Well folks, I'm going in. Got a few hours to spare, and I'm going to start on page 1.

I've heard great things, but 160 pages is intimidating.

 

Totally worth it. Enjoy.

#remembertheppf

 

Change your settings for more posts per page. Make it easier.

 

Well Im 50/161 pages done. Taking a break.

Me so far, as the car starts to be reassembled....

 

Alright, so I have made it to page 88. I definitely need the Fab9 intercooler in my life.


Make that 97.

105 pages, 2100 posts. I need to get off for a while and drive the hour home so I can go to sleep.

 

This. I'm not spending money on the car unless it is for reliability or performance(not hp).

Yup, just got some free time to. It was a long day. I got the bumper on and some tuning doing at 3am, took a couple hour nap, drove to the event, raced, drove home, and crashed for 12 hours. Had been up for 3 days at that point so I was wrecked.

Sadly I didn't get many runs. It was still worth going, but since it was the first event of the year we had 130 cars show up. The entire corvette club was there to get their 2 races a year in to keep their membership valid, and then a bunch of new scca members as well.

I was told it is always like this at the first event, and then it goes back down to normal attendance afterwards.

Since there were so many cars, and I was so tired, I only too part in the morning session. If I would have stayed till the 2nd heat, I would have been there till 7pm, and I knew I'd be too tired to drive back.

The car performed perfectly though. The new boost controller is leaps and bounds better than my old one, and the car built boost immediately. I detuned it to 12 psi and I think I like the car better at that power level(even for daily driving). More usable power, less spinning rubber.

The tires too...hot damn, the RC-1s are so amazing. At previous autocross sessions, I was unable to use the throttle through any longer sweepers due to it wanting to break lose, but I was able to modulate the throttle through the corners so effortlessly.

They would grip so hard through the corners that even when I would start sliding they would maintain grip through the slide...does that make sense? Hard to explain. Their slip feedback and grip threshold are a beautiful thing. I was running 36 up front and 37 in the back and it worked great.

My best time was a 50.33. I think the best time of the day was a monster 450hp STI with a shitload done to it. He ran a 45.88 I believe. So not to bad in my opinion, for my driving level. If I would have had more runs I could have easily hit a 48 second run.

Here's the video of the 50.33 time. It is funny how slow or undramatic (in my eyes) it makes it look.

I think the car is finally ready for the track.

 

Lookin good Jeff. Definitely looked like the car had more in it and you'd have improved considerably with more sleep and more runs!

 

Autocrosses are like health clubs?

This is the whole point. This is where you need to operate. You need to get there, stay there and be able to control it. This is also why R-comps are normally not recommended until a lot of experience is gained. But, like I said earlier, the RC-1 has a big learning plateau in this area. Enjoy.

Here's some light reading: Slip, Grip and Driving Faster - General Talk - TrackJunkies.Org

People keep inviting me to autocross, but the more I see videos like this the less interested I am (I'm sure I'm being close-minded). That's not even a complete warmup lap. Your first real track day is going to be an eye opener.

 

My introduction to the track was a driving school / track day with our local BWM club. After that experiance I am 100% with you. I don't see the draw of 1 - 2 mintues of driving. Driving School Track Days and Track Days seem to have so much more bang for you buck. It usually takes me 2 / 3 laps before I really start to improve on my mistakes and find my good lines. I enjoy 15 - 25 mins for a session to feel like I am really learning the car. I am sure AutoX is fun, but multiple laps in a continous fashion is how I learn.

 

I stopped autocrossing after I did my first track day. Waking up at 5am on a Sunday and paying money to stand in the freezing cold all morning ******** cones to get 5~6 1 minute runs in the afternoon. Meh.

The AutoX group was also INCREDIBLY clickish. It was like highschool all over again.

But hey, to each their own.

 

I'm looking forward to trying it out. I think I'll feel more comfortable pushing the car harder because lower speeds. We'll see.

 

This is the reason that I continue to autox. It provides an environment that I can push the car and explore (and exceed) the limits without going off track or into the side of the hill. Its also a closer than the nearest track and I can attend much more than track days.

That said, I have much more fun hill climbing.

 

$40 for a cheap day of being able to run my car as hard as I want without repercussion is worth it to me.

The Vegas crowd doesn't take it too seriously, which is nice. Everyone is just there to have a fun day and hang out with fellow enthusiasts.

I mostly enjoy taking a passenger ride in different cars. Fun to experience a lot of different models at their limit.

 

I actually prefer our low speed technical tracks vs the local tracks that have 110+ MPH turns. I started on a high speed track my first day out. It was a lot of fun.
BIR


However, there is a local track that top speed in my WRX was more 50mph to 60mph with a lot more turns. That is the track I have the most fun at. It also is laid out so that the course is always different.
DCTC (elevation changes are hard to see from this pic, but they add to the fun)
This is a technical college.


Granted I also have the opportunity to host track days there for my buddies shop. Our track nights were $60 for the night for DCTC. I believe this year we are going to be in the $80 range. Drivers would get 4+ 25 min session and we would try to allow 5 - 6 cars on the track at a time. All depending on skill level.

What is my point?
There may be track options out there that are unknown to you. I had no idea there was a technical college within 30 mins of the city with a track.

 

This is the attitude I need. The best part of Auto-X seems to be the social aspect. Would be a real turn-off if it's cliquish. Jeff seems to have found a good group.

 

I need to do this too. Damn school is always in the way. Let me know when you go to your first Auto-x I'll join you as a newb.

 

I found the track group to be extremely cliquish as well. Anytime fanboyism comes into play that's going to happen.

I did the open autocross thing at miller motorsports park in the GTO and it was an absolute riot, but I could do a LOT more runs. Shorter track and not overly competitive. We got like 12 runs I think in .... less than 3 hours.

I plan to be there in March... I think it's March 28... dammit that's a Saturday. Won't be there unless they have a Sunday run as well. Not completely sure what I'll be driving but I was offered the chance to drive a local's car and might very well do that.

 

Saturday is out for me too, let me know if you find a sunday, you could drive mine too if you wanted to.

 

You don't need to do much to go to one. We have a highschool kid who shows up in a bone stock Honda Fit with All-Seasons and he drives that thing like he stole it. We love it when he lines up because it is so awesome to see a Fit being tossed like it's a sports car.

 

Also we usually get 12-14 runs in. Having as many cars as we did is definitely rare.