Hats off to the Philly Region SCCA crew for us a tryout for this site, hopefully next year we can run there on a regular basis. The lots are plenty big, probably bigger than M-Club up at the Meadowlands and the asphalt is almost new so it is in excellent condition. Easy to get to and get out of, plenty of paddock and grid area.
They capped the event at 100 cars for this "trial" event, so we got 6 runs total. 3 in the morning session and 3 in the afternoon session. Temps early were on the chilly side, but quickly warmed up. The big kuhmo's don't like cold and my tires are way past their prime, so I had very low expectations on the grip scale. I was running in C-prepared (no passenger seat installed yet
) otherwise I would have been in the more familiar and populated field of Street Modified. I was the only car in class where as street mod had 9 entries. I kept close tabs on those guys for comparison purposes.
I held tire pressures at 30lbs front and 32 lbs rear at first, which seemed to work reasonably well, but later in the afternoon session dropped them to 30lbs all around in an attempt to get more power down.
Links to pics and video are in multimedia section.....
1st run was pretty uneventful, not pushing too hard, not accomplishing too much other than to clean the tires off and see the course. I think I may have gone off course even and my time was in the 49.xxx range. Not on video.
2nd run was better, more grip but still was not looking ahead enough and certain sections came up quick and I found myself on a less than desireable line. In the video you can see at one point the car turns in much quicker than I though it would and I almost drive over 3 cones. Don't even know what my time was for the second run. This is first run shown in the video.
3rd and final run of the morning session and first good clean run. Not a record setting pace, but I got a clean one in the books and its 47.0xx so I am feeling pretty good, but know there is lots more out there. Second run in the video
4th run (first of the afternoon session about 1:15pm) tires are clean and the parking lot has some rubber down and some temp, so this is going to be the fast session. And fast it was, 46.26 so I knocked off 8 tenths and now I am starting to feel better, but the top SM guy is also in the low 46.teens so I still have work to do. I can spin the tires almost at will coming out of turns and transitions and in the last turn around you can see a little bit of push as the front start to hop just a little bit. Third run in the video.
5th run and the car feels better and I am trying to drive it like I stole it. Probably overdriving it at times, and steering with the gas pedal too. But it yields results and I click off a 45.732, another half second chopped off and now I am thinking I got the SM crown covered, only to hear the top guy just ran a 45.7xx so now I am not sure if I have them covered or not. 4th run in the video.
6th run, if some is good more must be better.......wrong. I completely overdrive it and end up with a 47.xxx. No video of this one.
At the end of the day the fastest SM guy in an all wheel drive Eagle Talon (that is embarassing) got me by 0.020 or something like that
.
Great day, no broken parts but I think my Kuhmos are completely done so that means my autox season is probably over, unless I run on my RA-1s, which isn't horrible.
I'll post a link to final results as soon as they are available.
If you have any interest at all in autox, you have to do an even at Citizens Bank Park next year, assuming Philly Region can lock down the site. They could set up national level type courses at that place, no problem.
Chris
