Well my local auto-x club has been working with one of the worlds best road courses. We have been granted the opportunity to run, not on the track, but on there go-kart track. This is a world renowned track that not many people get to see, and let alone race. I will put a link to fvscc thread so you can see the dates we have. I know it a long drive for most of you but this will be an awesome event.
Been a while.... long story short, I still have my Elantra GT now with 155k+ miles. It has a few minor issues like a spot of rust on the hatch door, a broken third gear synchro and a sunroof that doesn't know when to stop. But I still take care of it; just installed pads and rotors all the way around (StopTech kit with slotted front rotors!), changed the oil, etc, and I take it out now and then.
Five years ago I got a 2011 Volkswagen GTI DSG and kept the Elantra because the GTI wasn't so rock-solid reliable, had a tiny trunk, and because the DSG, turbo and throttle lag got on my nerves enough that I still wanted to drive a N/A stickshift Elantra once or twice a week. Well a year ago I finally had enough of the DSG and started shopping for used manual-transmission GTIs. But... then I drove a '15 GTI manual and... oh damnit. So now I have a '15 GTI manual with the performance pack and several more years of car payments left. It's bone stock because it came with 220hp, 258lb-ft and a limited-slip diff, I'm happy and not crazy enough to want more.
A few months ago I started thinking that it's probably time to sell my Elantra. It doesn't get used enough to justify it aging in my driveway, or the registration and insurance costs and I generally don't need/want two cars anymore. So after some pondering, last week I finally....uh... bought a third car.
This is where it gets a little weird / sidetracked... I came across an auction for a 2000 Volvo V70 SE, abandoned at an airport, going for $150, which seemed obscenely low even for a FWD automatic in 'unknown' condition, so I bid like $250 and I was pretty surprised to win the auction at $206. I rented a U-Haul with a tow dolly, recruited a friend and got the lump home. To make a long story short... well, not that short: someone installed the wrong kind of battery in it and decided to install the battery on its side. There was battery acid everywhere. It degraded the plastic transmission selector linkage, and sitting in a parking lot for an extended period corroded the selector lever enough that it was stuck and broke the linkage the next time someone tried to pull it out of Park. They probably figured Car Value < New Transmission or racked up enough parking fines to forfeit the car. Who knows. Anyway it turned out to start, run and even drive (sort of) once the linkage was fixed and a new battery installed. I drove it to the inspection station where it failed miserably: broken front sway bar links, worn ball joints, worn brake rotors, leaking CV boots, broken exhaust hangers, missing exhaust tip, dim headlamps, burned tag light, broken engine mounts, the 3-4 shift flares when warm... so... sure, it's not worth getting fixed. ("Did you just buy this? You should try to return it..." -Inspector) But is it worth fixing myself? I haven't done ball joints before but everything else seems pretty feasible. The shift flare seems like a $30 part and an hour of work rather than a rebuild kind of problem. The best part is, if you read the rules, ball joints, brakes, exhaust repairs and all the not-race-related bulbs are exempt from the $500 total limit for 24 Hours of Lemons cars.
Something that I've noticed my last few trips out to Waterford Hills to watch the racing...
The Big Bore group includes some really fast cars and produces a lot of quality racing. Normally on the front row are these 2 cars (both SCCA T1 prepped):
A C6 Corvette and an M3. Sometimes they're out there like this:
And sometimes they're out there like this:
As often as not, the M3 is on the pole, so it's definitely got some speed to it. If he can get just a little bit of breathing room, he can get a win. But if that C6 gets a run out of Big Bend and down the back straight, it's over. The torque the 'Vette is putting out is just too much for that I6 motor to deal with. I'll grant you, the guy driving the C6 is pretty fast (he just broke the T1 track record at Gingerman, and I think he might even have the record at Mid-Ohio... upon further review he does, National Corvette Museum track as well), but all he needs is a small gap and a good run and you can put it on the board.
So like they say, horsepower sells cars, but torque wins races.
Today was the first race of the year. Took the elantra out for it first time. I do have to say I'm impressed with the car. With the wheels and tires it puts me in stf . Other then that it's stock. The car is very neutral, pushes a bit then the rear comes around. Really need a bit more power, just can't get out of the corner. More to come.....
from there started the local events. Was doing well.... won a few, came in second etc.
Match tour rolled into town on the 4th of July weekend and I sucked. Hard. Got beat by someone I knew I'd see in a couple months at Nationals by over 2 seconds. He just flat out-drove me. Next local event I got beat down by another local. Great kid. Can't be mad at him. Sure, I could make excuses about new tires etc.... but the reality is I sucked. I soon found out WHY....
A couple weeks before Nats, we had a 2 day event at Grissom on Concrete. It was a multi-region event (FtWayne, INR, Columbus, Indy, South Bend) were all present and it drew in a lot of competitors for a concrete refressher for nats coming in 2 weeks. Day one... I got killed. Ran last heat, went home and looked at the vids and realized everything my brain said was happening, wasn't. So Sunday, I came back and recalibrated the noggin....
I beat the kid that had beat me a few weeks back and closed the gap on Adam (national competitor) down to 4 tenths of a second on a 60-second course. Came in second of 6 that day. Not bad.
Drove the car out to Lincoln, had a great time. Ran early (tues/weds). Had to stand on my first run of the day as I coned the last two. That put me in 15th of 25. Take away the cone on my second run, and that pushed me to 9th. D'OH!
Second day is on the big course. Horsepower ruled and I had the most powerful car in class... or if not damn close. Go out and had an OK first run. Go out on #2, and as I'm coming into the finish something feels wrong, hit the brakes, the left front corner dives and I slide. FUCK! Still improved my time, but not much. Go out my third run and the car felt terrible, I drove even worse. That night we found the problem. LEft front strut blew. So I cranked it up on rebound, made the rattle go away and have been driving it like that since. Ended up dropping two spots to 17th. Had I kept clean day one I would have been 12th.
This past sunday is our points event #6. I've held onto the overall points lead for the region for the last 3 events. The people behind me had made up ground and I'd resigned myself to the fact that I would lose it after this event. I go out... have fun and destroyed everyone in my class (6), had FTD PAX for the first 2 heats, and ended up 5th of 114. BEst of all, I beat BOTH people behind me. Now, I still won't win, but the worst I can do now is 4th, best is 2nd.
I have several vids up on FB in the IndySCCA page. Also lots of pics on mine (Bob Miller). Won't let me repost them here. Not sure if this will work or not, but try this link: http://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=102037...2118&type=3
So, finally almost healed up from my 2nd hernia surgery (surgery 4-1-14) and drove the 3 hours to Wilmington, OH for the first national event of the year, and my first overall event. Still sore, and moving slowly while taking pain meds at night, I wasn't 100% but there was no way I was missing it!
got there Friday the 11th, got the car setup and went out on the Test n Tune course. Got some things sorted and readjusted myself to the car. The concrete there is super grippy (more on that later) and super smooth. Once the TnT closed in the early afternoon, they got the main course set up and got a few walks in. The first 1/3-1/2 was a tight and technical section. The last 1/2 was a pure power course.
Cars in the class for the weekend included the Forte with 2 drivers, a mini with 2 very competent drivers (Already won the first 2 Nat events this year) and a Mazda 2. We were giving up 200lbs on the mini and 400 on the 2, but we were putting down 60 and 70 more hp/tq respectively.
Saturday, we ran second heat. temp was in the mid-60's and sunny with a stiff breeze. Car started out strong, running the almost mile long course in 70 seconds on our first runs. I never got faster, co-driver though found another 2.4 seconds getting it down to a 68.2. That would have been enough for 2nd in class, but he caught a cone in the slalom to kill it. So we ended up 3-4 in class.
Sunday was the shootout with 1 practice run and one timed run with the top 2/3 moving on. After our first timed runs we were 6th and 16th. This day I cut down the time difference to less than a second but I was still leaving a crap ton of time on the course. We moved on to the second round. Co-driver catches the 3rd cone in the slalom, kills his time and puts him 19th (top 17 move on). I catch 2 cones in the slalom trying to make up lost time moving me to last of the remaining people. So our day was done.
Some interesting things happened this weekend. The concrete was so sticky, that my previous tire pressures were allowing the tire to roll over onto the sidewall. This had never happened before. Once we bumped up our pressures in the front end, turn in became so much quicker and more responsive (the main reason I nailed both cones on my last run) and we recorded our highest lateral G's. Steady state in the sweepers we were recording 1.1G. Our peak mid corner was 1.4G. The last 2 runs I was into the rev limiter entering the final 7-cone slalom at 63mph.
Overall the weekend went well. I am still really sore. Walked almost 10 miles in the course of the weekend. Considering I haven't done anything in almost 2 weeks, that wore me out. But the car showed me just how capable it was and I learned some new things about it and my setup. Overall a very good weekend.
A lights-and-sound recreation of Senna's qualifying lap from the 1989 Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka, taken from the car's telemetry data. Back in the days when the cars didn't even have sequential shifters, much less the silly paddles they have now.
A friend of a friend posted a picture of my old 1991 Ford Festiva that I campaigned to 2 Detroit Region SCCA Solo2 (driving the Wayback machine) championships in H Stock. The only "enhancments" to the car were a Supertrapp muffler (clearly visible under the bumPer) and some 13"x5.5" American Racing wheels with Yokohama A008RSII tires in 185/60R13. Proof you can beat a 63 bhp (heh) car really hard and have fun doing it. Man do I miss those days.
So last week I spent with 1100 of my friends driving around cones on a massive slab ofConcrete in Lincoln, NE. I towed out my friends STC Civic while he and his co-driver drove out the SooperKia. They ran tues/weds while I ran thurs/fri. Great time, lots of sun, lots of people/cars and awesomeness.
So, I went expecting the SooperKia to be towards the bottom of the heap. Car is woefully unprepared with just the custome springed K-sports and a rear sway bar added. Stock engine, Stock exhaust, stock tune etc.
Our first course was the extremely long East course. It was a tick over a mile long. long straights and super tight turns. I knew my power advantage would help me here. There were a few "man up and hang on moments". I ended day one 15th of 25. Day two was on the shorter West Course.It had a lot more transitions. It was the kind of course that the smaller cars like the Mini and Mazda2 should have had an advantage on. After first runs I was sitting in 3rd because of all the cones being nailed. I ended up moving up 2 spots to 13th on day two. was .680 out of 10th and 1.4 out of trophies at 7th. Car had the top 10 finish in it, the driver did not.
All in all I am extremely happy with our first time out. I am looking forward to next year when we get a little more prep and a little more seat time in the car.
The 81st 24 Hours of Le Mans started at 4 p.m. GMT (I do believe) with the Audi team heavily favored to win for the 3rd year in a row. Looks like they're leading pretty handily at the moment.
Also, big news at the event: Vipers are back and it looks like they've got enough to hang with the Corvettes.
First auto-x Sunday, and a brand new thing we are calling the "Drag Cross" (think SCCA Pro-solo without the lights or convoluted bracketing). Pretty awesome. Pics:
Wow, I was just reading this article and it is insane to think that the guy walked away after looking at the pics of the car. It certainly is a testament to having the proper safety equipment. This is also why I get pissed off at idiots flying down the highway at well over 120 MPH, swerving in between lanes with stock brakes, tires and suspension. One little false move and that's all she wrote. Thankfully for this guy, the safety equipment was just as impressive as the car! RIP Camaro
Few weekend race events have grown quite as quickly as the Texas Mile, a twice-a-year run down a 1.5-mile airstrip in Beeville, Texas, that lets tuners push their creations to 200 mph and beyond. One of the stars of the past couple of years has been a fourth-generation Chevy Camaro, tuned by a Houston shop into a twin-turbo monster that hit 263 mph last October, claiming the mantle of America's fastest Camaro. This year, the team returned to the Mile last weekend with some 2,800 hp — and found that the engineering they'd put into safety features paid off when the car went off track, rolled several times and caught fire.
The Camaro, built by KP Racing in Houston, was powered by a 441-cu-in V-8, which the team overseen by Kelly Bise had cranked to about 2,800 hp. While last October's run of 263.2 mph went off without drama, two years ago the Camaro had gone sideways at the end of the runway after hitting 244 mph:
According to witnesses, driver Joe Huneycutt was halfway through the run when it veered off the runway. "The car must have done at least 8 barrel rolls before coming to a stop, then it caught on fire," KP Racing said in a Facebook post. "Pretty scary for those of us attending the event."
Fortunately, despite the car's destruction, Honeycutt suffered only a concussion and several cuts and bruises, and was released from the hospital shortly after the crash, a testament to the roll cage built by John Harrison of Specialty Metal Craft and HANS neck-protection device Honeycutt wore. All involved say the crash won't deter them from returning to the Mile in search of even faster speeds — and ample proof that safety devices can keep such fun from turning fatal.
Jun 4 2017, 04:36 PM
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