40 runs this weekend!

"Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)" (rduncan5678) 05/23/2016 at 08:21 • Filed to: None

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Over the weekend, I did a test and tune followed by regular auto-x the next day. Since I am heading back to NJ later this week, this was my last event down here in the commonwealth of Virginia. Got some real quality seat time in total with 5 events, two of which were test and tunes, for a total of 75+ runs! This particular weekend though was the first time I nearly felt sick of driving by the end of the day lol. It was a VERY short course so runs happened almost instantaneously one after the other. This made for quite the fun but tiring day.

Anyways, things I took away from this weekend are that driving hard in the rain with the top down is a surreal experience. I just stopped caring about being wet, cold, and motion sick because it was so much fun and I was determined to do just a little bit better on every run. I also tried to focus on where I was losing time and where I could use to improve. I found that braking zones were the biggest problem for me. Sure, brakes make you slow down and slowing down is bad for your times, but you definitely need them to keep control of things. However, without ABS I found that locked up tires did not do good things for grip throughout the rest of the course. So I now know that I want to work on braking much more to use it more effectively.

As a final note, my tires are crap. Sure they are summer tires so they are MUCH better than last year’s all-seasons I had, but I so wish I had some RE-71Rs. Maybe I am having more fun by sliding around a bit but it definitely doesn’t help my times a whole lot!

Jayhawk Jake > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) 05/23/2016 at 08:28

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Being on crappier tires means you learn how to drive the car better. When they wear out get the good stuff.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Jayhawk Jake 05/23/2016 at 08:53

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Well yeah, I definitely agree with that. This is why I enjoyed having all seasons. The summer tires definitely make a huge difference and the tires complain a lot less about being forced into turns. My new front sway bar works magic too to keep the rear end planted. I won't be getting better tires until I can keep a second (actually third) set of wheels and have some place to put them.

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) 05/23/2016 at 09:03

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I’m insanely jealous of the autocross scene over in the States. There’s nothing here in the UK that you can just roll up to with your daily driver, pay £50 and actually compete against other people.

Every day I get more and more tempted to actually try and start something with some local motorsport clubs, but I've got too many projects that take up my weekends already!

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires 05/23/2016 at 10:30

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Yeah, I am very glad that autocross is so simple to get into. Sure there are people that show up with a trailered car that they spent some ungodly amount of money on and its not even street legal. But even those people are real down to earth and willing to talk to the “normal” guys as if we were all on the same level. I could certainly do track days without it costing too much but that is definitely an additional level of commitment to motorsport. I enjoy that I can do as little or as much as I want for autox, my car just has to be safe enough to drive on the highway and I am good to go.

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) 05/23/2016 at 10:42

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Yeah that’s what’s missing from the British motorsports scene. We’ve got trackdays, but the next step up is club racing which is in a different league cost-wise.

We've got things like autograss (like autocross but on fields) and autosolo (like autocross, but with incredibly tight courses solely in first gear and involving reversing), but nothing that's actually close enough to racing to get a competitive and speed thrill, but low-key enough to do in a stock car straight off the commute.