2009 STU Discussion
Jul 13, 2009, 04:59 PM
#365
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Props to Jason McCall, who drove the wheels off of Jeremy's EVO 8 (2nd place)
Nobody had anything to match the speed Vitek had in his '07 STI. He paxed #1 overall on Day 1!
There was a wide variety of cars in STU!
John driving our EVO X had his hands full hanging on to 3rd place out of the 12 remaining entrants (14 entered)
I spent the weekend trying to tame this 490 whp beast. Not a chance!
Me giving the Yokohama rep a ride after the event. The EVO wouldn't turn!
I will admit we had some setup problems on our EVO X. Brian was on a much needed vacation so the two drivers were in my hands for the weekend, and I made some changes on the car last week. Amy and John drove and tweaked things at the Friday test-n-tune, but I never got a chance as I kept hopping into other cars to drive/tweak setups (drove 7 cars that day - but never once in the EVO). They didn't like how it was working so they made some big changes to the shock settings for Saturday. It was worse so we brought it back to the shop and changed the front springs Saturday night, but they still couldn't seem to get the car to rotate.
Come to find out there were possibly some mistakes made on shock adjustments that only made matters worse (my fault for not helping/showing them what to do). I also made some radical alignment changes last week and we're having to chase several other items to get it all working together properly again. I put in one run Sunday after the competition was over and it felt terrible - pushed like mad mid-corner. Its never handled this badly. After that one run I had this sick feeling in my stomach... I cannot believe I botched the setup so badly. Lots of data to pour over so we'll use that to make some valving and spring rate changes this week, maybe tweak ride height and bar settings, and hopefully get it straightened out before Amy and I run it again at the same site next weekend. This was the first event where we collected "shock pot" data on the EVO so that might tell us a lot.
I really blame myself for not driving it at the TNT on Friday, and then not helping more with valving changes Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Brian was calling trying to show me what to do Saturday night to change someone in the reservoirs but we were so burned out from the heat that we just bagged it after changing the springs. The work/run order at the event had me working when Amy ran (she still won her class by 9 seconds) and I was running in XP at the opposite end of the grid when John was running the EVO in STU, so they were pretty much on their own all weekend.
The grid guys really jacked things up so we never knew when we were going to run in our heat, and the oppressive temperatures kept us running for shade during our run group, too. I really had my hands full trying to drive (read: hang onto!) our XP car, which hasn't been driven in 8 months and had an extra 200hp since the last time we tracked or autocrossed it. The motor was making violent power and it just laughed at 315mm wide Kumho V710s - it was a handful, but a ton of fun.
Oh well.... you win some, you lose some. We came away from this weekend with two wins (Stuart who works here won AStock, Amy in STUL), a 2nd (me in XP), and a 3rd (John in STU). Lots of other AST drivers did well in their classes, too. Our EVO will return with a better setup very soon - it will be hard to make it worse than it was this past weekend.
Last edited by Fair; Jul 14, 2009 at 08:14 AM.
Jul 13, 2009, 09:39 PM
#366
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It was a horrifically hot day and a lot of challenges for many -- and a day of big victories for some. Paul's STI started having issues after the first run causing him to withdraw from the competition leaving his co-driver, Jason, without a car. Seeing this, I offered up my car. I wanted to be nice and help out but I also wanted to see what my car was capable of in the hands of an experienced Evo driver.
Before Jason's runs, I took the time to explain to him that my Evo was not going to do so well. It had stock shocks, stock sways, and probably would not drive as well as what he was used to. I just wanted to be sure he was aware of what he was getting into and not to expect too much from it.
Long story short, Mr. McCall, my co-driver who has never driven my car before, gets 2nd place out of 14. I got 9th place. In addition to that, his last run's raw time was only 6/10ths off the leader's quickest run. As Fair said above, he drove the wheels off my car.
Some might ask if it makes me feel bad to know I was beaten by 4 seconds in my own car. To that I answer - not at all. Actually, I was quite surprised and proud to see what my car was capable of accomplishing and it gave me a bit of a renewed confidence in the mechanical capabilities of my setup.
I learned a lot from this weekend, and hopefully I will be able to use this knowledge to my advantage to become a faster driver. I've already started planning for Performance Driving School. It sounds to me like money well spent.
Before Jason's runs, I took the time to explain to him that my Evo was not going to do so well. It had stock shocks, stock sways, and probably would not drive as well as what he was used to. I just wanted to be sure he was aware of what he was getting into and not to expect too much from it.
Long story short, Mr. McCall, my co-driver who has never driven my car before, gets 2nd place out of 14. I got 9th place. In addition to that, his last run's raw time was only 6/10ths off the leader's quickest run. As Fair said above, he drove the wheels off my car.
Some might ask if it makes me feel bad to know I was beaten by 4 seconds in my own car. To that I answer - not at all. Actually, I was quite surprised and proud to see what my car was capable of accomplishing and it gave me a bit of a renewed confidence in the mechanical capabilities of my setup.
I learned a lot from this weekend, and hopefully I will be able to use this knowledge to my advantage to become a faster driver. I've already started planning for Performance Driving School. It sounds to me like money well spent.
Last edited by Evo_Someday; Jul 13, 2009 at 09:41 PM.
Jul 14, 2009, 08:59 AM
#367
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It was a horrifically hot day and a lot of challenges for many -- and a day of big victories for some. Paul's STI started having issues after the first run causing him to withdraw from the competition leaving his co-driver, Jason, without a car. Seeing this, I offered up my car. I wanted to be nice and help out but I also wanted to see what my car was capable of in the hands of an experienced Evo driver.
Before Jason's runs, I took the time to explain to him that my Evo was not going to do so well. It had stock shocks, stock sways, and probably would not drive as well as what he was used to. I just wanted to be sure he was aware of what he was getting into and not to expect too much from it.
Long story short, Mr. McCall, my co-driver who has never driven my car before, gets 2nd place out of 14. I got 9th place. In addition to that, his last run's raw time was only 6/10ths off the leader's quickest run. As Fair said above, he drove the wheels off my car.
Some might ask if it makes me feel bad to know I was beaten by 4 seconds in my own car. To that I answer - not at all. Actually, I was quite surprised and proud to see what my car was capable of accomplishing and it gave me a bit of a renewed confidence in the mechanical capabilities of my setup.
I learned a lot from this weekend, and hopefully I will be able to use this knowledge to my advantage to become a faster driver. I've already started planning for Performance Driving School. It sounds to me like money well spent.
Before Jason's runs, I took the time to explain to him that my Evo was not going to do so well. It had stock shocks, stock sways, and probably would not drive as well as what he was used to. I just wanted to be sure he was aware of what he was getting into and not to expect too much from it.
Long story short, Mr. McCall, my co-driver who has never driven my car before, gets 2nd place out of 14. I got 9th place. In addition to that, his last run's raw time was only 6/10ths off the leader's quickest run. As Fair said above, he drove the wheels off my car.
Some might ask if it makes me feel bad to know I was beaten by 4 seconds in my own car. To that I answer - not at all. Actually, I was quite surprised and proud to see what my car was capable of accomplishing and it gave me a bit of a renewed confidence in the mechanical capabilities of my setup.
I learned a lot from this weekend, and hopefully I will be able to use this knowledge to my advantage to become a faster driver. I've already started planning for Performance Driving School. It sounds to me like money well spent.
You'll love the Evo School too. Just like this weekend, you'll see what a great driver can do in your car.
Jul 14, 2009, 07:09 PM
#368
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It's all too common to finish an event with the opinion that 'that's as fast as the car will go'. If you placed poorly, you were limited by the car. As you suggest, having someone clean your clock by four seconds in your own car is seriously valuable data. And it will be easier for you to now push your limits, knowing that the car can do it.
An excellent tool if you can borrow one is the MaxQData GPS datalogger. Capture your best run and your co-drivers best run, and "race" them on your computer when you get home. You can determine what he did right, what you did wrong, where you need to improve. The software download to run the data is free, so you just need to borrow the hardware for a couple runs from a buddy. In my region maybe half a dozen people have them, so they're not exactly rare. Look for a GPS "mouse" taped to someones roof. Or ask on your local forum.
An excellent tool if you can borrow one is the MaxQData GPS datalogger. Capture your best run and your co-drivers best run, and "race" them on your computer when you get home. You can determine what he did right, what you did wrong, where you need to improve. The software download to run the data is free, so you just need to borrow the hardware for a couple runs from a buddy. In my region maybe half a dozen people have them, so they're not exactly rare. Look for a GPS "mouse" taped to someones roof. Or ask on your local forum.
I've thrown it in Evo_someday's car before just for this purpose.
Jul 15, 2009, 08:41 AM
#372
Long story short, Mr. McCall, my co-driver who has never driven my car before, gets 2nd place out of 14. I got 9th place. In addition to that, his last run's raw time was only 6/10ths off the leader's quickest run. As Fair said above, he drove the wheels off my car.
Some might ask if it makes me feel bad to know I was beaten by 4 seconds in my own car. To that I answer - not at all. Actually, I was quite surprised and proud to see what my car was capable of accomplishing and it gave me a bit of a renewed confidence in the mechanical capabilities of my setup.
I learned a lot from this weekend, and hopefully I will be able to use this knowledge to my advantage to become a faster driver. I've already started planning for Performance Driving School. It sounds to me like money well spent.
Some might ask if it makes me feel bad to know I was beaten by 4 seconds in my own car. To that I answer - not at all. Actually, I was quite surprised and proud to see what my car was capable of accomplishing and it gave me a bit of a renewed confidence in the mechanical capabilities of my setup.
I learned a lot from this weekend, and hopefully I will be able to use this knowledge to my advantage to become a faster driver. I've already started planning for Performance Driving School. It sounds to me like money well spent.
Driver and tires are the biggest factors, IMHO. I really envy those who have that innate skill and are able to pull close to the max potential of the car in 4 or less runs. Kudos to guys like Geoff, Rick, Dave, Patrick etc .... My hats off to you guys and your MAD TYTE SKILLZ
Jul 15, 2009, 11:02 PM
#374
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I'm also in the new Taco Time commercials that just started Mon. My speaking part didnt make it in but I'm still in it, kinda haha!Glad ur gona run the car and those wheels
Ask away!I'll be at the Packwood Pro. But I'm not sure I can do the Finale, like you said with us running at the end of the week, its just too much time in between.
Ya Abe smoked me at our last local event, but I found I was only getting maybe 15 lbs of boost
Fixed the leaks and my car's fun again! I had a brand new recirc valve in that was leaking at 7psi and injector seals leaking. Abe and Max are goin to be tough this weekend!