I like how the paint damage on the hood blends in with the clouds.

As if to bring the season around full-circle, yesterday it rained Biblical quantities of water down on our last autocross of the season… for exactly the duration of my heat.  Given my general predilection for going bassackwards from time to time, it should therefore come as no surprise that my first run ended in an epic off-course excursion.  It was not my best outing in recent memory, but it wasn’t that bad, either.  And I’m doing a heck of a lot better than I was this time last year. Continue reading »

Me killing tires around a hairpin. Thanks Jenn for the pictures!

Haven’t updated this in a while, huh?  The previous semester in school was my own personal Hell On Earth, and since school got out I’ve spent enough time under the car to make me a little bit tired of talking about it. However, I’ve found some motivation: one of the local autocrossers has fulfilled that secret desire of mine (no, the other one). She’s taken pictures of the CRX in action! Continue reading »

I finally got around to making prints off of the negatives from my trip down to Rolla in February.  Not everything turned out (really could have used a zoom lens!) but I got a few good shots.  It made me get a Flickr account, too — now I just need a camera so I have things to put on it…

In other news, we had our first autocross of the season a couple of weeks ago.  More on that later, but the short version is that I spun.  A lot.  Too soft in front, I think; the rear kept wanting to come around whenever I hit the brakes.   I’ve got new shocks and springs that should help, should I ever manage to get them on the car, but that’s for another post.

The autocross season ended three months ago, and I’m starting to get cabin fever.  I’m finding increasingly large chunks of my day are spent searching desperately for some kind of challenging road within a few minutes of Lawrence and obsessively checking MokanMotorsports for next season’s schedule.  I have a potential co-driver for next season as well, which will be fun if she can make it to a few events.  However, with a hefty chunk of money on the way from Uncle Sam (take that, you overtaxing bastard) and paychecks rolling in from my campus job any day now, my thoughts have turned to the CRX and how it could be improved. Continue reading »

Well, I went to the Halloweenie out at Arrowhead, but it was plagued with timing issues and wind.  I also kind of sucked that day, so I’ll just pretend it didn’t happen and move on to yesterday’s event!  The Kansas Region of the SCCA put on a fundraiser autocross for the Jayhawk Motorsports FSAE team, and held it at the Park and Ride lot on campus here.  That’s a three minute drive from my house (I was joking that my car hadn’t even warmed up enough to stop burning oil when I got to the lot), so of course I had to run.  Good thing, too: I turned in my best performance of the season. Continue reading »

I’d been holding off on writing this post on account of wanting to see if anbody’d snapped pictures of me on course, and general laziness, but I did make it out to both days of the KC Championsips this month.  It was, err… interesting.  I guess that’s one way to put it. Continue reading »

With the Kansas City Championships coming up this weekend, i was anxious to get some half-decent rubber on my car to justify competing.  I’d poked around a bit around town getting quotes and comparing tires, but hadn’t really committed until Sunday, when I buckled down and bought a set of General Altimax RTs from Tire Rack.  They’re no Potenza RE-01s, I know, but they’re the best all-season tires available in sizes fit my puny 13-inch steelies, and I need something I can use in the winter.  They arrived yesterday and I got them mounted this afternoon.

I knew that the no-name budget tires that used to be on the car were bad, but I didn’t know they were THIS bad!  Continue reading »

Was poking around under the rear bumper cover this morning and my rust problem is a bit more pronounced than I orininally thought.  Hopefully I’ll be able to tret it without needing new metal, but I’ll have to jump on it quick to stop it.  Goodbye, tire money. Dammit.

Well, between the last SCCA event and now, I’ve thrown a whole $76 at my new hobby.  I bought my own helmet out at the KC National Tour (it matches the car — thank you HJC for your fortuitous choice of paint color!) and spent 5 bucks on magnetic stock to make my own numbers.  I assume, that like stickers, actual magnetic numbers add 5 horsepower per character, thus my choice to run in H Stock Street Tire class.  At six characters per side, I’ve increased my car’s oomph by 60hp!  So equipped, I headed out to the Kansas Motorspeedway to test out my improved ride. Continue reading »

Well, after missing The Crown Autocross Club event out at the speedway due to a misplaced wallet, I finally got out to drive again on Sunday.  The course this month was about as long in terms of time, but generally felt slower and had more and tighter features.  The bad news is that I’m not that much faster than last time — I only shaved about a second off the gap between me and the class leader compared to Event 5 — but the good news is that I’m getting a solid feel for the car and I think I know how much of that gap is me and how much is my setup.  [Translation: I hate-hate-hate-HATE my tires.] Continue reading »