Post 9 Nov Event at SPC

[Loren]

Here's a quick video of some rapid launch.

Okay, that was kinda fun!

[Lava Speed 05]

Who had the go pro set up on the pin turn? I'd like to see that video... should be interesting with all the different approaches and people changing how they attacked it.

Sent from my DROID RAZR

[Loren]

That was Johnny, too. I expect that one will be really fun to watch, and possibly enlightening.

[Jeremy]

Fun course, minus the pin turn. Saw lots of synchro wear as expected. What I didn't expect was the torsen wear. Jason's miata was lifting a rear wheel as were many other torsen cars.

[twistedwankel]

Les' flash back to when he raced a Plymouth Laser AWD on dirt Rallies was a premonition to grip with any car having torque and a large turning radius.

Hope SPC gets another endowment for paving in the next couple years or I might have to go back to the 300 all season tires hanging in the garage.

I had alot of fun on this course "even more than normal" other than yelling "coming about" on that sail boat manuver in Shamu. Was even uglier than I remembered and almost hit the green cones coming out the first time. Oops.

I was impressed that Drew still won his class with the same wide turn issues while the clock kept running. Good job that.

Shelby Mike still owns S3 with a brilliant 1.6 second slaughter.

Memo to all you folks who turned down a Novice walk with Jamie and then proceeded to go off course repeatedly. The walk/talk was repeatedly offered. Drove harder than it looked and walked didn't it!! No one took that walk in the late session. Tsk. Tsk.

Well we eventually got them all straightened out I think? Good thing there were 6 runs.

[rrath]

Was wondering why there wasn't a Novice Walk in the late session... seems there would have been. I actually came to post how awesome it was that Jamie actually sought out us poor lost children and asked if we needed help. I wanna be like you when I grow up (more).
Also, this second time out I've discovered three important driver mods: 1) wide brimmed hat 2) Hawaiian shirt 3) facial hair.

[Native]

Steve gets top honors for the smoothest Driver's Meeting brief...

A great Saturday, certainly.

Thanks Tim. I do try to keep it short and of reasonable pace. I know we go over a lot of information, but it seems pertinent, necessary, and from experience we will continue to revise the script periodically. Like for instance, after yesterday, it seems that we probably need to remind people that when there is a stop box (or even if not), it is not all right to stay there while someone digs cones out from under your car. It happened several times yesterday, and at one point there were 3 cars stopped in the lane after the finish. Not safe. Go cone hunting in the grid or somewhere off to the side out of the way.

Yes, the novice walk was offered in the afternoon, at least twice and probably more. No takers. It's not mandatory but I agree with Doug's thoughts.

Regardless, I thought the day went along quite well. The morning session ran smooth like buttah and even though lunch was a little early, I think it worked out all right. Ironically, skipping the novice walk put us way ahead of schedule. After checking to make sure everyone who was supposed to be there was there, we went ahead and started the afternoon session 25 minutes ahead of schedule. Even though the afternoon didn't run quite as smoothly (due to a variety of issues that in and of themselves aren't a big deal), we still got everyone 6 runs and finished right on schedule.

My driving was average. I repeatedly was braking for turns that didn't need it, or braking too much, shifting at the wrong time, and taking the pin turn too wide. Kurtis got me by 2 thousandths - nice! The competition was close again - except for Tim - holy cow man you killed out there! Well done!

Thank you Les and everyone else who contributed! Everything came together quite nicely!



Oh, go here to offer feedback about an "advanced" driver school:
http://www.drivefast.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1734

[garage west]

Well done event, fellas!

[lddavis91]

Here's a quick video of some rapid launch. It's the first run group of the afternoon. I'll see if there's enough video to make a good enough edit f the event.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GKLtGFOQzQ

That's pretty cool, V8s sound even cooler, but even the four bangers sound kinda cool.

Sounds like not everyone hated the course too much, so that's good. Apparently I need to go back to school because I drove with my head firmly planted in my ass, I was not tidy at all, but it was a lot of fun. I actually don't think I lost my time on the "pin" turn though, I think I did okay with that on most of my runs, I actually seemed to have a harder time with the fast lane change on the back straight, oddly. I'll blame my poor times on my 2.5 year old, 100+ run tires, yep that's it. :-) Unfortunately my car is actually remarkably easy on tires and I can never get a set of V710s to "wear out" before I'm tired of them sucking and just buy new ones anyway, too bad they are so damn expensive, I think I'd have to drive these tires another 50-75 runs before they would actually show cord, not sure I can stand to wait that long. Instead I'm concocting some evil plans to get a fat set of these new super fast "street" tires people are running these days for the other car in my garage and running it in one of the M classes next year. I haven't run on any street tires since 2004 and I'm getting tired of getting my butt whipped by people running them and having to make excuses. Perhaps I might add a little forced induction....

[Jamie]

I actually came to post how awesome it was that Jamie actually sought out us poor lost children and asked if we needed help.

I can't take all the credit for that -- this club goes extra distance to look out for our newbies. Each group has someone who's supposed to be watching out for new folks needing help...in the afternoon, that happened to be me. There's always help available, though.

[jaball77]

Well, the changes I made to the car seem to have helped! More camber in the rear and wider wheels (same tires) made it much more stable and easy to drive. Congrats to Jeremy for putting a barely prepped Miata in 4th overall. Unfortunately my talent wasn't there and I trailed him by 25 hundreths....

Apparently I'm not capable of charging a camera so there's no video of our runs, sadly.

I think I need to burn off these Yokos and order some Rivals. Then maybe we'll have a chance at FTD.

[sharkwater]

Thanks everyone for an awesome event! And thanks Joe for the mentoring and letting me tag along a few times!

[The Spectacle]

I had a great time in the Yaris. Great reminder of how challenging and fun it is using the steering wheel.

[jaball77]

I actually came to post how awesome it was that Jamie actually sought out us poor lost children and asked if we needed help.

I can't take all the credit for that -- this club goes extra distance to look out for our newbies. Each group has someone who's supposed to be watching out for new folks needing help...in the afternoon, that happened to be me. There's always help available, though.

Do they mention the instructors during the driver's meeting? I don't remember... It would help to mention they're available, and also to encourage noobs to ride with other drivers, even if they don't want an instructor with them. I'm not the best passenger seat instructor, but I'm always willing to take passengers on my runs!

[twistedwankel]

[ Perhaps I might add a little forced induction....

Even More power at SPC without AWD and huge rims is unlikely to be a satisfying outcome

A little red Yaris doing his 3rd event ever was nearly as fast as Shamu...ouch.

[lddavis91]

[ Perhaps I might add a little forced induction....

Even More power at SPC without AWD and huge rims is unlikely to be a satisfying outcome

The force induction wouldn't be for the vette, I built that motor with normal aspiration in mind hence the 11.8:1 compression ratio, not boost friendly. And it doesn't *need* any more power, certainly not for autocross anyway. I'm talking about the other car in my garage, not that it "needs" more power for autcross either, but even with boost it will still likely be significantly less powerful than the vette. Now I just gotta figure out if I can effectively fit 315s on all four corners, research is leading me to believe the answer is yes...

[rrath]

I actually came to post how awesome it was that Jamie actually sought out us poor lost children and asked if we needed help.

I can't take all the credit for that -- this club goes extra distance to look out for our newbies. Each group has someone who's supposed to be watching out for new folks needing help...in the afternoon, that happened to be me. There's always help available, though.

Do they mention the instructors during the driver's meeting? I don't remember... It would help to mention they're available, and also to encourage noobs to ride with other drivers, even if they don't want an instructor with them. I'm not the best passenger seat instructor, but I'm always willing to take passengers on my runs!

Yeah, Steve did in the late session. SPC taught me that I should definitely start with an instructor.

[ExecutiveHydra]

I had both Mike Murdoch and Jim Swayne ride in my car as instructors (both Mustang guys, so of course this was perfect for me) and it was extremely helpful. Just being yelled at to "LOOK FORWARD! GOGOGO! BRAKE! TIGHTER TO THE CONE!" took seconds off my time. I also had Drew Scoda drive my car in an instructor run to show me how well my car was able to do (he drove it over a second faster than my fastest time.) The FAST instructors are great, and very helpful. I just had to stop being shy and go up and ask them for help.

[twistedwankel]

[quote="lddavis91] Now I just gotta figure out if I can effectively fit 315s on all four corners, research is leading me to believe the answer is yes...[/quote]

Pretty sure The Baron stuffed some antique 315s on 10" rims on his last bondo Stang that had so much plastic and drift he traded it for a boat. He says he's close to bringing his next Frankenstein 99 back to shock and awe us in S3 soon. That's assuming he can get the Miata's surgical precision handling out of his mind?

[Vash350z]

Definitely a fun course, hairpin was really tricky!