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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.
Good luck this weekend, go chase down Brent!
Yeah, maybe I should just force myself to stop at 1 walk at some locals and see how it goes."hey, this is a sucker cone, don't drive straight at it, even though you know you want to"
It's sometimes harder to get a single walk at locals though.. you just know more of the people and so you end up being social.
I'm back after my 700+ mile drive - definitely a good event, I know Brent/Riley were still fighting the hop so I wouldn't take the standings too seriously.
Huge thanks to Brent for all the help (offering me fuel, offering a run in his car when my car was being drunk before we knew what it was, and fixing the intercooler hose)! Being able to take my 3rd run instead of packing it in was amazing after all the chaos. You are a gentleman and a scholar; it's the kind of stuff that makes this sport great.
I'll get my runs youtubed and solostormcloud'd at some point.
Yeah, maybe I should just force myself to stop at 1 walk at some locals and see how it goes."hey, this is a sucker cone, don't drive straight at it, even though you know you want to"
It's sometimes harder to get a single walk at locals though.. you just know more of the people and so you end up being social.
I'm back after my 700+ mile drive - definitely a good event, I know Brent/Riley were still fighting the hop so I wouldn't take the standings too seriously.
Huge thanks to Brent for all the help (offering me fuel, offering a run in his car when my car was being drunk before we knew what it was, and fixing the intercooler hose)! Being able to take my 3rd run instead of packing it in was amazing after all the chaos. You are a gentleman and a scholar; it's the kind of stuff that makes this sport great.
I'll get my runs youtubed and solostormcloud'd at some point.
John - it was great to meet you in person! You absolutely drove VERY well so don't hang your head what so ever. You are absolutely capable of being towards the peaky end in STU at Nationals. No doubt in my mind - so PLEASE make it a point to come join in the fun next year!
Man, I appreciate the compliments but I hope others would have done the same if I was in your situation. I was really concerned simply about the possibility of you having serious enough issues that you weren't able to make it home, let alone run your last run! Glad we got your car squared away so you didn't have to drive mine for your final run. I can only imagine the emotions going through your head between your 2nd and 3rd run, my friend! For you to still lay a killer run down says a lot in that scenario!
Again, very impressed at how hard you pushed Riley over the weekend. I wish I could have put up more of a fight after coning (2nd National tour this year ladies and gents, ha) my day 1.
Because I missed the 6-25 event (heat) and the 7-13 event was canceled (rain), my new A052s were not going to have any events on them by the time I got to Chicago. I signed up for the Evo school so that I could knock the rust off (since my last event was 6-1) and so I could get some runs on the tires. I had done the TR heatcycling just in case but still wanted to get some runs on them.
With rain also on the forecast for the two week period coming into the event, I took another look at my street tires, which were really old (2016 IIRC) Firehawk Indy500s. They still had tread and weren’t showing any signs of dryrot, and for the last couple years I had been driving on the A052s to events for the most part. But a) driving an ST car with an ST alignment on actual highways can get dodgy in the rain sometimes, so having some additional margin there would be nice, and b) if there was actual cats-and-dogs style rain during the event, I’d be covered. So I picked up a set of ECS02s from Tire Rack in time to get them on before the event. That said, from reading Sandbox posts, it sounds like the A052s would be faster in anything other than serious hydroplaning-type wet conditions.
It’s a 730+ mile drive to Route 66 raceway. What was I thinking when I originally signed up for this? Mostly something along these lines:
* Competing against a good STU field including last year’s national champion (Hi!) to get a feel for how far off the pace I am. My target was trying to stay within 1s per 60s as a loose “2-3 seconds usually covers the trophy spots at nationals” ballpark.
* Generally getting my head back into the 3 run national format. The last Tour I did was Dover 2013 (and the last national event period was the Toledo Prosolo in 2014). If I did want to do Nats next year (hypothetically) I need to start figuring out how to balance aggression levels when you only get three runs.
STU on the east coast has been hit or miss on the first point over the last couple of years - so yeah, long drive, but worth it. I did the entire drive on Thursday so that I could be on site early Friday to do the Evo school.
I got to the site early enough to change tires and get squared away.
The format was: 3 runs with you driving and the instructor in the passenger seat, 2 runs with the instructor driving, then 3 runs with them watching. After that it was just test and tune. I had a couple of runs where I was actually looking ahead in the high-radius stuff (> 90 degrees). Last few runs: 27.3, 27.2, 26.9 dirty.
After the Evo stuff finished, I got 3 test n tune tickets and waited an hour. 27.7, 27.4, 27.5. Not great to regress when the course hadn’t changed, and after taking 10 runs, but I decided to call it, check in at the hotel and chill for a bit, and come back later for a bunch of course walks. I had a plan, just trying to find all the places where I might get lazy and come into things shallow and make sure I had a plan for staying ahead.
I woke up Saturday morning with some hardcore imposter syndrome ( https://www.webmd.com/balance/what-is-imposter-syndrome ) . I’ve had this in my professional life sometimes, most recently when I went from a string of small companies to a big company and was convinced everyone was going to find out I wasn’t actually good at my job. It’s not rational, it’s just a thing that happens. This was my first national tour run in 11 years.. Can I remember how to do this? We worked first, drove second, so the nerves had plenty of time to build while working course.
Run 1
The first 5 seconds were ominous. The starter beep went off and my brain temporarily forgot what autocross was. I launched and almost drove straight into the first cone. I sorted it out and finished clean but not fast: 60.2. Riley ran a 58.1+3 and Brent ran a 59.6+2 so I knew I needed a lot more raw pace.
Looking at the run a few things stood out:
* I drove straight at the first cone
* turned in too soon on the hard turnaround and had to open the wheel back up 0:16
* late entering the “normal” part of the slalom 0:36
* late on the offsets into the finish 1:03
After looking through the data / video my 3 things to focus on for run 2:
-be patient on the first lefthander
-stay ahead in the slalom out; give it up to get back ahead if you have to
-brake harder into the finish slalom to be able to stay ahead
(maybe 3 things is too many things to keep track of, I dunno)
Run 2
This was better - 59.2, but +1. I hit a very silly cone in the slow turnaround. Riley ran a 57.998 (!!) +1, Brent 59.0 +3, Logan ran a 58.7+1 so I was still off on pace. STU was definitely very dirty.
I addressed most of the stuff I noticed on run 1 -
* could have entered this better at 0:57, maybe I didn’t brake enough
* I think there was a downed cone I could have stopped for at 0:58.. doh
* the finish was better than run 1 at 1:03 but still not quite ahead-enough
But I also knew this was still 1.2 seconds off the fastest raw times. This run was overall too cautious.
Run 3
At this point I have a run that was slow with some big mistakes, and a run that was better but still slow and +1. I don’t really have a run I’m super happy sitting on. I knew I was going to give the turnaround cone a wider berth this time, really make sure I nail the finish, and try to be a tiny bit more aggressive/throttley in the fast sections where I was being cautious.
This run ended up being clean (!) 58.6 and fast enough for 2nd - .6 off the fastest raw in the class, so in the ballpark at least. At the end of day 1, I was within a tenth which was surprising but Brent mentioned that their car had been misbehaving/hopping particularly in right hand corners (which was a lot of the course). I was just trying to focus on what I could control and let the results land where they land.
There was a messup with timing so sololive was wrong for like 20 minutes after the last car crossed the line, where the cone calls were correctly associated with their drivers but the times were wrong. It was definitely stressful because the timer had said I ran a 58.6 but the results had me with the wrong time for a while.
Looking at the solostorm, comparing run 2 to run 3:
* run 3 picked up a little time at the launch
* run 3 lost a little bit of time entering the L-box on the left side of the course. I overslowed compared to run 2, it looks like
* run 3 left the big turnaround (the one at the top of the lot) lined up better and I picked up some time here
* run 3 exited the “bowl” a lot better
* run 3 did the finish a better (not great but better enough).
The forecast for Sunday was rain for the entire day, like 40-60% chance of precipitation solidly from 7am to 2pm at least. I haven’t driven the Evo in the rain since October 2021, and that was on 2015-vintage RE71Rs. The event was a nightmare - https://scca-susq.com/latest-news/cl...vent-13-10-30/ - paxing 57th/78. It turns out it was just crappy tires. With a set of pretty much full tread A052s and a set of pretty much full tread ECS02s I figured I was covered even if it was a deluge, but I still didn’t want it to rain because it would be harder to calibrate how I was doing.
I started off sorta calm but the nerves started creeping in as the morning advanced. Thankfully the rain - which had been in the forecast for like the previous two weeks - didn’t end up being serious. It only rained in the morning and basically stopped so heat 2 had a pretty much dry course (heat 1 was drying).
I almost spun at the beginning on one of the first hard inputs. I wasn’t taking it easy with totally cold tires and a drying-mostly-dry course.
One positive though - I held it together well enough after the near-spin. The run still wasn’t fast because of the early mistake, but when I was looking at the data in Solostorm afterwards, after the first sector, run 1 and run 3 were really similar, about .2 to .3 tenths apart. In other words, I was able to get good data out of the rest of the run despite messing up early i.e. I was able to get my head in the game enough to say “hey, you spun a little and that sucks, but let’s get some good data about the rest of the course to take into run 2 and run 3”.
One other thing I forgot how to do was look at the cone audit sheets. It took me a while to figure out which cone I hit because I forgot that there was one sheet per corner station.
Run 2
I have a perfectly okay run - 59.5. It’s clean, which is nice. Riley ran a 59.4, Brent ran a 59.0+1, and Logan ran a 58.7+1. So we were all grouped pretty closely raw wise.
Just as I was about to cross the finish, the car stumbled like it was running out of fuel (you can hear me say “oh f*” on the video). My brain immediately went to fuel since I had 1/8th of a tank left and I had had the fuel starve issue earlier this year in Richmond.
I asked around in grid, and asked the other folks in STU, if they were good with me going to go get gas. Brent offered some gas from his trailer. I was going to go to the gas station but the car was stumbling so badly I didn’t get that far. Even after adding 1.5-2 gallons, the car was still stumbling like crazy.
At some point around now Brent offered me his car for my 3rd run, which was amazing. I was pretty concerned about flatspotting tires etc (having not autoxed an RS ever) and was mentally prepared to sit on my 2nd run, but Brent asked at this point if I had any boost leaks that I knew of, and he quickly identified that an IC hose had popped off. Not only that, he had tools in grid so he was able to get the hose back on.
So for context - in 13.5 years of owning this thing I have never had an IC hose pop off. On the mechanic scale I’m something like a 2 out of 10. I’ve done bolton stuff, brakes, basic maintenance, and swapped suspensions but it drops off rapidly after that. I’ve been pretty lucky with both the Evo and the WRX that preceded it. The only time I can remember missing runs at an event was in 2012 when I popped a brake line at the Toledo Pro because the Motons don’t have brake line brackets and the zip ties failed somehow. The same thing happened in 2012 at the ProFinale and I was ready for it (flare nut wrenches, spare brake lines, fluid etc). I would have rather learned this lesson at a local, but I’m really glad to not be learning this at nationals. What I'm saying here is that, in my mental state at the time, I think I could have looked at that engine bay for 10 minutes and not noticed the IC hose not being attached Again, huge thanks to Brent for saving my event.
The grid folks were really nice, telling me about the mechanical process, encouraging me to slow down and take a breath, etc etc. I didn’t take the full 10 minutes, I reran the course in my head and refreshed my plan and went from there.
I went into this knowing that everyone else’s run 2s were fast and that there was no way I could sit on run 2. I knew there were some overly cautious parts of run 2 and wanted to tidy those up. Hopefully without hitting anything.
This ended up being a 58.1 - 3rd fastest run on Sunday but good enough to hold 2nd.
Digging into the Solostorm data, run 3 vs run 2:
* run 3 picked up a little bit on the launch
* run 3 carried a lot more speed into the bowl (at one point run 2 is at 34 mph and run 3 is at 42 mph)
* run 3 carried a lot more speed OUT of the bowl - run 2 didn’t slow down enough and had to wait whereas run 3 could get back on the gas a lot harder / faster
* run 3 was more tight on the turnaround (the furthest part of the course) allowing a better setup into the slalom
* run 2 overslowed into the L-box; run 3 was more “just right”
* run 2 lined up the finish a lot better (before the hose popped). Run 3 threw away at least a tenth or two here by staying on the gas too long.
One thing that stands out is it feels like they are closer to the cones than I am and that they are much more consistently ahead in the transitional elements.
Take this for what it's worth, but your steering inputs make it seem like you're not looking far enough ahead. aka, you're not unwinding the wheel enough from the elements preceding where you make a double steering input because you weren't looking at the next element soon enough to gauge correctly the line leading up to it. And then when you do actually process the element you're coming up to you realize that you're way too tight and have to make a correction.
I see this in my driving; some of it is intentional line-driven correction and some of it is "whoops, that's not the right line for the next element" correction. It's something I really want to be deliberate about in future events.
I was happy with this event. Again, I don't think the relative standings in STU really reflect reality, given the hop issues and how bumpy the surface was. But my goal wasn't to finish in a certain spot - it was just to drive well enough, and learn how to do a Tour again. If I had run the same times but finished 5th I think I'd be okay with it.
Other miscellaneous notes / thoughts / babbling:
* Wtf my video quality. I didn't notice how bad it was until looking at other folks' videos. Maybe I need stabilization or a stiffer camera mount. Or a newer gopro. Or I need to change a setting somewhere.
* I need to make sure that I aim the camera so that I can see my hands more easily. The solostorm overlay will cover my hands unless I aim the camera up a little and it makes it harder to see those little steering corrections.
* Boost leaks can happen. In 13.5 years and 765 autocross runs, this is the first time it’s popped a hose. I need to bring a toolbox to real events, bring it to grid, and probably keep a 10mm in the glovebox.
* Would stiffer engine mounts help the IC hose popping off issue? Or make it worse?
* The stumbling issue and my subsequent diagnosis of fuel starve felt like an XY problem ( https://xyproblem.info/ ). Stop, think, work backwards from the symptoms and don't throw yourself too completely at one problem/solution.
* I should try not shuffle steering for an event to see what it's like.
* Brent is a hero and I owe him some combination of 93 octane and beer. (Not like, literally combined.)
Next up is KOTM at UMI. We'll be getting a lot more runs than 3 I think which will make it easier to fall into old habits and I want to be deliberate about looking ahead there. Super Late looks pretty stacked. I think the top 12 make the shootout; that's the goal but we'll see. There are very few rules related to car prep other than gotta be 2900 pounds (with driver!!)
I have never autoxed in the dark. Either way it will be a cool experience. I am going to try to get my undertray reattached but that's the only real prep work.
Last edited by Butt Dyno; Jul 31, 2024 at 09:47 PM.
John - again don't beat yourself up too much! You did damn well considering the circumstances! I feel like both days, Riley and or I, could have been deeper into the 57's. We both agreed. Normally on average, if I had a 4th run, I've been leaving about 6/7 tenths out there from 3 to 4. This is something I need to work on, but is so tough to overcome.
What gopro are you using? I JUST switched to the DJI Action 4 camera (shot at 4k in my videos) and couldn't be more happy with the thing, other than the fact I already cracked the lens cover after like 2 events. The DJI 3 is $100 cheaper and very similar in quality, supposedly. Amazing quality, easy to use and doesn't overheat like the newer gopros supposedly. There's lots of comparison videos on youtube if interested in learning more!
Definitely having the 10/12/14/17/19 sockets and wrenches with are huge. Some extensions/deep and short sockets have come in quite handy not only for me, but countless other people who've ran into binds when I've been autocrossing!
I feel like you were pretty darn close to the driver side cones for the most part, granted I didn't review all of your videos. I'll review closer when I get home. Riley was definitely on top of the cones in on day 2 in comparison to my 3rd run. I had to lay off a bit as I simply wanted a clean run, but even on my 3rd run if I didn't get sideways twice and have the double correct in the steering to avoid hitting that cone, I would have been well into the 57s we believe. The trouble we both had is when you cone run 1 and/or 2, you really gotta dial things back and just get a clean time. I really dislike being in that position, but at the same point, the more I'm in that position, hopefully the better I'll be at dealing with the pressure in the future.
Also, if you contact him directly through his website, he'll send you all photos from the event. You can choose if you want to pay to get the hi res images:
John - again don't beat yourself up too much! You did damn well considering the circumstances! I feel like both days, Riley and or I, could have been deeper into the 57's. We both agreed. Normally on average, if I had a 4th run, I've been leaving about 6/7 tenths out there from 3 to 4. This is something I need to work on, but is so tough to overcome.
What gopro are you using? I JUST switched to the DJI Action 4 camera (shot at 4k in my videos) and couldn't be more happy with the thing, other than the fact I already cracked the lens cover after like 2 events. The DJI 3 is $100 cheaper and very similar in quality, supposedly. Amazing quality, easy to use and doesn't overheat like the newer gopros supposedly. There's lots of comparison videos on youtube if interested in learning more!
Definitely having the 10/12/14/17/19 sockets and wrenches with are huge. Some extensions/deep and short sockets have come in quite handy not only for me, but countless other people who've ran into binds when I've been autocrossing!
I feel like you were pretty darn close to the driver side cones for the most part, granted I didn't review all of your videos. I'll review closer when I get home. Riley was definitely on top of the cones in on day 2 in comparison to my 3rd run. I had to lay off a bit as I simply wanted a clean run, but even on my 3rd run if I didn't get sideways twice and have the double correct in the steering to avoid hitting that cone, I would have been well into the 57s we believe. The trouble we both had is when you cone run 1 and/or 2, you really gotta dial things back and just get a clean time. I really dislike being in that position, but at the same point, the more I'm in that position, hopefully the better I'll be at dealing with the pressure in the future.
Sorry - not intending to make it sound like I am beating myself up. I left the event happy for sure, just trying to be realistic about my calibration
My current camera is a Hero 7 black. My #1 requirement for a camera is having it work with Solostorm.. it has been a huge mental bandwidth saver that everything Just Works after the first run without intervention. I am on the lowest quality setting so I'll try it at 4k just driving around the neighborhood and see what that does.
Definitely bringing a toolbox to UMI...
I know you've mentioned bringing 3 run mentality into local events. That's something I definitely want to try. I think KOTM has a bunch of runs for the "qualifier" portion, like 6+ Friday and 6+ Saturday before they draw the elim brackets up for Saturday night under the lights. But once Saturday night starts you have no margin for error anymore. There are 28-30 folks in SuperLate and the top 12 make the elims.. 3 more weeks!
My current camera is a Hero 7 black. My #1 requirement for a camera is having it work with Solostorm.. it has been a huge mental bandwidth saver that everything Just Works after the first run without intervention. I am on the lowest quality setting so I'll try it at 4k just driving around the neighborhood and see what that does.
GoPro image stabilization took a giant leaps forward sometime after the 7 series, IIRC.
I went from a GoPro of around that same age to a more modern one and was stunned by the difference. As long as lighting is good, the stabilization works miracles for mountain bike riding.
The exception would be if you have higher frequency vibrations coupled straight into the camera, which can happen in vehicle applications. If the vibrations are fast enough that they're blurring individual frames within the shutter speed, you can't undo that with stabilization. You have to have some amount of vibration damping for the higher frequency vibrations.
GoPro image stabilization took a giant leaps forward sometime after the 7 series, IIRC.
I went from a GoPro of around that same age to a more modern one and was stunned by the difference. As long as lighting is good, the stabilization works miracles for mountain bike riding.
The exception would be if you have higher frequency vibrations coupled straight into the camera, which can happen in vehicle applications. If the vibrations are fast enough that they're blurring individual frames within the shutter speed, you can't undo that with stabilization. You have to have some amount of vibration damping for the higher frequency vibrations.
I think I turned off the stabilization because it does that weird fake rotatey thing. I'll try putting it back on.
So UMI has hosted KOTM since 2019. There are only 4 classes: Early, Mid, Late, and Super Late. All fancy RWD cars + all AWD cars go to Super Late. Shawn Krebsbach won in an Evo in 2022 and lost in the finals in 2023. There are basically two rules: gotta run 200TW tires, car+driver must weigh at least 2900 lbs. Beyond that it’s pretty open.
The format:
* Day 1: everyone gets 8-9 runs
* Day 2: everyone gets.. Some amount of runs
* The top 12 in each class make the challenge
* In the challenge, all 12 people run. The top 6 move on. Then the top 2.
* Then all the class winners do a 3 run cumulative time challenge where all your runs count.
At least I think it’s like this, I reserve the right to be slightly wrong.
There were a lot of srsbsns drivers signed up for Super Late - like, a lot of SCCA jacket owners. I knew going in that an STU car was not the best answer to this rule set, but figured maybe if I drove my tail off I could sneak into the challenge at least before getting wiped out.
The Friday course was a mix of fast stuff and slow stuff. I was tapping the rev limiter in 3 spots but not totally all over it - 64-65 mph indicated on GPS.
They said they were going to do 3 heats of 3 runs but that they might have to shortcut the end. So it ended up being 3 + 3 + 2 (instead of, for instance, 4+4).
On my first run, I had to stop for a courseworker near the end, so I got 80% of a look at the course at speed. They sent me back up to the front to take my “real” first run - 37.5+1. I hit a cone in the chicago box near the end which was a very popular cone to hit. OK - cool, decent start. Run 2 - 37.2+1. I think I hit the pin cone in the slowest section - not a super smart cone to hit but the rest of the run was okay. Run 3 came through though - 37.005, clean.
stop the count!!!
Unfortunately, this was kind of deceiving. Josh + Aaron were still behind me as was Danny Popp and Justin Peachey and I knew that was not going to stick. But hey, I just need a couple of tenths to stay in the mix for the challenge.
Heat 2 - 3 runs. No help. My first run I overdrove and experimented with some things, none of which worked. Run 2 - 36.9 +1 (chicago box again). So this would have been a tenth faster, but that tenth was probably because I hit the last cone in the box. Run 3 - backing off a bit - 37.5. Heck. This heat was freaking frantic - I hardly had time to watch video, spray tires, check pressures, etc.
At this point, a few people have jumped me and I think I’m in 15th. I sort of expected this but I was still trying to calibrate push levels. My first run was too much, my last run was way too safe. And only one heat left - and Danny Popp is still behind me which won’t stick.
Heat 3 - because they were running over, this was only TWO runs. As a bonus, grid forced me into the first line of cars so I had less time. Run 1 - feels fine, but too safe, 37.2. No help. OK, last Friday run.
I really liked most of this run, but it all ends in sadness.
I get through the entire run, reasonably tidy - I get through the chicago box of doom - YES! I’m free! And then for some reason I aim the car a little to the right and hit the last gate on course. Probably no one else hit this cone all day. I have no idea what I was thinking in this moment, maybe trying to cut distance, I dunno. I should have just planted the gas and let the car take me out. I threw away a 36.813.. sigh. This cone is going to give me PTSD.
The 36.813 would have moved me from 17th to 15th - still outside the challenge. However, as anyone who’s done a two day autox event knows, it’s not your finishing position on day 1, so much as it is your time gap on day 1. 36.813 would have left me .107 out of the challenge - a totally makeable gap. As it sits, I’m .299 out of 12th. And with everyone getting so many runs, people are eking out all their last tenths. There is absolutely zero margin for error and I errorerered big time.
The silver lining on this coney cloud is that I did get 95% of the run I needed to stay in the game when I needed it.
I'm going to do my best to send it tomorrow and maybe I can jump some people.
Last edited by Butt Dyno; Aug 23, 2024 at 06:52 PM.
Jul 29, 2024, 09:37 AM
Again, huge thanks to Brent for saving my event. 
