GRM post part III

[nealtovsen@yahoo.com (Neal Tovsen)]

Glad you all had a good time in Gainesville! I'm sorry
that I had to be running another event in Orlando
(literally...I was one of the people in charge). :( 

If you & Brian need any help at next year's event,
send me an email as much in advance as you can. I'll
make sure my schedule is clear, and I can be your pit
crew or whatever else you need. If you can find some
wheels that are at least 13x7 or so and ditch the
10.1" brakes (you don't need 'em anyway), I'll hang on
to a set of autocross tires for the car. That will
help your situation immensely! I sent Brian an email
offering some tires a few months ago, but never heard
any response.

We (Central FL SCCA) do run autocrosses ourselves in
Gainesville, and it is a great site.

BTW, the focus of autocross should NEVER be to confuse
the driver in a sea of cones or cause "cone
blindness". That's even in the rule book! However,
some tighter courses still end up that way, whether
intended or not. At national-level events, courses are
more similar to what you experienced, but many local
clubs cannot get sites big enough to create that kind
of course. Gainesville doesn't have that problem, as
you found out. :)

Neal
Tampa, FL

--- Rick Alexander <ralexander03@snet.net> wrote:
> Part III
> 
> Before I proceed to the Autocross (used as loosly as
> was done by GRM), I
> must comment upon part II.
> 
> I'd never done a drag and neither had Brian. We
> prepared things as best as
> we thought we could. Brian climbed in and I snugged
> up the 5 point harness
> for him. He (we) was so anxious to go that he gets
> the first spot in the
> staging lanes. He's all set so I wandered over to
> the stands to get some
> pictures. Wow, there he goes. "Rattling since day
> one" Flowmaster not
> sounding as bad as it does inside the car. Run over,
> I walk all the way back
> to our pit. Ok, here he comes, look at that, is that
> his toothy grin
> sticking out both windows at once? Yep, it was and
> there he goes right back
> to the staging lanes. I wander back to the stands.
> Another run and back to
> the pit. He drives right by again! Back to the
> stands and right back to the
> pit. There he goes again!!! ALL DAY LONG this went
> on. I was so busy running
> back and forth from the pit to the stands and back
> that I never had time to
> put on the sun block. Big mistake. Anyway, late in
> the day I did take three
> runs. Two red lights, Brian is way better at this
> than I am.
> 
> Autocross... not by my book. It was more of a road
> race. By my definition an
> autocross is a series of tight turns involving cones
> and the distinct
> ability to get lost or suffer cone blindness. This
> was a test track, three
> skid pads linked by asphault approximately 24' wide.
> A nice new surface with
> no elevation changes. All of the track was cambered
> like a street. It was in
> a highly manacured field of grass. You just could
> not get lost, in fact the
> only cones were the two slaloms.
> 
> Start to finish it went like this. 75' of straight
> leading to a 250' skid
> pad. Left arround the skid pad for about 180 deg.
> Immediately transition to
> another skid pad to the right for 270 deg. This
> ended in a hair pin 180 deg.
> left hander. This was tough as the car was heavily
> into the left front when
> it needed to be braked hard and completely shifted
> to have all it's weight
> on the right front. 75 yards or so later there was a
> four gate slalom. These
> gates were lined up with each other but the distance
> from gate to gate was
> diminishing. Interesting to do but not all that
> hard. Hind site tells me
> that maybe I didn't push this enough. This led to
> another skid pad. This one
> was different, it was a consistent radius for 90
> deg. then had a decreasing
> radius for the next 90 deg. It was full throttle
> throught the first part
> then trailing throttle for the second part. With no
> straight it went into an
> immediate left, right, left chicane. A 150' straight
> to another slalom. Four
> gates in line with diminishing depth. This was hard,
> due to the car set up I
> found I was hopping the rear around the cones. Scary
> since I'd seen a 6K
> mile Focus go over this summer doing just this.
> Timing light and run off.
> 
> All thing considered it went well. We were
> underpowered and I had terrible
> tires. On the front I had my Michelin Pilot road
> racing tires and in the
> rear some very worn, "hard as a rock", dry rotted
> Continental touring tires.
> Damned it was oversteering like mad. I'm used to a
> slight push so this was a
> whole new experience for me. First run was :59.6 and
> I had gotten it down to
> :58.116 but took out the last cone on the course. My
> best keeper time was
> :58.446. FTD was :48.825 but after the afternoon
> session, Tim Sudderd's (GRM
> Publisher) 10 year old son took his kart out and
> turned three laps at :46
> and change. That kid never even came close to
> looping it. I was very
> impressed.
> 
> After the kart demonstration, the course was opened
> for fun runs. Brian took
> the car out and asked me to ride along. Well that
> toothy grin almost pushed
> me out the passengers window. He went right back to
> the start and didn't
> even let me out. I did manage to escape before his
> third run though.
> 
> We had a great time, I could not have asked for a
> better team mate. Before
> we even got out of Gainesville we were doing the
> imagineering for the 2004
> Challenge. Brian want's to run his '88 and I want to
> enter the Baja. Maybe
> Brian could be my partner with the Beetle and I
> could be his with the
> Scirocco. I can't wait!
> 
> Rick Alexander
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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