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For Autocross fans. Show your stuff!

Cool. Post some videos or pictures when you do. Rallycross looks like a lot of fun. I really don’t want to take up another sport that drains my wallet though.
 
Yesterday I finally had a chance to drive the 2019 GT on dry pavement with my Advan A052 tires on it. I still have to install the Koni shocks/struts, increase the front camber and possibly swap in the larger adjustable rear sway bar. This GT behaves so differently than my 2017 GT I'm not convinced yet that the rear bar change is needed. This car turns in right now. It may just be that I'm able to control the power so much more precisely that I'm getting the weight to transfer better. This thing has so much more power I can throttle steer it anywhere I want to. It's like my other GT on steroids. The power increase is instantaneous, like a nitrous button.

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So effing quick! Seems a little speedy for that little parking lot and people standing around! :lol:
 
My local club EESCC arranged and hosted an Evolution Racing School at Sanderson Field last weekend. It was a great learning event and went off smooth as glass. Great instruction, an excellent venue and good weather the entire time. It doesn't get any better than that. I recorded my "Graduation" runs each day so I would have something to remember the whole experience by. I didn't trim Sunday's video so the camera would show just how big Sanderson/Shelton is. This is the first time I have been there. That is EVO instructor Kevin Dietz lining me up at the start. Even though I have been Autocrossing since 1993 I went ahead and signed up for the course. Phase 1 is geared for beginners. Phase 2 is a more advance course meant for those that have been at it for awhile. You can not take Phase 2 without having taken Phase 1 because it builds on ideas taught in Phase 1. There is enough material covered even an advanced Autocrosser can benefit from Phase 1. The hard part for me was just taking it in knowing that the instructors don't know me from Adam and are teaching me a lot of the beginning baby steps on day 1. An example of that is my trail braking all the way into mid corner and then releasing the brake and rolling on the gas. That comes from years of experimentation and practice. Beginning Autocross is taught the same as Road Racing. Hard braking in a straight line, turn in, ease on the gas mid corner and exit. That's great if you can't feel what your car is doing. On day 2 I didn't hear a single comment about my braking or entry. Different instructors on day 2 with a different agenda. They might ask me why I did what I did in a particular section and then were satisfied with my answer. Anyway, I learned some new material over the weekend and am happy I spent the time and money to attend the course. I've been wanting to attend an EVO school since I first heard about them back in 1997. At the end of each day each student makes three runs in their car by themself, no input, while all the instructors watch and take note of how we drove the final course of the day. BTW, day 2 we didn't even get to do a course walk and the course was changed several times during the day. A quick look at a course map they held up was all we got. The whole idea of Phase 2 is Autocross is an intense mental exercise. How well can one quickly adapt to change. Here are my "Graduation" runs from each day.
Phase 1 final exam

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Phase 2 final

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Back to Evergreen Aviation Museum for another Autocross event with WMC. We had perfect weather. 70 degrees daytime high. Just warm enough for great grip, cool enough for maximum power. I used this event to scrub in my brand new set of Advan A052s so I will be ready for the SCCA National Championship Tour at Packwood, WA next weekend. The Advans did not have much grip the first few runs. It takes a few runs to rough up their slick finish right out of the mold and to scrub off the mold release agent. By my fifth run there were starting to stick fairly well. After this heat cycling and scrubbing they should be very fast next weekend. All 5 of my runs were within .5 seconds of each other. A good indication I am getting to know this car and what it does. I have my work cut out for me at the National Tour. SCCA dumped several B-Street category cars into F-Street this year. Supposedly, my 2019 GT is the same car as a 2019 Shelby GT 350. Yeah, right. Anyway, at least this 2019 GT with the 10R80 is quite a bit quicker than my 2017 6 speed manual car is/was. I'm going to do my best to make life miserable for the 5 Camaro SS 1LEs that were dumped from B-Street into my F-Street class.

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Question: this doesn't compute for me. Why do this in a flat tamac carpark. If you want tarmac, wouldn't you get a stretch of road with corners and as a club get its closed for the event?...or is it not that easy to do. I only see this done in the US...just wondering
 
There are events like you described as well. They aren?t considered autocross though. This is just how this sport evolved. Parking lots. It?s been a sport in the US since the early 50s. The main reason behind using big parking lots is most the time there?s no obstructions. Therefore, you can drive your car to the limit without fear of hitting anything. We have Autocross events that are in lots that have all kinds of obstructions and possible points for a serious accident and that occasionally happens. The national tour event this weekend is venue that has almost nothing that somebody can hit. It?s an old lumber mill with a gigantic piece of pavement behind the old Mill buildings. At that event I won?t hold back. At the Evergreen Aviation museum racing around those islands and aircraft makes me tone down my driving quite a bit.
 
That's excellent course design for that lot. Kudos to whoever set that up.

Also, one of the bigger reasons autocross tends to not be on a road course is cost. Tracks are very expensive to rent for a day, insurance is considerably higher since you have to meet the track's required minimums, more space means more workers, higher prices means the requirement for more entries. A parking lot can cast $500 for the day, compared to a track that will range from 3-12k/day.

All of those road courses are a business, there's no free lunch to use their track.
 
This^.

Auto cross, 24hr chumpcar & gambler-like events are good budget affordable options in the USA?

But especially auto-x?you can do that with a helmet (I think you can still technically use a motorcycle helmet at many events but they?re often difficult to see out of in a car cabin/somewhat frowned upon?)& basic safety check.
Maybe slightly better tires if anything?

But we?re talking 10s or 100s of dollars and bite sized weekend days worth of time (long day or night before if you set up the course / you?ll be tired?) not 1000s+ per applicant per day with insurance and all in the USA?

Not necessarily a dedicated not-so-street-legal caged/irreversibly modified vehicle & considerable costs per event?

Looks like some clean runs in 2manyturbos vids...hard to tell the speeds & gears exactly?
 
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I has been awhile since I posted videos. It has been a busy season running with clubs all over the north west. I also ran the SCCA Solo Championship tour event in Packwood, WA in July. That event was proof that my GT is now seriously outgunned in F Street class after SCCA in their infinite wisdom move some really fast cars from B Street into F Street just before this year's Solo season began. Those cars included the Mustang GT PP2, the Camaro SS 1LE, the Shelby GT 350 and the new Mach 1 Mustang. The Nationals in Lincoln, NW were held about 3 weeks ago and sure enough, the Mach 1 took top honors in FS. Anyway, on to this last weekend. I ran the SSCC Fall Enduro again. I always wanted to run that event with a car capable of a record run to see how I would do against top drivers that have run the event. In practice last year I was running record setting pace. Then, Sunday around noon it started to rain. By the time I ran the track was flooded in places. I came home with a class first place, yet, no chance of a record. I went back this year hoping for good weather as was forecast. Saturday I was running even quicker than the previous year. I'm sure that had to do with the 10R80 10 speed in the newer GT. I registered for this event 1/2 hour after it opened up on Motorsport.reg so that I had the best chance of getting the practice session and run group times I wanted. I picked the 1:00-4:30 Saturday practice session in order to run on a warm track and have time to recover from the 4.5 hour towing drive down to the track. I picked the 11:20-12:30 run group time slot in order for the track to be dry and warm, yet, not hot. I've been to this event when afternoon temps were 100+ degrees. The forecast was for 75 degree daytime highs both days. We actually got 90 degree temps both days. That meant tire temps were going to be a problem for me. I'm on Advan A052s. They are fast right out of the gate, yet, heat up quickly. Even in a normal Autocross event competitors have to cool them down between runs after 2-3 50 second runs. I played with that at the Porsche Club event the weekend before heading to this event and it definitely makes a difference. The tires for this event in street class were the Falken RT660 or the new Bridgestone RE-71RS. Both of those tires were faster each lap on fellow competitors cars. They aren't as quick the first run of a typical Autocross, however, they catch up by the 2nd-3rd run and hold up to the heat much better. So, my run. First lap to fifth lap. 51.007, 50.880, 51.211, 51.457, 51.677 for a total of 4 minutes, 16.232 seconds. Fast enough to set a new track record for F Street. The previous record was 4 minutes 16.793 seconds. .561 second difference. Here is one of my practice runs Saturday when I had a fellow competitor riding along so I could show her the line she should be driving. Also, the record setting run. You only get one attempt. No mistakes. Dance on the edge of the razor blade, don't fall off.

Saturday practice.

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Sunday's trophy run.

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My wife took this photo of me at our Sebring Fall Meet and Track Day last week.
Still kind of amazed I even made it out on the track! It might turn out to be one of those once in a lifetime things for me as I don't know if I'll ever get another chance. So, very glad to have made it. It was a great weekend.


 
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My wife took this photo of me at our Sebring Fall Meet and Track Day last week.
Still kind of amazed I even made it out on the track! It might turn out to be one of those once in a lifetime things for me as I don't know if I'll ever get another chance. So, very glad to have made it. It was a great weekend.



Very cool. It's addictive. Be careful, the first hit is free. After that...
 
My best run from yesterday:
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Funny how some parts stand out when rewatching it. Like how slow I am to get on the throttle on the big sweeper at the back end of the track.

5th place, 0.032 seconds from 4th, 1.2 seconds off the leaders in my group.
 
1st run of the morning, it was a bit cool, and the RT660's don't like cool (much less cold, lololol), I was a bit sketched out by how loose the rear end was in the first couple of corners that I was hesitant most of the rest of the way around. Seemed like even though there was a fair amount of time between runs (we got 6 in each) after the first run they were warmed up enough, and stayed warm enough to be grippy.

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My best run from yesterday:
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Funny how some parts stand out when rewatching it. Like how slow I am to get on the throttle on the big sweeper at the back end of the track.

5th place, 0.032 seconds from 4th, 1.2 seconds off the leaders in my group.

Nice driving. What an awesome venue. To have that much unobstructed pavement/concrete to operate on is a rarity these days. I noticed that as well. My hunch, you were not looking ahead enough and didn't know where you were for a split second. My whole weekend went like that last weekend. You were also really wide on that sweeper. Probably, gave up .3 seconds there. That's why I try to video every run I make. It improves my driving to see where I gave up speed, distance etc. There is a saying about Autocross that is absolutely true. There is no perfect run, just a series of mistakes strung together. The driver with the fewest mistakes wins. I've had maybe one run in 29 years of Autocross that approached perfect. It was top PAX for the day against a really tough crowd on a very technical course. Your Miata accelerates better than I expected it to, is it stock? It accelerates like the Turbo conversions I run with in my area.
 
It's a Mazdaspeed, factory turbo, tweaked slightly from there. About 220 at the wheels.

Yeah, I think in my head I'm thinking that going wider in the sweeper lets me go a bit faster, but in reality the going farther part negates the going faster part.

And yeah, lots of space on that venue: https://www.google.com/maps/@38.747243,-90.5087298,493m/data=!3m1!1e3

Looks like some tire marks on the pavement in the Google sat view from some event.

PS: Also by far the busiest day I've ever had doing course work. We were on the section just past the sweeper with the 5 cone slalom - people were coming in hot and regularly whomping the number 2, 3, 4 cones.
 
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