I was finally bested by a MINI Cooper S at one of our local autocrosses. Ryan in his MCS with his new, light, sticky wheels beat my time by 1/100th of a second. I guess I need to step it up, now.
Archive for the 'autocross' Category
Today’s autocross went pretty well. It was my first time being co-chair for an autocross. That part almost went well. We were short on “regulars” so some things went slow in the morning. There were two people signed up to do tech inspection of the cars: one didn’t show up, and the other sort wound up having to take on other responsibilities. So, I wound up having to do tech also (along with the other chair duties).
Had to wake up at 5:00am so I could make it down to the site by 7:00 to get things set up. So, between that and the rainy forecast, I decided not to bother brining the track / autocross wheels and just ran on my daily driver tires (BFGoodrich G-Force Sport - pretty “eh” tires). The morning session was rainy, and there was extremely little grip. I managed to spin a 90° going into a chicago box.
The afternoon was dry, and I actually felt like I was driving well for the first time in a while. I didn’t bother to check my times, though, so I don’t know how well I placed. I’m fairly certain I came out in front of the two MCSes that were there - but I have much more experience than the drivers of those two cars.
The big problem of the day was that nobody knew how to generate the final standings / results list off of our excel spreadsheet. There was a “generate results” button on it, so we clicked and and gave the results it created a quick glance and assumed they were right. Then, when I started announcing the results, someone mentioned that the time I gave as their best was not their best. They were right, and the results I had were wrong. All the times were recorded, so results can be generated. But it was embarrassing to not have results at the end of the event.
NHIS on Thrusday!
The Sports Car Club of Vermont held their first autocross of the season May 5 and 6. Saturday’s event was a standard autocross and Sunday’s was a team competition where three drivers drove two different cars.
Here’s some video from Saturday in my MINI:
I wound up taking third in class, even though my afternoon runs were less the good. I wound up almost spinning in all of my afternoon runs because I was trying to slow down in a decreasing radius, off camber turn.
During the team competition on Sunday, I got to take 5 runs in a very well sorted Miata, so I finally got some more rear wheel drive experience. The Miata was so very easy to drive, probably easier than my Cooper.
I also took a couple of “fun runs” in some other cars. A 2-door hatch Yaris on R-compound tires that was undoubtedly the hit of the weekend. That car was so fun to watch it was silly. Massive amounts of body roll, but the little car was actually pretty quick! Especially for a “cheap” car.
I also got to take a run in an MR2 Spyder. So now I’m lusting after a mid engine car.