Well, after day 1, I'm getting beat, by all things, a Chrysler Crossfire. At least we're keeping it in the family. I'm 0.244 seconds behind the Crossfire in 1st, and Justin Rest is just 0.003 seconds ahead of me in his WRX. I can't seem to get the right side course to save my life. I have a 35.6 on the left course, a 34.4 on the right. The right side course is faster, but not 1.2 seconds faster. I have a couple of ideas on where I'm loosing time, hopefully the weather stays good through tomorrow.
Steve
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Steve B.
2005 SRT4 ACR
3rd DS 2007 ProSolo National Championship
3rd DS 2006 ProSolo National Series
5th DS 2006 Solo National Championship
1st 2006 Washington DC ProSolo
1st 2007 Toledo ProSolo
If I have time I might come down to check out the Pro Solo event and come and help support a fellow SRT-4 owner.
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"Ugly doesn't matter if it passes tech!"
"Speed is nothing unless you know what to do with it!"
"The driver is the greatest performance variable in the high performance driving equation"
If you can make it, that would be cool. We run early in the morning tomorrow, probably around 8:30 AM. That's our final "normal" runs. The Challenge competition, if I make it, starts around 1:00 PM. If I don't make the challenge, I'll be packed up an on the road by noon, as I have a 9 hour drive home tomorrow night.
I ran the 225/50 Kumhos again, exact same tires from nationals last year. I couldn't for the life of me get a good run on the left side course. I knew what I had to do on Sunday morning, but my first run on that course was on cold tires, and I stupidly red lit my second run on that side Sunday morning. Despite the cold tires, which resulted in big sideways twice on the course, my first run on the left side improved 0.1 seconds. I fell back to fourth. Keith Vail (Crossfire) jumped from 4th to 1st on his last run on each course. Bryan Hertweck dropped back to second, in another Crossfire. Justin Rest fell back to third, in his WRX, and I fell back to fourth. The other Crossfire driver was right behind me.
Keith had 295 series tires on the back of his Crossfire. Bryan and Erin had only 235s on the back. Bryan and Erin had to shift to thrid a lot because of the tires. The Crossfire on stock tires hits the rev limiter in second around 53 mph. I verified that this morning on my way to work :-)
Both Crossfires ran 245/35R18 Kumhos on the front. I guess the Hoosiers up front last even less time on the front of a Crossfire than on an ITR or SRT4. One guy said he got 17 runs on his first set, the other guy said he got 25 runs on his fronts, but that included swapping them on the rims. The Hoosier rears last just fine, which is nice for them, as Kumho still doesn't have a 19" V710.
The Minis crushed us though, which is horribly embarassing. I admit, I didn't drive my best, and I know I could have picked up at least 0.7 seconds on the left course. That said, GS beat me by almost 1.2 seconds on a ~69 second combined course time. Compare that to Bartek only beating me by about 1.5 seconds at nationals last year, on a 106 second combined course time. Oh, and the Pro courses at DC were power courses. So, I don't see how anyone could complain about bumping the Minis to DS.
DS sure is an interesting class these days. I'd say any of the following cars stands a chance of winning at Nationals and/or the ProSolo championship:
ITR, SRT4 ACR, WRX (2.5L), Crossfire, VW R32, Audi TT
Sorry to hear you didn't get a good run on that one side. At least you didn't kick your own a$$ like I did with my course this past Sunday. It took until my 6th run to get a decent, clean run in and it was my own course design
Have you ever done any runs in a Mini? I got a couple in Gabby Marshall's new MCS and holy , that is one fun car to drive. It was bone stock except for some little Kumhos and I quit running it after two runs when it appeared I may beat my own ACR time in that car. Granted, the course I had set up was just two slaloms (7 cone, 19 pace for #1 and 6 cone, 22 pace for #2) and was one part of a TnT we did earlier this year.
I don't know man, we need to do some serious homework and testing to get this car nuked out. That takes $$, which I don't have right now.
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Steve W.
2005 ACR SRT-4
The gods live at corner entry - Randy Pobst, June 2006 Sportscar (paraphrased)
Have you ever done any runs in a Mini? I got a couple in Gabby Marshall's new MCS and holy , that is one fun car to drive. It was bone stock except for some little Kumhos and I quit running it after two runs when it appeared I may beat my own ACR time in that car. Granted, the course I had set up was just two slaloms (7 cone, 19 pace for #1 and 6 cone, 22 pace for #2) and was one part of a TnT we did earlier this year.
I don't know man, we need to do some serious homework and testing to get this car nuked out. That takes $$, which I don't have right now.
Never autocrossed a Mini, though judging from how quickly Dudley made the jump from SRT4 ACR to Mini, I can imagine it's a lot of fun.
I'm in the same boat as you money wise. I was very upset with myself for the poor performance at DC. I needed that win, well, needed the $300 Kumho money and the $100 Hawk GC so I could get new brakes and afford to run another national event. Because of the crappy performance, I'm not going to the Peru Tour, even though it's only 3 hours from my house (well, and it is concrete - tire eater).
I honestly wasn't really happy with the Kumhos this weekend. They just didn't seem to have a ton of grip. Even when I swapped the rears to the front, still no improvement. I really want to try Hoosiers, but at the moment, I just don't have the cash to experiment.
Never autocrossed a Mini, though judging from how quickly Dudley made the jump from SRT4 ACR to Mini, I can imagine it's a lot of fun.
Our Mini is a total kick in the pants to drive. I loved the ACR but the Mini is just a little pocket rocket. We ran up at Packwood this weekend, NWR put on a Prosolo format practice on Saturday. What a blast, however it was a tough croud, all the CSP, DSP and FSP cars were grouped together. Ron Bauer and Jim Daniels were in my group, no chance in catching Ron's MX-5.
SteveB, if you are back out here sometime you are more than welcome to take some fun runs. SteveW, next time were at the same event, if you would like you can take a couple of runs too.
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Washington DC ProSolo
, that is one fun car to drive. It was bone stock except for some little Kumhos and I quit running it after two runs when it appeared I may beat my own ACR time in that car. Granted, the course I had set up was just two slaloms (7 cone, 19 pace for #1 and 6 cone, 22 pace for #2) and was one part of a TnT we did earlier this year.
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