Post Brooksville 1/4 Event

[Solar]

I can only speak for the AM group but it was another fun FAST event. It's been a while since I've run and was pretty happy with my driving.

For me there were 3 critical areas that I found that had to be entered just right, or I would blow the rest of my run. The first was entering the first slalom, if had my speed right (slowish) I could make a ton of speed through it to the "Valrico box" (?) . Then setting up the turn around to be lined up for the left side slalom was crucial for me so I could enter the sweepers properly. The last was making my self give up some speed on the last sweeper, if I did it right I could line myself straight to flat foot the last slalom right to the finish.

It was nice to see some familer faces again, and looking forward to seeing everyone again out there on the 25th. So get registered !

[ExecutiveHydra]

I had a ton of fun. I had issues with the first slalom, the turn around, and then the last sweeper getting slowed down enough. Here is a video of one of my runs, not sure which, but this was the first event I was able to use the GoPro at!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNni9adz5NM

Now noticeable is I put the wrong date on the video. Too late now. Been up (just like a lot of you all) since 5:30am lol. I'm tired!

[Tim_M]

Excellent event once again.

Course was a challenge and as Brian mentioned...some tricky areas which was fun. Quick too...deep into 3rd gear on three sections...I'm not used to shifting during an autocross!

Amazing how quickly one can go thru the offset slalom with little steering input-I thought I tagged most of the cones-expansion joints give the same effect.

The firmer sport springs and increased camber made for a more entertaining ride...

Apologies for starting the Novice Walk late...I take the blame for starting the day 10 minutes late!

6 runs was very welcome.

Love the soundtrack/moves of the screaming yellow Corvette...and it was a treat taking a seat in the passenger side of several novice cars. Not often do you get a ride in a 2 week old 1LE Camaro...

See you next time!

[Boozshey]

Had a great time as well. Need to really learn these "street tires" though. First time this car has had them since it was modded into a designated race car. Not sure if it's really set up for them though.

But I still had a blast!

Here are my first and last runs...

http://youtu.be/Q4paHouOZUo

http://youtu.be/cX9ulz7Gfas

[Shifterracer]

This being my first time at Brooksville, and seeing the course map, I was afraid I would be greeted by a slow and tight course. I was pleasantly surprised that the course was a challenge and FUN!! As always GREAT job guys!

Now for my driving...which was rusty with being away for the past couple of months. I also have another excuse After spending the last 8 years driving/racing mustangs, and some other foreign cars mixed in, it's going to take me a little longer to get use to the new 1LE Camaro. It's just a bigger car than I'm use to, so I was playing it pretty safe with the cones. I also wasted three 3 runs relearning the course, and not the new car I was just looking WAY to far ahead and missed the left hand slalom twice, then took it REAL slow on my 4th run to get my marks corrected Overall happy to be less than a second behind Murdoch. With some more seat in a completely foreign car, I hope to be able to close that cap.

I was able to pull two runs from my new video/data setup, but it's not what I wanted (no gropro footage). The one run I wanted to get, my phone decided it didn't want to work I think one of the below runs was my 1st (not sure if I had turned off the TC and stability fully), and the second video I think is my 4th run.

http://youtu.be/xDyhLsjjZbM
http://youtu.be/QB4WUdc2myU

Can't wait for the next event! See you guys in February!

[garage west]

Loads of fun at Brooksville today! Very entertaining course! Thanks to Ron for letting me steal his car from the driveway in his absence.

Big thanks to everyone who pitched in to make teardown happen quickly and in an orderly fashion. Super cool!

[twistedwankel]

Wow.
I couldn't stop thanking Loren enough for this course and Drew for freezing their butts to put this course together.

It was 39F at dawn. Max temp I saw for the day was 66F. with a steady SEasterly breeze to keep one alert.

I offered $50 for a rerun to have hot tires with no takers on my bribe. Jeremy (for free) with the luck of the Gator helmet got a rerun after 3 downed cones and finding a downed cone to stop for at the 1/2 point on his final run to get as I predicted: "FTD" will be a rerun:) We didn't need more than 5 runs either!! I had to buy gas on the way home as it was.

In all fairness Jeremy was in the 49's three times but dirty twice. He remains an alien. Someone mentioned "souless"...hahahaha. You have to love the take no prisoners attitude during competition.

This was the tightest racing I've seen in some time. Big classes all within tenths in the first 4 places. This course had to easily be a full mile w/ wiggle? Wow. Bring out the horse linement for the shoulders tonite and the brewskis for the ticker test.

Thanks all for a great day of good clean racing.

**If you ended up unusually behind me today consider a new set of Koni Yellows (lifetime guarantee if you're over 60) in your future.

The Mayor

[Loren]

Whew! What a long day!

I'll take a little credit for some of the things that went right today, and all of the blame for anything that went wrong. Overall, things went pretty well. The course itself was lifted directly from the Porsche Club's December event (but I was told that Mark based his course on one of OUR old courses, so I guess I was just bringing it full circle), and then mirror-imaged and slightly tweaked. What I didn't realize at the PCA event (one tends to not pay as much attention to such things when one is not responsible for the event) was that it was a VERY "inefficient" course. The fact that they had a lot fewer entries than we did masked that fact from me. By "inefficient", I mean that the amount of time required between launching each car was very long... on the order of 35-40 seconds. Then again, I can't really say that THEIR course was inefficient. It may have actually been okay because it was faster. THIS course was significantly slowed down on the first half, which would contribute directly to the problem.

What's that mean? Well, if you're running 25 cars through 5 runs with a start interval of 25 seconds (what we usually strive for), you can finish that run group in 52 minutes. If the start interval stretches to 35 seconds, it takes 73 minutes... that's right, a difference of over 20 minutes! A huge oversight on my part this time.

Couple that with the fact that it was cold, and everyone is still in relaxed and lazy "Christmas vacation" mode... which I partially blame for us getting started late and being a little slow to recover from things like timing issues and such... all added up to both the morning and the afternoon sessions running late.

My dumb decision to do 6 runs in the morning (because we had so few drivers and I thought we could get away with it) coupled with starting a full 30 minutes late caused the morning to run a little long. (but not too long) We were back on schedule starting the afternoon session right at about 2:05. But, even after rectifying the 6-run mistake (instead choosing to do 5), the inefficiency of the course really cost us a lot of time.

In the end, we wrapped up the event (with the trailer fully packed and put to bed, awards presented and everyone headed out the gate) right before sundown, about 50 minutes behind schedule, a bit before 6pm. Not TOO bad, I guess. But, I don't want to make a habit of being that late. Y'all know me, I much prefer to be ahead of schedule.

Come to think of it, I was missing all of my apexes today, too. Go figure.

But, y'all don't really care about any of that, you want to see the event results, huh?

Congrats to Mayor Doug for Kicking my butt! And to Grape Bimmer drivin' Jesse for kicking Doug's butt!

[Solar]

Here's my vid of my best run today, I believe it was 54.5. After watching it I think I left a few tenths out there.

http://youtu.be/UPMOLpqgTPE

[Loren]

Here are the results!

Thanks to everyone who helped make this event a success! Hope to see most of you at the FAST Classic on the 25th.

[Solar]

Loren, I wasn't there for the afternoon event, but come on, not every event is going to go like clock work. I'm guessing most people aren't going to complain they got many runs on a long fast and fun course. It wasn't very warm today, but it wasn't HOT and it didn't rain; to me, that makes for a great day of autocrossing !

[Loren]

Yeah, I know. As far as days to run late on, it was a pretty good one.

I still prefer to be ahead of schedule, and will strive to do so in the future.

[Lava Speed 05]

Woo I got STD without even finishing the course. Thanks Ben for coming over and helping me work out the issue and Loren for pointing out the obvious so that I don't have that issue again. Almost two years auto crossing like that I guess my luck was gonna run out some day. The car is running fine now after throwing the flag on that unintentional grounding. :-/

Sent from my DROID RAZR

[Jeremy]

Fun Course. My apologies to the course workers for hitting a lot of cones. Going from a Mustang to a Miata isn't easy.

[jaball77]

I'm not sure how he did it, but Jeremy managed to clobber everyone (including me) and took FTD by two full seconds.

So apparently I can build FTD cars, but not drive them.

Here's his last and fastest run for you to dissect.

(Just mute the audio... it's useless!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-vy474zl5c

[Loren]

Be straight with us, Jason. You sped that video up.

[puncturina]

Another round of thanks for a great event. Wish we could have had 6 runs in the pm too, but no complaints about not having to get up at the crack of dawn and freeze my butt off for that extra run in the morning!

The course didn't look that interesting on paper, but it sure was fun to drive.

See everyone at the Classic!

[garage west]

Fun Course. My apologies to the course workers for hitting a lot of cones. Going from a Mustang to a Miata isn't easy.

Well, you certainly make it *look* easy.

[Jamie]

I'm not sure how he did it, but Jeremy managed to clobber everyone (including me) and took FTD by two full seconds.

If I'm watching the video right, he went to third at the first slalom, and never shifted back to second? Including through the turnaround?!

Woo I got STD without even finishing the course.

Are we stocking penicillin in the first aid kit now?

You missed a good one, Jamie!

Couldn't be helped...far too much to do this weekend, so no play time. I'm hoping to make the 25th, but even that's not nailed down yet. Will figure it out this week.

[Solar]

Woo I got STD without even finishing the course.

Might want to think about seeing a doctor..


just joking of course, but I couldn't resist