2 second of my best time. I'm sure if he had more runs he would have got closer (or beat me), but still it made me feel good that I wasn't a complete slouch behind the wheel. When he came in, he was like, "Holy shit! That car is a handful! You do well to get the times you do."
I think he was referring to how the turbo kicks in and suddenly you have trouble keeping the car straight. He's used to an M3 which has a more linear power curve and therefore easier to drive.
Here's a video of my best run that day; with a time of 30.225
YouTube - 2010 Slalom @ Slemon Test & Tune
Day 01 - Event #1
Where the test & tune course was a measly 0.57km long, the event course was 1.35km and much faster. I got my exercise walking the course six times, as I wanted to make sure I had it down pat before my runs started.
My class competition for the weekend was small in numbers but high in talent. Basically I was running against two very experienced competitors in stripped out / caged race cars, with me in my essentially full weight street car. My primary competition was a Porsche 914-6 road racer, followed by a Mini Cooper S rally car prepared for Targa Newfoundland. Gotta love DMOD class.
My first run was pretty good with a quick raw time, but I hit a cone. On my second run I drop that time 2 seconds, but again hit a cone. Meanwhile the Porsche got a clean run which put him in the lead. I botched my third run and came in slower plus a cone while the Porsche dropped his time another 2 seconds. Uh-oh... Pressure is on.
Fourth and final run. My raw times were good enough for a class win, but the cone penalties were killing me. I just needed to keep the same pace but bring it in clean, and that's exactly what I did! I came in with a clean 79.012 and took the class by 0.4 seconds.
Here's a video of that last ditch effort:
YouTube - 2010 Slalom @ Slemon Day 01 - Scott - Run 04
Day 02 - Event #2
For day 2, the course was essentially the same, only run backwards. This seemed to open it up a little and times were generally a couple seconds faster than the day 1.
Things started out for me much the same as before. My first run was quick, but with a cone penalty. My second run was clean, but a 1/2 second slower. Third run was my fastest yet, but another cone penalty. I was feeling deja vu as again the Porsche was in the lead heading into our fourth and final runs.
On my last run, I pull off a clean fast time to take the win, this time by a 2 second margin. Talk about leaving the best for the last! Usually I choke under that kind of pressure.
Here's a video of my fourth run:
YouTube - 2010 Slalom @ Slemon Day 02 - Scott - Run 04
So I ended the weekend with a class win, and very respectable performance overall. Perhaps my season is turning around after all!
Here's some photos from the event. You can view the full albums here:
