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I don't mean to torture our northern and eastern brethern but today was a great day of autocrossing. It was sunny about 74 with just a slight breeze, which was good so you didn't smell the recycling centers putrid smell right next to our lot at Cal Speedway. Our normal lot is the one that will be used for the Fontana Pro-Solo.
I had a pretty good day myself finishing third out of about 45 drivers. With Will Kalman and Ken Motonishi (03 Natl Champ)ahead of me. Last event in the rain I won STS and beat Ken by a whoppin .05. Maybe I'm finally figuring the car out.
Each run I improved today which is what you like to see with my fastest run being a 61.5xx to Will's 61.2 and Ken's ..... 59.7 He ran in an earlier group and we ran last with the sun almost down, but we could see adequately.
He can be pretty fast.
The course was real fun and fast. It seemed like I was always on cam through most of the course. It was a down hill launch with a slight left into a fast right entering 3 position slalom made up of three cones each. The SE-R just loved this first gear max 2nd gear to about 6500 brake and do the slalom which exited in a short straight to a sharp left turn (on my best run I did a four wheel drift in this turn which put me facing exactly where I wanted) which led to a series of offset gates that if you did it just right turned into a straight that you could take flat out. You were then dumped into a big sweeper with tons of room. I kept going as straight as I could into the right hand sweeper with a last second I turn it into a right J turn so I could enter the next slalom on the right with some speed because it was only a three position which was offset real freindly and you needed to enter it just right so you could take it flat out.
This led to a 110 degree right turn, but the outside walls ended early and they left a big gap to the next turn so I took it a little late and accelerated into shallow right hand sweep into the next turn which was a sharp right turn with an tight outside barrier of cones. Since I had swung a little wide I was able to take a better angle at the turn and was able to carry some speed into the next section.
This was fast left sweeper but with not much room on the outside so the only way through was to keep it tight. I was able to modulate the throttle to keep the rear end stuck out a little through the turn and a little past so I could set up for a right turn (you really have to be careful with this manuever because you are slinging the rear around from turning left to turn right and you can over rotate on the swing back and porpoise for a little while which cause you to slow down) into a 4 cone slalom which you entered on the right by flooring it right past the first cone brake and wiggle through the other three which had you then exiting on the left and having to set up for a real sharp right turn. You really needed to give it up there so you could carry some speed for the next section.
Because this was huge fast Chicago Box. You entered the box on right side and it was a huge box so you could set up for the exit of the box which was also on the right side. The tricky part is your doing about 45 mph and the entry is only about 15' in length and the exit is pinched off by boundry cones and by then your your doing 60. I told you its a huge box with two tiny holes to go through. This was really fun. Hit a cone on my second run but my third and best run I threw the car into and out of the box with never lifting my foot off the throttle. But then I had to catch it for a semi sharp right hander which left just 3 offset gates to the finish.
What has me most encouraged is that I could have gone faster. Maybe not enough to catch KM but perhaps another second.
Hope that helped some of you who haven't gotten your Autox fix for a while and don't look to be getting any real soon. I hope the weather improves for you quickly.
Art
Last edited by Trys_Hard : 01-24-2005 at 02:05 AM.
You're making me sad. I've been driving my Echo through a foot of snow for the last few days. Snow drifting is fun and all, but I still open the garage every day when I come home just to stare at the Sentra. Only three more months to go.
Nice work Art. Sounds very encouraging! Hopefully you can really get the car dialed in this season.
You Californians weren't the only ones autoXing this weekend. We had an event on Saturday. During a blizzard. Philadelphia region SCCA is HARDCORE. I'll write up a thread about my story later when our final results are posted, but the picture should give you a taste:
Andrew
__________________
1992 Nissan Sentra SE-R
2000 Honda S2000
2006 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX SE
.. and you can drink there 
