CSCC Points Event #8

This is the second time I have gone to this site. It's not exactly my favorite site because the road conditions are pretty bad- potholes, ruts, bumps, cracks, etc. But I didn't really care much about that because today I can finally pick up my spare set of wheels and tires! Big thanks to Lee Miller for selling them to me!

I was so excited to try out the Falken Azenis Rt615's that were mounted on two of the wheels, but I knew that I wouldn't have time to change my wheels and walk the course. So I decided not to even though I wanted to really bad! Oh well, there's always next time. :)

Before I walked the course, I knew there was going to be a bunch of slaloms just like last time. There was. It's ok though because this time I can practice the slaloms in dry conditions instead of rainstorm conditions like I did in the last CSCC event.

I ended up placing second against the same guy from the first CSCC event who has an ACR SRT-4 who was running the tires that I am planning on getting- the Dunlop Direzza Z1 Star Spec. His ACR was nearly fully setup and was faster than me by 3.812 seconds. We'll see what happens when I get -2 deg. negative camber and the wider tires that he was using.

Indy Region Points Event 4

This was my first event after not driving my car for four months. I wasn't sure how not autocrossing for four months would affect me until it was time to go to the event. My driving didn't change much, but I was really unprepared for the event.

One major thing that I forgot do before the event was charge my air compressor. So it ended up dying before the first tire was close to done. Thinking that this wasn't a big deal because "everyone" should have an air compressor, I walked around and asked several people. I asked about 20 people and every one of them did not have an air compressor. Crazyyy... Since I wasted a lot of time asking, I decided to just walk the course and worry about it once I'm on grid.

Once I was in grid with about 40 cars in my heat, I looked around to see if anyone had a compressor that I could borrow. No one had an air compressor, but one person had an air tank that I could borrow. Only problem was that there wasn't enough air to fill all of my tires. So instead of running the usual 47psi front/ 50psi rear, I was forced to run 43psi front/ 32psi rear.

To make my day worse, I was told wrong about the run order. So while I was working on my tires, I was told that I was next in line. I panicked because I didn't want to hold up the cars, so I threw my helmet on and rushed over to the start line. So I drove my first run all panicky. The second one went a lot better. Then for some reason on the third run, I forgot to put my window up, so my contacts dried up for awhile I hit a couple cones. But it was a lot faster than my second run. After it was all done, I had to stand on my second run and ended up being three tenths away from first. Not so good. I'll be sure to come prepared for the next event!

Not Too Good To Be True!

The results finally posted and it looks like the results I got weren't too good to be true! Surprisingly, all of my runs were clean! Here are the results for the Gymkharna Star autocross:

Fort Wayne Region: Gymkharna Star Solo #2

This will be the last event that I'll be able to go to before I leave for Minnesota to visit my parents and make a little bit of money for the summer. Maybe a set of tires for autocross? ;)

The Gymkharna Star autocross was held at the same site I autocrossed at for the first time almost two years ago!

The course was really tight again. Not much choice for line. It was a who-can-get-closer-to-the-cone battle more than anything else. That was okay for me because I still need to practice getting "Nationals" close.

During the drivers meeting, I remembered why I enjoyed going to the Fort Wayne events so much. Seat time! They always give out several runs as well as $1 fun runs because there are usually only a small amount of entries that show up. Today, we had six runs!

After I ran my first run, I was told by one of the drivers in the first heat that people were struggling to get near 60 seconds. I found out first hand what he was talking about. In my first four runs, I wasn't able to break sixty seconds until the fifth and sixth runs. I thought it was too good to be true that I broke 60, thinking that maybe I hit a cone somewhere. So I went to timing as soon as I finished my last two runs and asked whether or not my last two runs were coned- unfortunately, they were still processing the results. Then while I was walking to my car to clean up and leave grid, I noticed that staff was telling everyone it was time to leave even though there were still a few more cars to make their final run. Later on, I found out that it was because one of the cars spun out and hit several of our sponsors' company cars. The car that spun out hit one car, pushed it into another, and pushed both cars into a company van. I don't think anyone was injured. But we were kicked out immediately so I never got to find out whether or not my runs were clean. So I'll have to wait a couple weeks or more because this region hasn't found someone to be their webmaster yet. I guess this was the first and last time that I would autocross at this site...

Spring Into Solo 2008 (Indy Points Event 1)

The trophy was a little different than what I was used to. Instead of a placard, they handed out cone trophies. It was pretty cool. Here are some pictures of the trophy and the time slips I received on each run: 1, 2, and 3 respectively:

I arrived 30 minutes after registration opened and surprisingly, I had to park pretty far away because for some reason there were a lot more people in this event (125 drivers) than the last one (107 drivers). I overheard a board member mention that this event had the most attendance than any other Indy region event. Pretty cool. While I was looking for a parking spot to unload, I noticed that everyone was taking their time to get into tech. So I took advantage of this and set up as fast as I could; then I drove to tech before everyone else piled up there. heh...

Thanks to my speediness, I had 30 minutes to walk the course before the drivers meeting. This course was a lot more technical than the fun event course. In the beginning, there's a pretty long straight which at the end of the straight, leads downhill and into a sharp left turn. It was hard to gauge where my braking point would be with the downhill in the equation. The first slalom was placed sideways on a downhill slope which was pretty interesting. And just like the previous Indy event, the same sweeper was used at the same location, but with a little twist in the way they placed the cones. The end of the course had an offset slalom which I have never driven before. But I felt confident that I could handle it with the practice I got at the Columbus event.

Before I ran my first run on the course, I followed my cousins mentality and drove my first run like it was my last run. I felt confident with the way I drove until my competitor in the Mazdaspeed 3 came in a second faster than me but with a cone. Banking off the trend that I usually I drive faster on every run, I thought that I could best my first run. But on the second run, I jinxed myself when my tires lost grip while entering the first slalom which almost cost me a cone. Though I didn't hit the cone, it did slow me down about a second and a half just trying to avoid it... The driver in the Mazdaspeed 3 came in faster than his last at 49 seconds flat but with another cone. So I was still safe with my first run. In the third run, I drove clean but still ended up being about a half second slower than my third run. The Mazdaspeed 3 DNF'd which meant that I took first by a very small margin (.187 seconds). I was crazy to think that I won on my first run!

Indy Region Fun Autocross

I arrived at the site early with plenty of time to set my car up for the autocross. While I waited for tech to open, I took a couple pictures of my car with the new magnetic numbers on. I was glad that the numbers and letters fit on one door and that I wouldn't have to re-cut them to fit.

The site was in much better condition than the previous one I went to as far as missing pavement. The site was a large parking lot that surrounded the Bush Stadium. I noticed that the parking lot wasn't level- it was highest near the stadium and then sloped down further away from it.

The course was pretty straightforward and simple. There wasn't much choice of line since it was pretty tight with a good amount of slaloms. So the only way to drive it would be to take everything tight.

I feel like I drove the course pretty well besides when I accidentally turned on the windshield wipers. Overall, I drove consistently faster on every run except the last run. I came in too hot at the barricade near the end of the course and almost wiped out a couple cones. If I didn't make that mistake near the end, I felt that I would have been faster on the last run. To test my guess I made a comparison video of my third and fourth run to see whether or not I would have been faster. The video supported my prediction.

Here are some other pictures of my car and the others who were there at the event:

CSCC Points Event #1

It took about an hour to reach the autocross site (Walesboro [abandoned airfield]). The condition of the road where the autocross course was set on was pretty bad. There were several pot holes of different sizes, patches of gravel, and strips of pavement missing. To make matters worse, the weather report for today predicted thunderstorms.

There were two other D-Stock drivers that also came to the event- both of them were SRT-4's. One of the SRT-4 drivers was the course designer and an exec's in the CSCC region. The other SRT-4 driver had the ACR package and was a regular at this region.

When I walked the course, I knew it was going to be tough because there were a lot of slaloms. There were more slaloms in this course than in the past couple events I went to combined.

As soon as I lined my car up in the grid to race, the weather report predicted right and it started pouring. So instead of having to deal with slaloms, I had to face both pouring rain and slaloms. Not good. In the first run, I found the whole course to be completely different with the rain; there were a lot of puddles on some key braking points which made things very difficult for me. Overall, the results showed that I averaged about two seconds slower than the other SRT-4's. It just goes to show that I still have a lot to learn. Though the results of this event was pretty disappointing, it was a great learning experience for me. Since I consistently ran faster on each run, I at least knew that I was learning the slaloms and getting better at driving them. I am sure that this experience will help me in the future courses.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a picture of the magnet layout because it started to rain. But I was able to get a picture of what the weather looked like from inside the car. By the time I was at the grid (where the red car is), it was raining so hard that I had to run the wipers on high even though my car was not moving.:

NEW Autocross Magnet Numbers (SRT-4 Font)

It took me about 5 hours to draw, cut, paint, and dry-- now it's just waiting for tomorrow's autocross. Most of the time was spent figuring out how to draw all of the numbers and letters on one sheet of magnetic paper while meeting the SCCA specifications for magnetic numbers/ letters. I had to manually change the proportion of some of the numbers and letters of the original SRT-4 to make them all fit; it took a lot of time, but I eventually got them all to fit. I used four coats of Krylon black paint on all of the numbers and letters.

Here are some of the pictures of the finished products:

Spastic Turn Signal FIXED

While I was driving a couple days ago, my left turn signal started blinking spastically. So I read through my service manual to figure out what was wrong and found that the 2x faster blinking was an indicator for a blown bulb... Yup, I'm still a noob. lol

I picked up a new bulb today at the parts department in Dodge for $2. I was a little worried about how hard it would be to replace a bulb since I've never had to replace a bulb before. But the install wasn't bad at all. All I had to do was pull the electrical plug off, unscrew the bulb harness, pop the old bulb out, put the new one in, and put it back together! It only took me a couple minutes AND I did the install in the rain while holding an umbrella tucked in my arm!

Driver Mod: Camcorder for Autocross Footage

I picked up a camcorder from Best Buy a little bit earlier than I thought I would because the sale prices started to rise again. For being patient, I was able to get the camcorder $100 off. Now all I have to do is wait until April for the first FWSCCA event or February 24th at Walesboro Airport (CSCC) which is about an hour away from Bloomington. It's tempting to go to the Feb. 24th event because it's two months earlier than the Fort Wayne event-- it's just so far away! We'll see though...