Da Groj

Wow, results posted and no comments. Thank you Ben for slowing Ron. Ha! Good to see so many new faces today, I really miss the St Pete site. I was proud of my son's driving today, second time auto crossing.

Awesome event today, despite taking a little longer than expected to get our four runs in during the morning session. Ron said no whining unless you're in M2. But, I feel like I have to point out the S1 finishes with 2nd, 3rd, and 8th best times of the day. Pretty tough competition for us un-modified guys!

Great weather, lunch, and most of a figure 8, what more can you ask for on a weekend?

Thanks for the outstanding competition, see you all next month!

TD

Yeah 4 runs was kind of a bummer, the biggest "complaint" would be the down time between runs, but all that being said it was still a really fun day !

There was some really close times, I missed out on first by .006 of a second in M3, and I believe Greg was just .008 behind first in his class. Good to see some of the students out there from the last school having a good time, and a few true green people running for the first time having a blast.

Go Lightning !

The course and conditions were fun and challenging after months and months of airport concrete.

Good times!

Edit: special thanks to the course workers that cleaned up the carnage when things got, erm, out of shape on my last run.

Whew... Another great event! Haven had a blast and was faster each run. (51 was her first and 46 was her fastest) GO BABE!!! She said "It is more fun to drive than ride."[emoji1]
Thanks to all who made this happen.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

As has been mentioned, the Results have been posted!

Thanks to everyone who came out and had some fun, and especially those who stuck around late to help us pack up. 108 drivers were registered, 107 of them were present. That gave us 27-car run groups, which is a LOT! That's part of what limited us to 4 runs. The rest just comes down to us figuring out what we can and can't do with this odd-shaped parking lot. This was only our 4th event at Tampa Bay Downs. Compare to Brooksville where we've been holding events for 7+ years, and SPC where we spent 10+ years. We'll figure this one out and start churning out courses that are more "efficient" than this one was. You can't deny that it was a fun course, though!

Where are all the photos and videos???

Here's the video from my best run. Appreciate any tips/pointers, other than "what the heck are your hands doing there?".

https://youtu.be/vkvdpBz-6Ig

Thanks,
TD

Interesting camera angle. I'd say that you're not close enough to most of the cones. You're a foot off of the slalom cones and a foot off of the entry side of the figure 8. The "simple" apexes you were better on, like the apex of the "turn-around" sweeper and the last turn.

Loren wrote:As has been mentioned, the Results have been posted!

Thanks to everyone who came out and had some fun, and especially those who stuck around late to help us pack up. 108 drivers were registered, 107 of them were present. That gave us 27-car run groups, which is a LOT! That's part of what limited us to 4 runs. The rest just comes down to us figuring out what we can and can't do with this odd-shaped parking lot. This was only our 4th event at Tampa Bay Downs. Compare to Brooksville where we've been holding events for 7+ years, and SPC where we spent 10+ years. We'll figure this one out and start churning out courses that are more "efficient" than this one was. You can't deny that it was a fun course, though!

Where are all the photos and videos???

Great course!!! I should have my pics and videos sorted tonight, about 15 videos but over 600 pictures to sort through...

Sheesh. I'm getting faster, but so is everyone else in M2! 4th fastest street tired car and still only 2nd in class! Someday I'll actually get a class win...someday. I had a chance today with no Chris Hammer, but it was not to be...

I liked the course a lot. It's such a departure from our Brooksville courses that it was tough for me to get a handle on. I feel like I left about a half second out there... Congrats to Joe Vance for laying the smack down on the S2ks and NCs! Very impressive.

Loren wrote:Interesting camera angle. I'd say that you're not close enough to most of the cones. You're a foot off of the slalom cones and a foot off of the entry side of the figure 8. The "simple" apexes you were better on, like the apex of the "turn-around" sweeper and the last turn.

+1. Even though the camera couldn't see the cones, I got the impression you were wide on the last half of the figure 8 as well. Plus overdriving the turn - listen to the tires. Most turnarounds like that are always "slow down to go fast", especially when the available grip goes down.

And what were your hands doing there?

I watched it with the sound off, so I didn't hear anything.

The second half of the figure 8 was, by the way, a decreasing radius turn. It wasn't intentional. It was initially set up a bit too close to the tree in the corner, so we moved that side in by about 10 feet rather than moving the whole thing. Trying to accelerate through that turn would have been an exercise in futility. I'm kinda sad that there was a big fence keeping us from seeing how many people got bitten by that.

had a blast!

Can't wait to get back to TBD for another outstanding course, but I'm gonna have to have a little talk with the timing equipment so it doesn't sabotage my best run It had to pick *that* run to have a brain freeze? A very conservative estimate from video puts it at ~ 42.23s for that unofficial gallop... So on top of the 1st go getting buggered up by at-the-starting-line course comment/instruction (which stuck with me through the first 2 turns and had me on the wrong side of the wall before the slalom) and then the equipment pigeon picking me to poop on, I'm ready for my re-match, like, right now... that is, after I finish my post AX bottle of vino. One more glass and this all will really be funny.

FF

friskyflea wrote:Can't wait to get back to TBD for another outstanding course, but I'm gonna have to have a little talk with the timing equipment so it doesn't sabotage my best run It had to pick *that* run to have a brain freeze? A very conservative estimate from video puts it at ~ 42.23s for that unofficial gallop... So on top of the 1st go getting buggered up by at-the-starting-line course comment/instruction (which stuck with me through the first 2 turns and had me on the wrong side of the wall before the slalom) and then the equipment pigeon picking me to poop on, I'm ready for my re-match, like, right now... that is, after I finish my post AX bottle of vino. One more glass and this all will really be funny.

FF

Im guessing you're noticing how those new struts and shocks are helping. If you could shed a little more weight off your Fit, you will be right as rain.

Cool avatar too !

Joe, Alex love those short 2nd gear courses in their old cars where they don't run out of rpm against the other long legged cars:) Fantastic. Alex good move on that GT - 400+HP is required in S3 without factory trick suspensions!!

Tony you did great against those 3 top drivers in their top end fully sorted dedicated autocross cars.

Just to make you all happy I've given a rotten Spanish (?) head cold to most of Southern UK and we are heading to Greece Monday to watch the Euro fall or the Greek revolution? Will have 3 currencies to cover all possible options.

Top speed so far is 22kts which I think is 25mph? Turning/parking radius is awesome with bow and aft turbines.

Will use aircraft Monday for change of pace. No German pilots tho'. See you all in June.

The Mayor

Solar wrote: If you could shed a little more weight off your Fit, you will be right as rain.

Brian, you should know by now, you never tell a girl that her Fit is fat.

With the huge number of novice driver and a sold out event I must say great job to the organizers and instructors for making the event run so smoothly.

Pictures:
https://www.flickr.com/gp/133057342@N05/ui6Ah2
This link should work, please tell me if the pictures are "blocked" for some crazy reason.
As with all the pictures I post here, feel free to use them if you like them. A lot of the morning run group 1 pictures didn't turn out thanks to me messing with the camera. Regardless it was still one of the most fun times I have had taking pictures.

I had a blast driving the course even though I couldn't get a good time. The surface was great and the layout made for a great "flow" when driving it. After watching my videos I see that I wasn't "really" messing any particular section, I was just making many small mistakes that killed my time ( late all over, not braking right etc ). Still, even with a great run with no cones I can't see how I could have done better than that 41.5~

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVNc40VnfUo

Maybe someone can watch the video and tell me what I was really doing wrong

Now that I've had some sleep, a few more things to comment on from this event.

On the list of people we all should be thanking are the guys who put extra effort into blowing and sweeping the sand off of the course! I know Johnny and Nate were involve in that, but there were probably some others, as well. Thanks!

On the gripey side, if you ever double-register for an Open event, remember that you can't keep the same car number for both sessions! You're running in your normal class in the morning and in the Fun class in the afternoon. Different classes requires different numbers. Without that, the results get all messed up.

On the even more gripey side, in spite of announcing at every single driver's meeting EVER to not make us come looking for you for your work assignment, not hold up the event, etc... and in spite of announcements throughout the day that we were running late and needed to accomplish our worker changeover as QUICKLY as possible, someone saw fit to wander off to the parking lot and try to reinstall their stereo instead of reporting for their work assignment! As it turned out, we NEEDED THEM. They were a corner captain, and the entire event was waiting on them to show up and we had no idea where they were. Steve finally went hunting for him in the parking lot and found him, and he still seemed more intent on messing with his stereo than getting out to his work assignment. Don't be that guy!!! He's going to be on our shit list for a long time. Unfortunately for him, he has a memorable name and we won't forget.

Otherwise, it really was a great day! Things went smoothly in spite of each run group running 30 minute long. As always, it takes a concerted effort of a lot of people to pull off an event as smoothly as this. (if we had more people like "that guy" above, it could never happen!) So, thanks to everyone for making it happen.

Oh, someone left a really nice digital tire pressure gauge on the front of the trailer. I have it in my truck. PM me if you think it's yours.

And I seem to have lost something, myself. Has anyone seen my talent? I used to have some. Can't seem to find it now!

Carracer wrote:Still, even with a great run with no cones I can't see how I could have done better than that 41.5~

I was a little off my game yesterday, but I only ran a 41.3. I would expect your car on worn out Azenis to be a good half-second slower. In other words, I wouldn't have expected to do better than 41.5 in your car.

Watching your video, it's hard to tell from that angle, but you may be holding some distance from some of the cones. Particularly the skidpad turns.

There are places where you're over-driving, and place where you're under-driving. You may have been setting up too much for the first left sweeper. The entry apex was a false apex, but I feel you might have been taking your setup too far and just adding distance. On the exit of that turn, you often cranked the wheel too hard and initiated understeer... and then ended up with a foot or so of extra space to the cone wall on the outside. Why not just turn a little less and AIM for the cone wall on the outside? Use all of the course when you need to.

The exit of the figure 8, probably about 2/3 of the way around, you could start getting away from the cones and getting on the gas. Staying tight all the way around not only delayed throttle application, but put you on a bad line for the next sequence. Going a little wider out there gave you a better angle to late apex that next green cone.

Through the S turn, you seem tentative, and then you probably didn't set up enough to be able to carry max speed through the final turn.

I think you could have been in the low 42's or high 41's without too much trouble.

Some courses can be called "punish/reward" courses. You have to put up with some hard braking and/or tight maneuvers to get to the faster and looser stuff. (sometimes airstrip courses are this way in an effort to keep their top speed under control) This course was more of a "risk/reward" course. The course itself wasn't difficult, but there were cone walls to hit on the outside of most of the turns, and they were a little bit close this time. (I didn't even take the time to pace them off this time, I usually aim for a minimum of 20-25 feet, these may have been slightly closer than that) So, to be fast, you had to be willing to "risk" wiping out that wall of cones if you got loose. I think that's what made me slow on this course. I knew the grip was iffy, so I wasn't taking the risk.