[esm@logic.net ~]$ _

My first TSSCC event went off pretty well, if you didn't mind the 30F temperatures and 20mph winds. Considering this was the first autocross event of the year, I think I managed to get my bearings pretty quickly. We did this one in the Laser, and Erica drove for the first time (well, the second; she attended the SCCA Learning Curve, an introductory/teaching event a few weeks ago) and managed to keep up with me most of the way: she was four seconds off my best time. I posted a write-up of the event for DSMtuners, but I'll quote it below.

It's incredibly cold out this morning. When we checked the weather online before we left the house at 6:00 AM, it read 30 degrees, and that's before the windchill. We arrive at Route 66 Raceway, with about ten other cars already there; some suspended on jacks while their owners swap their street tires for Hoosiers, others running with drivers huddled in front of the heating vents, and still others cooling down while their drivers walk the course: some for the second or third time this morning. The TSSCC event van is partially set-up, and people are starting to wonder when check-in is going to start; everyone wants to get in line for work assignments, because the early birds get the best picks...possibly even the heated van to work the timing gear and coordinate the radios.

We start unloading the Laser; the spare tire, jack, tools, foldable chairs, snacks, helmets, and the air tank we filled up last night. We run in a street tire class, so there's no swapping of tires for us, thankfully. We check the pressures and chalk the tires; it's cold today, and so we lower the air pressure all around, because the course is going to be like driving on ice. Give the car a quick once-over, making sure we didn't leave anything loose, and we head over to the line that's forming at check-in. We're doing a two-driver car, and I'm running first today, so we pull out my magnetic numbers and slap them on the side: 234.

We sign the waiver, and grab our pre-registered check-in cards, hop in the car, and drive over to tech, where a few other cars are already lined up. One by one, the cars are inspected for loose wheels, leaks, low fluid levels, and other safety items. Since this is our first event of the year, they check our helmets for the Snell certification sticker, and apply a season sticker to the left side so the starters know they've passed tech. They slap the run sticker on the windshield, and we re-park the car in time to see the line forming for work assignments. We hop in line, and we're assigned to corner 2: the farthest end of the parking lot. No problem, I need the exercise anyway. Because we're in Street Modified, we run in heats 2 and 4, and would normally work in heat 3; because everyone wimped out because of the cold, we have to work both heats 1 and 3.

We take a walk through the course; first slowly, getting a feel for the transitions and straights, trying to get a rough idea of gearing and speeds, and most importantly, trying to imprint a mental map of the course so we don't get lost when we're out here in the car. Then we walk it again, quicker this time, putting a strategy for tackling the course. After that, we park the car in grid, and run to catch up with one of the veteran drivers who is giving a quick walk-through of the course for new drivers, or anyone who wants to know how last year's points leader would drive this course. It verifies a few strategies I had, and makes me rethink a few others; I would have taken the slalom the other way, but after mentally walking through it, he's probably right.

Just as we're getting back, the driver's meeting starts. The event director gives a quick rundown of how the event works, and you can see the camaraderie amongst the old-timers here; in-jokes fly left and right, and things move very quickly. We realize that we didn't get our wristbands that say we signed the waiver; things were a little hectic at the check-in desk earlier; we grab our bands, and before you know it, we're checking-in for our work assignment, and pounding pavement to the farthest end of the course. I spend the next two hours calling in cones and DNFs over the replacement radio we received after the first one decided it was too cold today, while Erica records it all, and our corner companions shag pylons. Everyone is in good spirits, despite the fact that we're half-frozen and the wind threatens to knock us over every so often.

Heat one runs, which is mostly cars in stock class and a few street classes; cones fly, cars spin out because their drivers didn't expect such a cold surface, and a few runs actually make it. After three runs, it's time for heat three, which is mostly modified classes. More experienced drivers make cones fly in more interesting ways. Three runs later, we're headed back to grid, with very little time to spare to make sure everything is where we left it, and we hop in the car, and get the heat blasting while we shiver like the human popsicles we are. Erica has her helmet on; she's going to ride along and get a feel for the course from the passenger's seat.

The grid workers call up the first car in line, a white Mustang in Ladies STX, followed by a red Civic hatch in SM; same class as me, but he's on Hoosiers. They motion for me to pull out next, and I take my place in the starting line, and I see the white SM Supra pull in behind me; that thing is immaculate, and they're doing a two-driver car too; I make a mental note to try and watch one of it's runs later in the day. The hatch pulls away with a roar, the blast of a blow-off valve, and the distinctive pinging of tiny debris being ejected by the slicks. I pull up, and the starter waves me forward until I'm lined up. We wait until the Civic is about to reach the sweeper halfway down the track, and then he waves me on to start.

I let the clutch out easy; it's the first run of the day, and there'll be plenty of chances to make up time at the start and impress the ladies with an all-wheel-drive launch later. The starting gate makes an immediate hard right, so I'm shifting to second during the corner, which unsettles the car a bit; I'll have to smooth that out next time. Finish the shift, and it's a hard ninety-degree left, followed by an easy right transition. I'm winding out second pretty good at this point, and suddenly I remember the hard left and hard right coming up immediately; I threshold brake, but the wheels lock up a lot more easily than I expected. Damn, brakes are cold, and the tires are skidding like crazy. I understeer like a pig through the left, scrub off some speed, and manage to save it for the hard right, getting back on the throttle hard at the apex.

For the next few seconds, it's simple: an easy lane-change left, then back right, feathering the throttle between eight and one hundred percent. Then a bit of braking into a moderate left to a visually-deceiving corner, which I take wide to set myself up for shifting right to an identical mirror-image corner just ahead. Harder left through that one, and I'm wide open on the throttle again; pass on the left side of a couple of gates, and nearly peg the right-hand cone of the second gate. You have to take a wide approach to the next hard left, because you don't want to scrub off too much speed for the 180-degree sweeper just past it. Hard on the throttle, I can hear the tires screaming as I slide past the cone on my left, and toss the car the other way for the wide entry to the sweeper. It's a decreasing radius turn, and this first run trips me up; I take it too hot, and nearly slide through a pile of cones at the start of the straightaway. Whew, didn't peg any. I open it up.

The tach rises: 3000. 4000. 5000. I start passing a narrowing series of cones at the end of the straightaway. 6000. I'm just reaching the entry of the fast decreasing-distance slalom at the end of the straightaway, and I leave it planted: no guts, no glory. I pass the first cone of the slalom on the right. 7000 RPM. I let off, letting the engine drag scrub off speed while I concentrate on setting the car up: shift right, harder left, then shift the nose of the car straight at the next gate...bam, full throttle again just as I pass the second-last cone, and I scream past the last one like it's not there. I settle the car left through another gate, then try to move the car wide to the right so I can keep the speed up past the next hard left. Pretty good, but I'll need to set that up earlier next time; I make the left, and I'm lined up perfectly for the following gate, which slips the car left a bit, then right just a touch for the garage box coming up.

I spent all last year running with a club that was addicted to these damn boxes, and I can carry the Laser through these like they're not even there; I mash the gas, shift the weight of the car right, and aim straight for the apex cone. Then a quick weight transfer left, front wheels aimed slightly right, and pop off the gas; throttle-off oversteer, baby! Let it slide just a touch until I'm aimed at the outside cone of the box, then mash it again: the car settles back, the rear tires find their grip, and I'm on a straight line to the next gate. Dead perfect the first time, almost no speed lost, I love it when that happens; it's not very often, but you take it when you can get it.

Now it's full throttle through the gate, then slip the car left for a wide entry to the wide-radius 90-degree right turn. I made a note of this one during the walk-through: there's a patch of standing water right where I want my line to go, because it sets me up perfectly for a wide entry to the following 100+ degree corner. I wimp out and compromise the line, so I have to scrub off a ton of speed for the following corner; I'll definitely give that a proper try later, maybe after the next few cars clean up the puddle a bit for me. I take the hard left, and remember why I really wanted to go wide before: the next right-hander would have been set up perfectly into an easy transition, but now I'm understeering badly, and need to move the car hard to the right. Ugh. I snowplow around, and I'm on the final stretch: I open the car up, and hit about 5000 RPMs before I trip the timing light and shut it down, 64 seconds after the starter waved me on.

I take a slow 10mph roll back to grid, and let the adrenaline wear off a bit before I start to take stock of the pass; as usual, I'm being over-aggressive, and ending up understeering in corners that a little early braking would have resolved. But I still have five more passes, and Erica is chomping at the bit to see how she does in the same car against my times, so I have plenty of incentive to clean up my act.

By 4:00 PM, the event is over, and I find another four seconds out on the course, with Erica keeping up with me most of the way. We're cold and windburnt, and because there was no time to stop and eat, we're starving, but we wouldn't have wanted to spend our day any other way. We put the car back together, and head to the nearest restaurant and grab some ribs.

DSMtuners post

At the end of the day, I ran a 60.476 without any cones pegged, which is about four seconds faster than my first run of the day. My runs were (+1 means I pegged one or more cones, +dnf means I...er...lose my way on course):

Heat 2
Run 1: 64.720+dnf	Run 2: 63.011	Run 3: 61.397+dnf
Heat 4
Run 1: 60.476	Run 2: 59.738+1	Run 3: 61.114
Best Time: 60.476

This was the final autocross of the season with JSCC, and we learned during the driver's meeting that it is also the last we'll ever run at Joliet Junior College; JJC is repaving their parking lots, and once the work has been completed, they will no longer make them available to local clubs, which has displaced a few grassroots motorsports groups. News relating to new facilities for the club's events will make it to the website, as soon as details are available.

Anyway, to the driving: I was complaining last time that my driving was becoming incredibly consistant, and that I wasn't seeing any of the radical improvements I'd seen previously. Well, so much for that. My first three runs were fairly consistant, with a cone getting dragged a bit during the third run. We raised the front tire pressure for the next three runs, after seeing that the poor front sidewalls were rolling over. I also made a few adjustments to my driving style, taking a few corners a lot more aggressively than previously. It paid off for all three runs, although the changes in driving style resulted in the death of a few cones on the second two runs. My final run was a 54.99, which was right in line, considering the cone I killed during the opening slalom. So, once I smooth out my driving a bit, I may have just found a way to knock my times down by a couple of seconds consistantly. Too bad this was the last event of the year!

Heat 1
Run 1: 54.19	Run 2: 54.18	Run 3: *55.74
Heat 2
Run 1: 52.61	Run 2: **59.11	Run 3: 54.72
Final Lap: *54.99 Best Time: 52.61

My autocross driving is getting disgustingly consistant; not faster, just consistant. ;) Aside from my first run, and a DNF where I decided to push the car just a little too hard through one box, my scores were all within two tenths of each other. One interesting thing that we discovered later was that the car had a MASSIVE boost leak that I was busy tuning around for the entire event; it was also missing the front fascia because we didn't have time to reinstall it after test-fitting the intercooler that never went on.

Heat 1
Run 1: 55.09	Run 2: 54.80	Run 3: 54.62
Heat 2
Run 1: 54.65	Run 2: DNF	Run 3: 54.76
Final Lap: 55.36 Best Time: 54.62

I did it again: I came in "on the bubble" (the time that marked the start of the new class) in D class at the last JSCC event, and then went on to win first place in the class again with a very good final run. Today, however, I was finally out with the Eclipse again, and the difference in handling was remarkable. While the Laser has better top-end accelleration, the Eclipse is far more agile down-low (which it ought to be, it has a tiny turbo). On the other hand, the Laser rotated the rear far more easily, which could be a matter of weight distribution; the last time I had the cars weighed, they were pretty close to each other, and both have a limited-slip rear. I ran on the same wheels and tires I've been using on the Laser, so that was one less differentiating factor. Overall, I'm very happy with the result.

Heat 1
Run 1: 53.72	Run 2: 56.01	Run 3: *57.05
Heat 2
Run 1: 53.60	Run 2: 52.98	Run 3: 53.64
Final Lap: 52.53 Best Time: 52.53

Another month, another autocross event with JSCC. This event had quite an upset: Tony Koufos came out to stun everyone by beating everyone else by more than two full seconds, setting himself apart as the only car designated in class "A" this time around, and setting a new course record time of 45.10 seconds. Not bad, considering he'd never seen the course before. As a result, "D" class was extended from a two-second spread to three, and "B" class was a who's who of folks usually in "A" class.

I had a pretty average day, improving my driving considerably, but not necessarily improving my times. The first few runs were mainly about adjusting to the 15psi of boost the Laser is now running, which made for quite a difference in one of the faster legs of the course (both in accelleration and needed braking afterwards). My final run of the day would probably have been my best at 53.37 seconds, had I not gotten a bit overzealous on the throttle in a box at the back of the course and pegged a cone for a two-second penalty; hopefully, I'll remember everything for next time. Best of the day ended up being a clean run at 54.22 seconds, or my final run with a factored time of 53.77 seconds, which netted me 6th place in D class.

Heat 1
Run 1: *56.90	Run 2: *56.48	Run 3: 55.22
Heat 2
Run 1: 54.91	Run 2: 54.22	Run 3: 55.13
Final Lap: 53.77 Best Time: 53.77

Mother's Day, and I'm off autocrossing. I was in the Laser again for this event, with absolutely no changes made to the car. I think I did pretty well again, setting the leading time for D class and then taking first place in the class as well with a good final run. It was a small crowd this time around, since most folks were off with family, which meant we didn't have an E class: the spread of time amongst all drivers was less than 8 seconds!

Heat 1
Run 1: 55.76	Run 2: 55.02	Run 3: 54.75
Heat 2
Run 1: 55.76	Run 2: 54.42	Run 3: 54.44
Final Lap: 54.08 Best Time: 54.08

So it's been a while since my last event. I ended up missing a few of the last events last year because the car was down, which it still is; this event was run with Erica's car, a 1992 Plymouth Laser RS AWD (same as mine, except it's the 1g version with an older body style and a motor not prone to crankwalk; her car has an aluminum flywheel, ACT 2600 clutch, TRE-built transmission, a Taboo clutch fork and pedal bushings, and a new slave and master cylinder (on a car this old, that constitutes an upgrade ;-). We threw the wheels and tires from my car on it, since she originally had the stock 16" Laser rims and four completely different (bald) tires.

This was my first event in the car, and as luck would have it, JSCC had to change their course layout for this year because of a new parking lot configuration, so I feel I did pretty good, considering I'm one of the few people who didn't get lost on the new course. The car handles a LOT differently than my 2g; specifically, I noticed that I can rotate the rear of the car a lot more easily than I can with the Eclipse, which made for a few incredibly entertaining runs. It also lacks ABS, which means my usually aggressive braking style didn't work very well in a couple of high-speed corners. The brakes are obviously in terrible shape to boot, which resulted in the car getting pretty squirrelly in a few parts of the course.

The best score of the day was taken by a WRX driven by Dan Hoekstra: he pulled off a 48.04-second run, which landed him the fastest final run even before his handicap was applied. The fastest run of the day was 47.49, run by Brian Reggainie in his Z28. I managed to pull off first place in D class, which made my day.

Heat 1
Run 1: *57.25	Run 2: *65.69	Run 3: 54.41
Heat 2
Run 1: 54.31	Run 2: *55.93	Run 3: *56.72
Final Lap: 54.96 Best Time: 54.31

It was a good day for improved scores. I knocked over half a second off my previous best, and I'm running consistantly lower now. This event was run on 100 octane, just like last time. The fastest run of the day was a 50.15, pulled off by Don Farrer's Z06 Corvette. Thanks again to the Joliet Sports Car Club for putting on the event.

Heat 1
Run 1: *59.01	Run 2: 56.21	Run 3: 56.15
Heat 2
Run 1: 56.54	Run 2: 56.07	Run 3: 55.09
Final Lap: 55.93 Best Time: 55.09

I'd finally broken in my new ACT 2600 clutch, and spent quite a bit of time behind the wheel getting used to both it and the new Fidanza aluminum flywheel before this event, and had a chance to throw half a tank of 100 octane unleaded in the car before this event. I'm pretty happy with the results; I knocked a second and a half off of my best time to date on the JSCC course, which was good enough to manage second place in C class. While we were out there, my better half took some footage with our new digital camera (all but the full video will require Quicktime to view them):

• Start of course
• Slaloms and skidpad
• Box and back straightaway
• Final corner and finish line
• All four videos back-to-back
• Image of final scoreboard

The best run of the day was 50.42; my run times were:

Heat 1
Run 1: 58.68	Run 2: 58.35	Run 3: *59.39
Heat 2
Run 1: 57.24	Run 2: 56.51	Run 3: 56.66
Final Lap: 55.73 Best Time: 55.73

This was my second event, hosted by the same club. I'd finished the exhaust work on the car (3" downpipe and high-flow cat) before this event, and combined with some improved driving (and a shiny new helmet), I posted much better numbers this time around, although I pegged a cone in the final lap, which brought me in second-to-last place (12th) in C class. This was the first time I tried playing with my tire pressure, and I attribute the improved times in my second heat to that.

The fastest run of the day was 50.30 seconds; my times were (* indicates that a cone was hit, which adds a two-second penalty to the time):

Heat 1
Run 1: 61.05	Run 2: 60.07	Run 3: 58.79
Heat 2
Run 1: 57.28	Run 2: 58.31	Run 3: 57.16
Final Lap: *59.76 Best Time: 57.16

This was the first Autocross event I've ever competed in. I was introduced to the club that hosts these events by a fellow on the chicagodsm mailing list, and was immediately attracted to their classification system; instead of classifying cars by modifications (as is done for SCCA-sanctioned events), classes are defined per-event, based on the times you run. It's not an incredibly competitive atmosphere (until the last run, when the classes are announced), and everyone is pretty laid-back. One nice feature of their events is that they use the same track through the whole season, which means you can measure your progress over the course of a year pretty accurately.

This being my first time out, I didn't expect much; I really just wanted to get a feel for the event, and get an idea of what kind of times other people were running. The spread was pretty wide; the fastest run of the day was 48.34 seconds, with most people landing between 53 and 58 seconds. At the end of the day, I placed first in D class. I was also lucky enough to get a couple of pictures from the JSCC website maintainer.

My times were:

Heat 1
Run 1: 61.81	Run 2: 59.62	Run 3: 60.15
Heat 2
Run 1: 63.21	Run 2: 60.52	Run 3: 59.20
Final Lap: 58.09 Best Time: 58.09