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.
The site out at the speedway is a long, very narrow lot with no elevation changes. To make a little extra length, the first half of the course consisted of a loop with a slight but very narrow offset at the front and an optional slalom on the back stretch. Going fast around the loop required choosing the right side of the slalom to take on each go-round; it was best to come out on the left side on the first lap to widen the back turn, and then to come out on the right side to align with the opening in the cone wall to the rest of the course. Then was a series of walkthroughs capped by a tight right-hander to the finish lights.
The course was tight as hell and more than a few people were coning the crap out of it. Gary Hartmann in his MR2 wiped out at least 6 cones on his fourth run; we kind of lost count because they were coming so fast. As for my runs, I was making all kind of angry tire sounds and at one point overdid a transition coming off the optional slalom and went sideways through the cone wall at the end of the front loop. Somehow I managed not to cone, though… I did cone once on my second run, but by the end of the say I’d shaved more than 3 seconds off my first run on a 50 second-ish course. I was eleven seconds off the FTD (set at 42.4xx by a STU Mistubishi Evo), but only five seconds off HS ST lead. I’m sure I left time out there, but I’m feeling more confident in my skills.
Next up: buying real tires! I’ve got to get this worthless rubber off my car.
As always, my AutoX history is available here.