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I attended my 2nd autocross today, my first this year, this time with the Fairfield County Sports Car Club. This lot was quite a bit larger than the event I went to last year. Lap times were from 32 seconds for one alien, on up to 37s for some of the quicker street cars, and so on into the mid 45s for some of the novices.
I was back in my faithful Nissan Sentra Spec V:
Once again I came to appreciate the limited slip today. I made sure not to let myself rely on it as much as last time- it's probably not the fastest solution, but sometimes it's easier to just tromp on the gas and hang on, and let the limited slip sort the traction out for itself :) Many other front drivers were generating smoke out of the inside tire in several places around the track. My loving family got me a 3-point harness for Xmas (okay, it was on my list), and I was very happy with how it held me in place. No more flopping around the car under cornering, especially in the esses at the end of today's course. So anyway, when all was said and done, I turned a best of 38.4, which I'm very happy with. The car had another second in it if I could have strung together my ideal lap. But as it was, that was good enough to win my class in Rookie Stock. I beat all but a Lotus Elise on time, and the index class handicap put me over the top for the win. I met up with fellow R2P'ers Mike Miller and Tom Mak, face to face for the first time. Both are just as great in person as they are in the forums and on the track, I look forward to seeing more of both of them at future events. Lots of interesting cars as usual. Here's one for Bryce- I can't seem to go to an auto event without spotting a Corvair:
Lining up for fun-runs:
Video from behind the fence:
In-car:
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Nice man! | ||
That looked like a great run towards the end of the day Mike and a very fine time. You are working your way through auto-x faster than I did. So you beat the M3 and the Elise? Fantastic! How did you fair against the other GS drivers? Did Tom have better luck with his brakes? | ||
Looks like you had alot of fun. I've never scene that vair around. Wonder if the guy is new to vairs? What is your next upgrade? Tires and rims? | ||
@Mike: I beat all but the Lotus on straight time- the index class handicap gave me the win over that car, and there was a Neon SRT4 ACR that I just barely edged out. Tom never did get his brakes sorted, he was pretty sure his rears weren't working at all. He was talking with a couple of other guys about bleeding order, that might have been his problem. Didn't get a chance to ride with him this time, he came looking for me while I was out on my 6th run, but we talked again afterwards, very nice guy. Maybe next time I'll get rides from both of you :) @Bryce:
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I'd add too much ballast to the car to make a run with ya Mike, but I'd like to hook up with you guys one of these events. Once fulltime daycare is a thing of the past, I hope to be joining ya in this hobby. Sold my hot rod for extra cash on hand when we built our house, and of course daycare comes along and there is a car payment every week! My B4000 pickup wouldn't keep the pace there I'm sure. So I've started to think about getting a new ride. I get a deal on MAZDASPEED models.... | ||
I've had my eye on a Mazdaspeed 3 for quite some time now. I have 2 Honda Civics that my wife and I use as beaters. I'm trying to convince her to sell both and get a Mazdaspeed 3. It would solve the driveway/garage space problem, but with gas so expensive, it really wouldn't make sense. I'd have to drive the truck or Porsche full time. Another car payment wouldn't help either. | ||
What class are you in? im in SM street Mod, and it sucks.. its a pretty much run whatcha brung class, thats one of the things that kept me away from autox. plus the 3 hour drive. lol | ||
Shane, with the full cage and other preparation, you shouldn't be in SM. You should run a prepared class. My RX-7 runs in BP, well, XP now that BP is gone. My stock GT3 runs in ASP. | ||
Come on up to Derby and take a look at what we got Mike. I can get you hooked up with a decent deal, I'm sure of it. We have so much product there's nowhere to park for us employees. They want to get rid of them before the 09s come out. | ||
lol. i really dont know what class im in. i know SM was like the lowest class they would allow me to be in. i could tell some white lies and be in CSP. but ehh thats a miata dominate class. its ok though, the autox`s are a 3 hour drive for me, and there 2 day events, i just cant justify 300 in all spent cash for 12 minutes of track time, 6 minutes each day. 300 bucks is a test day at a road course, lol i could accomplish more there the last autox i did. i wasnt even worried about getting threw the course without hitting cones, i was there just using it as a slip pad, i was trying to see what it took, to get my cars rear end to drift about, and practice correcting it. just used the event as a oversteer test day LOL |
