If you check this out, you'll see the winner of the 2011 and 2012 FMod National Championship. It's for sale, for the bargain basement price of $10,500. It's an amazing deal, especially considering that you get all their DA data! Bob, did you get to see this car this year?
So last week, on tuesday, I loaded up my friend's 89 Civic Si and we headed to Lincoln, NE for the 2012 Solo Nats. I've never been there, or done that so I was in for a shock. the sheer size of this event is unbelievable. 2 monster courses, 4 grids, 3.5 miles of paddock space and a test course all on one site.
Since I was bringing someone else's car, I ended up running a complete stranger's 2005 Corolla in STF against 56 bajillion time national champ Andy Hollis. I got destroyed, but I wasn't DFL. I was next to DFL!
Amazing that anyone would be ballsy enough to build something like this. Too bad it was too much of a competitive advantage and the rules were re-written to eliminate it from competition.
In fixing up the Escort so my younger son can learn to drive, I've started posting over on Ford Escort Owners Association.net. Seeing as how the Escort is a more popular car than the Elantra, there's a wealth of information over there- much of the same kinds of things as here- discussions on suspensions, power mods, etc.... and yeah, some guys race their Escorts.
I was toying with the idea of taking the Elantra out to a local autocross. I may do this, but realistically I don't want to abuse my daily driver that still has payments and a warranty. I kind of figured once I get the kids off my auto insurance in a few years, I would buy a dedicated autocrosser and fix it up for that purpose.
Then I started thinking.... you know Paul.... you already have a car you know well, you've been working with, has been reliable, etc.... sitting in the driveway.
While my son is driving it, I don't think I'll do anything too radical; certainly no power mods or anything like that.
But maybe I can start tuning the suspension, maybe start investigating better tires (maybe even different wheels)... stuff like that.
It has the disadvantage of being a wagon; the high profile and extra weight certainly won't help win any races. But on the other hand....
It's there.
It could be a good platform to teach myself the craft of modding for autocross, and actually going and running a few events. The big advantage it has over the Elantra is that junk yard parts are plentiful. In the one junk yard I went to last week, they had probably a dozen Gen 2 & Gen 3 Escorts (91 and later) which could supply me with just about any kind of replacement parts I would need. If I wanted to convert the AT to MT, there is a little red wagon just like mine in every way, except that it has the MT.
Thought I'd post this up. I'm not a big fan of Civics but this video shows how to go against the grain and just have fun with what you got. Beautifully edited and shot. Enjoy.
It's a "24-hour" endurance race where the cars have to be purchased for less than $500, in other words, piece-of-shit racing. Look it up.
For next year, there's an event less than two hours away from me, so I wonder.... how hard can it be? I can find running cars on Craigslist for $500. Actually you're allowed to subtract the sale price of any parts you sell, so you could go well over $500 and bring it down by selling unnecessary parts (e.g. seats), especially if the car is rare. Brakes, wheels/tires and exhaust are free, so you'd probably get good brake pads at least, and some sticky(?) tires. Also a roll cage is required, which I've found is going to be just under $1,000, and a racing seat, and the entry fees are $500 per team plus $100 per driver, with a minimum of 5 drivers. Between the car, the roll cage, seat, the fees, the tires and brakes... probably $3,000+ but split at least five ways if not six, it's not that bad. Also you're allowed to get sponsorships, just not for excluded parts, so Tire Rack, StopTech brakes, um.... Dunkin Donuts? If we do it, we'll have to do Autocross in the spring for a crash-course in driving, another few hundred bucks in fees, each.
There's several kinds of cars running for $1,000 or under around here. The inevitable early-90s Civics, Accords and Corollas, 80's GM sedans, lots of Neons, Jeep Cherokees (it's been done...) even old 70's cars in mediocre running condition. There's a handful of Porsche 944s in various states of non-running completeness as well. (One needs a wiring harness, ick) We have some tools; hopefully there's at least two or three of us now and 5-6 by the end to split the cost and labor of fixing these cars........ ..............how hard can it be?
Also, I should mention certain cars are getting to be frowned-upon. Like Miatas, and early-90's BMW 3-series that are apparently very very common boring choices. The organizers probably don't want a bunch of Miatas and BMW's at every event, so they pick and choose teams with interesting cars or interesting themes.
Rejoice rally fans! Years after Speed Channel dropped their WRC coverage (and my cable provider dropped SPEED too!) this Fall WRC will be available again, now on the Discovery HD network/channels/thing. As I understand it, "HD Theater" is the name for Discovery's set of HD channels including the Military Channel, Science Channel, Animal Planet, etc, which are the basic HD channels here.
"WRC programming will be shown weekly on HD Theater starting in October. As well as coverage from every round of the championship, a range of other features and news bulletins will be shown."
Now if only I knew what the heck is going on in WRC anymore.... Apparently Loeb won the first five rounds in a row, as usual, but hasn't scored much in the last few rallies. Hirvonen is now in the points lead by finishing second or third almost every time and there's only four rounds left, the last in October. Also the only manufacturers officially left are Ford and Citroen, although they sponsor five teams and a total of 16 drivers, but only 7 of them are competing for the whole championship, and there's a bunch of private teams with older WRC Subarus, Fords, Mitsubishis and Skodas. Gronholm retired and Solberg started his own team and is now driving a Citroen Xsara! wtf?
Next year's championship is the last with 2.0L Turbo engines. The 2011 rules limit displacement to 1.6L.
I know a lot of people here aren't NASCAR fans, but the two road races are great. It's interesting to watch these cars do something they were not built to do. Check out the race on TNT.
Ok yeah, I know they have ridiculous amounts of horsepower and hundreds of hairpin turns on a dirt road and basically no design restrictions, so they maximize downforce but.... Jesus, man just stop. The rear spoiler is a monstrosity already, the air vents on the grille, roof scoop and side scoops are ridiculous but the splitter poking into the next zip code.... does he have no shame? And what did he do to the front wheel arch? It's disjointed. What does this car have to do with the Suzuki SX4 anymore? And why are there so many photos of that ugly Japanese dude in the gallery?
Jun 4 2017, 04:36 PM
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