LOST MY CHERRY! WHOOOOOHOOO! A.K.A. Cumberland Motor Club autocross from 7/13 (VERY long)

[Peter Serwe]

I POPPED MY CHERRY!

Well, the results aren't posted yet, but
I did my first ever autocross.

CMC hosted it at the Crooker Construction lot
in W. Bath, ME.

Since I've played with my car quite a bit, I've classed
myself right into STS.  I'm quite tempted to throw
on race rubber and go right into STX, but that's something
I'll have to consider down the road.

Aside from the fact that I will never be competitive
in STS until I can grab a set of *light* 15x7's with
225/50/15 Azeni's wrapped around them, I think I
did pretty good for my FIRST ever event of any type.

On my stock rims with 195/60/14 ES100's I managed
to take 1st place novice out of 8ish novices with a PAX
adjusted time of 32.141 IIRC.  2nd place novice had a
PAX time of (IIRC, again) 32.549.

The course was extremely twisty, and quite short,
The fastest STS raw time was right around 36.4 seconds
by a fellow named Jason Neptune driving a newish prelude.

His (brother?) took second place in the same car.

Quite a good group of guys, actually.

Out of the STS class, I placed 11 of 14.

I ran 5 times, and the raw times were:

    1) 47.099
    2) 43.074
    3) 41.000 +20 (OC)
    4) 41.1?? +20 (OC)
    5) 41.019

I was plowing really hard *I think* due to spring rate,
tire pressures, and the slop in the rear end/stock rear
swaybar.

I really loved it, those aren't strong enough words..

I'm am officially 'bitten'.  My charcoal grey SE-R is
going off the road for the snow season, I want to save
it and all the fun stuff I've done to it for STS/summer fun.

Boy do I need wheels/tires to dedicate for STS.

Heat cycled Azeni's wrapped around 15x7 Panasport UL's.

(In the Homer Simpson talking about donuts voice)

*drooooooooooooOOOoooOOooool*

I will also say, I still haven't cornerweighted,
nor gotten the rear swaybar on, nor done the
rear ES bushings.

And I still want to up the spring rates.

And I still don't have tire pressures figured out.

And I still need to figure out how much negative
camber to run up front.  Toe is much harder to
adjust, so I'm attempting to leave that alone.

I removed no material from the vehicle, either,
so at a certain point I'll have to start yanking the
spare donut, jack, rear seats, all deadening material.

And get a Shigspeed subframe brace, and live with the
the car being lower than dirt roads should allow.

I sincerely believe that if I straighten those things
all out, I just *might* be able to be competitive in
STS/X.

The car had more power than I needed for the course,
and a few guys actually knew what an SE-R was.

Anyway, my fingers are cramping, ;)

Hip-hip - hooray!

--
Peter Serwe <peter@easytree.net>
Cheaper, Faster, Better, pick any two.
finger peter@easytree.net for public pgp key