Da Groj

First race in M2 in the bag. I feel off. Not sure if I need time to get acclimated to the changes, or rusty from not doing enough races lately, or if I am just sucking. I left pretty frustrated but as I get home and see the times I did better than I thought. I feel myself falling back into overdriving. Lost some finesse it seems, but I'm satisfied I guess. Absolutely love the new Hawk 5.0 pads and fresh bleed. The braking feel is EONS better than stock. Like massively better. Sorry I had to bail before teardown but I have to work for the rest of the day.

Huge shout out to Aaron with the fantastic driving he displayed today. And Andrew, he was so dead on in the slaloms. It was a thing of beauty.

Also, I have some pictures. Only the first run group though Ill try to get them up tomorrow.

M2 is going to be a crazy town this season. 4 of the top 10 from M2 including 1 and 2.

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I got my ass kicked and worked during the super long second run group but I still had a ton of fun.

Standouts were Aaron Andrew and Ron. They did so good, it was great to watch.

Thanks to Matt for some seat time to learn my new ride for the season. With some new tires on the way and additional seat time, we'll see how long it takes me to tame the beast that is a modified mazdaspeed mx5. Season old rs4s are really the only excuse I have other than lack of driver mod for this event. 8 tenths off the pace currently!

I have never been closer to ftd.
Thanks for the codrive, Dan. Your car is a blast!

Native wrote:I have never been closer to ftd.
Thanks for the codrive, Dan. Your car is a blast!

Nice driving, Steve! I looked at the results to see how Mark faired and didn't notice that!

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Native wrote: Sat Sep 08, 2018 4:20 pm I have never been closer to ftd.
Thanks for the codrive, Dan. Your car is a blast!

Thanks, and ditto about the FTD. Closest I've ever been to it as well.

Btw after riding with you on your first run in my car I thought oh boy, this guy is going to be tuff to beat. Congrats on the first place in M1 and 5th raw time in that fat pig of a car.

It's just big boned.

Had a great time today. Boy what a difference suspension can make! Just need to do some fine tuning to get the feel that I like and I think it's about time for me to get some new brakes on the car. Hopefully I'll have some footage later.

Big thanks to all the kudos, this season should be fun!

Can't figure out why you are so heavy. Your hair must be all muscle.

Aside from a whopping SEVEN no-shows, this was a perfect Classic event!

BTW, I was mistaken, Steve didn't design THIS course, he designed the 9/23 course. This one was all me. I wasn't crazy about the first couple apexes off of the start. Just an extra foot here or there would have made that work better. The rest of the course was perfect! It required good positioning, a bit of aggression, and excellent transitions to be fast.

Thanks to everyone for helping us put on another great event! Especially those who stuck around to help pack up, and those who had to sweep up the cat litter after Dave's radiator blew up.

Philip wasn't at this event. Did anyone get any photos???

I got shots of the 1st run group. I'll try to post them tomorrow.

Oh. Right, then.

Did anybody else get any photos?

Here's a couple videos.

Dan's last run:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZdSdpJbv70

My best clean run:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iofiq5mk96Y

Just looked closer at results.
Hey Cliff!
Congrats on FTD. You had a raw 39.0xx.
Fantastic!

Watching your video reminded me what I did wrong. Choosing the correct side of the option cones allowed the following sections (such as the slalom after the first one) flow into one section. For some reason, perhaps just having been absent from courses that require more brain like the classics, never got into that flow.. I was just coming up to each section and driving it separately if that makes sense.

Looking forward to the next one!

Yeah, makes total sense. On courses with options, sometimes you really have to think about the options and how things fit together.

So, which option(s) did you take wrong? I guess there were 3 of them. The first "Key West Box" that led into the optional slalom. The entry of the optional slalom, and the box on the return side.

The first box in and of itself really didn't matter, you could take it either way. Same with the second one, really. The box itself could be taken either way, it's the position it put you in for the next element that was critical.

IMO, you really wanted to EXIT the optional slalom on the left. That gave you a nice straight stretch and an easy setup for the cross-course sweeper. To get that good exit, you had to enter the slalom on the right. And it was a WHOLE bunch easier to get to the right and enter that slalom at max speed if you took the first box to the left.

The return side was possibly even more critical. (I never tried either of these options any other way than what's in the video) If you took that box to the left, you were forcing yourself into a 3-cone 50-foot spaces slalom. Taking it to the right, you could stay in the gas longer... and possibly (if you had enough grip, which I was never confident that I did) flat-foot it through that oddly spaced finish slalom.

My favorite part of the course, I think, was the very last slalom section. The last cone is spaced 50', the one before it was 100' or something like that. If you didn't set up for it, that 50' spacing could be painful. But, the 100' before it gave you plenty of room for an exaggerated setup to late-apex your way into it (and early apex the final cone). I tapped the brake coming out of the Box, and immediately went back to full-throttle to the finish. Bumped the 2nd gear rev limiter just as I crossed the finish line.

Note to self: You've found Mark Hackett's kryptonite.

Other than entering the first key west box on the wrong side once or twice at the start, I think I chose the correct side each time after that. "Left , right, right" were the choices I made if I recall correctly.. the problem I had was after flying through the key west box, the elements like the slalom snuck up on me each time before I anticipated so I'd be a little off from the start, then the exit of the slalom fouled me a few times too. Just a matter of not reacting and getting into the rhythm and gas soon enough a few times!