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Your points about classing mirror my thoughts with a lot of the "street" classes in other series. We take for granted how much work has gone into making the SCCA rule reasonably fair while also preserving mass appeal and keeping costs in check.
Or maybe this is the universe telling you it's time to join Aaron in the deep end of the Evo modding pool.
The drone footage is cool indeed. It may not be the most useful footage, but it definitely highlights how quickly AutoX cars change direction. That's something that's harder to communicate from in-car footage alone.
I need to dig up the "if my hands had been a little slower I would have put the car into a tire" video
That's a good point though about the plantedness - I can't remember the last time I ran on concrete. It's likely the car will be pushy once I get back there.
Your points about classing mirror my thoughts with a lot of the "street" classes in other series. We take for granted how much work has gone into making the SCCA rule reasonably fair while also preserving mass appeal and keeping costs in check.
Yeah, it's easy to forget how much we get right. Street class is looking mostly really healthy right now, with my only complaint being there aren't a ton of 4 door cars that are really viable in their street classes and don't suck. I'd probably be in a CTR if I had to down to a single car. The crummy thing about street class is that it just takes a small manufacturer tweak to obsolete your car.
Originally Posted by Construct
Or maybe this is the universe telling you it's time to join Aaron in the deep end of the Evo modding pool.
Aw hell nah. Aaron is good at wrenching, I'm not - I only do stuff when I have to and my mechanical ceiling is pretty low. I am not going to be swapping axles between runs etc
The Track Walking podcast (which I can't recommend enough) had a recent episode themed "if your garage burned down and you had to start from scratch, what would you do?" The thing is, I love this car and I'd probably want to build another one. It's really nice that the car is still good in STU after all these years. But if I was banned from building an Evo? A CS or STR MX5 would be high on the list. Miatas are absolutely brilliant street cars even if they result in less shaky hands.
In other news - after seeing the KOTM autocross on stream, and after running at UMI last year for Autocross Week, I decided to apply for KOTM 6.0 this year, just for fun, expecting to get rejected.
So barring some unforeseen scheduling conflict, I should be at UMI in August. I'm really excited - I know it's going to be stiff competition there but this is one of those bucket listy kind of events.
On that note, I need to buy some A052s for this year...
In other news - after seeing the KOTM autocross on stream, and after running at UMI last year for Autocross Week, I decided to apply for KOTM 6.0 this year, just for fun, expecting to get rejected.
So barring some unforeseen scheduling conflict, I should be at UMI in August. I'm really excited - I know it's going to be stiff competition there but this is one of those bucket listy kind of events.
On that note, I need to buy some A052s for this year...
Kickoff event for me. It didn't start out great but it finished.. fine. I used more profanity on my 4th run than I usually use on an entire season of autocross. Some fuel starve also just for fun. And my GoPro died before my last (5th) run.
Ripken usually draws some fast folks from Philly region though a few folks were away at a national event IIRC. Blogging fale - I forgot to bring my GoPro even though I brought everything else (tablet, GPS, batteries, etc). Sigh. So no video.
The results aren't up but I finished 2nd in PAX, 2nd in raw, behind @psushoe in both categories. I mean, not surprising. The course was pretty fun and gave you a lot of rope to hang yourself. When I was tidy/tight/minimizing distance I was fine but when I tried to push it a little harder to see what was available I got a LOT slower. Just part of the annual calibration process.
Similar to 4-21, but the course was shorter and less technical. I originally figured that this was not going to be my day - I started off behind Super Street. But after cleaning up a couple of braking zones I was able to drop some time.
I actually had a functional GoPro for this one. 6 runs but only a 29 second course.
Run 1 - 30.4 +1
Run 2 - 30.02
Run 3 - 29.5+1 but a very missable cone
Run 4 - 29.16, pretty solid
I had FTD/FTP after first heat. But @psushoe got me again in raw and pax so this was 2 straight events finishing 2nd raw and 2nd PAX (though it was closer this time). I would have needed to get a 28.63 to catch Aaron and on a course like this I don't think there was even an optimal where I could have hit that but I did not do the hard braking zone halfway through correctly once.
Positives - steady improvement, getting most of the run I wanted
Caveats - course not super technical, still didn't get that hard braking zone correct
For the rest of the season - I'll be doing something local in June - dunno what yet. And another local mid July. Then the Chicago Tour at the end of July, and then probably nothing until KOTM in late August.
I still need to mount and scrub in the new Yokos. I'm impressed by how good this set is considering they sat over the winter. They only have 54 runs on them at this point (2023 autox week + 1 other event, 3 events in 2024). This is one of those things where if I autoxed more I would want a second set of cheap 18x10s to keep these mounted on for local stuff but with as little as I autocross in a year I think I'm probably fine with one set. I'll keep the old ones for the FoRS and its brief excursions into B street.
Good to see that you are signed up for the Chicago Tour!
Sounds like there should be 3 IX's in STU at the very least as Ernest should be there with his too. Hopefully my car will be back to it's former glory by then - it's been a struggle this first half of the year so far.
For the rest of the season - I'll be doing something local in June - dunno what yet. And another local mid July. Then the Chicago Tour at the end of July, and then probably nothing until KOTM in late August.
Well heck. The local event I signed up for on 6-22 was going to be 95+ degrees so I decided to punt. The event I wanted to do at Ripken on 7-13 got canceled due to rain.
So the Chicago Tour is going to be my next event.. on brand new, heat cycled by Tirerack but not scrubbed on a course, A052s. I am going to try to get to the test n tune early on Friday but it's an 11 hour drive and I'm not sure I'll be able to do the whole thing Thursday. I am hoping the TR heatcycling + some test and tune runs on Friday is enough.
The tour isn't that full (146 entries as of now) but we have 8 folks in STU. Going to be interesting doing a 3 run format for the first time since.. uh.. Dover 2013? **** There will be many coursewalks.
Got to Joliet last night so that I could get to the site early this morning and do the mini Evo school. With brand new A052s I did want to get a few runs on them before the tour.. normally that would have been local events but things did not work out that way. Ran into @LV///R and got some decent practice in. I was wishing I had started SoloStorming earlier though.
Originally Posted by Dallas J
Just do a couple, look/think ahead, and send it :P
... Yeah, looking ahead is definitely a gap for me currently. I ended up doing the Evo school thing this morning which had some high radius stuff which helped. I haven't taken a run with an actual instructor in a long time and it was good to get a reminder. Papering over it with more coursewalks/memorization is not a real fix.
I ended up doing 5 tonight but I took some notes. One thing this event is reminding me is that we really lost a lot when we lost Fedex locally. It's a lot easier to break down a 35 second course that isn't that complicated, than a 50+ second course that is giving you a ton of real estate to hang yourself.
Maybe its cause Ive been doing core worker assignments for so long, but I rarely get or take more than 1 walk. I mostly just want to know the general direction and any gotcha points, then I just let it surprise me. You'd be amazed at what you can learn when you accidentally over drive a section but then the car sticks and it works.
Feb 12, 2024, 10:13 AM
There will be many coursewalks.
