THSCC Forums

Here's what I learned...

ProSolo is even more fun than it looks!

Rain really sucks when you're working - and you're sick - and it's cold and windy.

Rain is not really that bad when you're driving a Subaru.

My car needs to be a little bit faster.

I need to drive a WHOLE LOT faster.

When you're in 4th place after day one, don't change the setup or you may cone away both right side runs on the second day and drop to 10th. (it wasn't totally the car's fault, of course)

Overall, the event was a lot of fun & I learned a lot. Hopefully I can work on the car and really focus on the driving the rest of the year and bring myself up to the level where Billy and Corey are. They drove really well, and I saw their cars doing things that my car wasn't really willing to do. This experience really put things into perspective, and showed me what I need to work on if I don't want to get spanked next time.

I had a lot of company in the "I sucked bigtime" category, but I think Donna took 1st place & Aaron took a 6th place trophy - and was the 1st place 2wd car in STS. Congratulations!

Anybody else want to share?

Oh, yeah - and DC traffic sucks, the roads suck, the drivers REALLY suck, and whoever put all those speed bumps on the Interstate highways up there should be kicked in the testes.

The results for the DC Pro are posted and I have a question: Did Jonathan Roberts actually finish second in CS in an ST2 1990 Miata on Falkens? If so, WOW? Also, how prepared (i.e. "fully" to the rules) was it?
Thanks!

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Dick Rasmussen

FS 50 2018 Mustang GT

Yes he did. Jonathan is one very talented driver. I don't think his car is "fully" prepared either. I know he hasn't swapped seats out and I'm pretty sure there are some power mods he hasn't done either. He did have a little help from the weather since the course was still damp and cold even on Sunday morning, but that should in no way take away from a great job driving on his part.



I feel your pain Kevin, I only dropped to 3rd, but my Sunday morning tweaking cost me the chance to compete for 1st Since the car got too loose and I didn't drive it properly to compensate. I'm pretty sure if I'd just left well enough alone I'd have been much better off. Kevin, Tom, Jim, Jim, Eric, Aaron, Donnie, Chris, Donna, Charles, anyone else who happens to be at a Pro-solo please kick me if you see me under the car on Sunday morning again.

Of course not only did I screw up the setup, It was so loose on my first run out that I got talked about on the pa because I took out so many cones. I drug so many cones off the course that they had to stop the event and take out more cones. Everything came to a standstill for like 5 minutes thanks to me. If they gave away a prize for the most cones on a single run I would have won it hands down. The results are kind and they only show 1 cone, but in reality, I swear I took out at least 10 cones and at least 3 of those came out from under the car behind the staging lanes.

Oh by the way, big thanks to Christine Allen for dialing the rear shocks down after the conetastraphe, it made the car much easier to drive. The happy coincidence is that she had plenty of time to adjust them since they stopped the event since I destroyed the course. I didn't plan it that way I swear but it worked out well

Actually to be honest despite the weather, the traffic, and adjusting the car away from optimum this was a really fun event for me. I drove really well for the first time in quite awhile and it felt good to drive up to my potential, well at least on most of my runs

As far as the adjustment goes, I took a gamble trying to find an edge and dice came up wrong. When I did it I thought the sun was going to come out and I think if that would have happened the car would have been almost perfect.

Congrats to those to kicked butt. Kevin welcome to the next level of insanity.


Shawn

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OK so I'm back in. Now which tire should I buy??

Yep, I pretty much sucked, too - at least on day 2.

Considering I was running on Hoosiers in the pouring rain on Saturday, I was pretty pleased with my Saturday runs. Did I mention I beat Eric on one side???? He redeemed himself on Sunday, though, and was back to beating me by seconds.

Sunday I was unable to make the adjustment to a dry, grippy surface. Oh, and I coned out on the right side. That certainly didn't help things.

Huge congratulations to Donna - she drove the wheels off the car - it was really amazing. Heard a rumor, but have not been able to confirm, that she also won the Ladies Challenge. Way to go!!!

Not a cone all weekend for Donna, very impressive! For once, the SCCA seems to have posted results on time, and they say that Donna finished 3rd in teh challenge.

Scott

Donna finished 3rd in the ladies challenge, which is a real nice accomplishment, yet her driving in the class competition was down right amazing. Coming down the hill on the right hand slalom, it looked as if Tim Aro was behind the wheel. Very, very impressive.

As for myself, I'm happy to get in the trophy spot, but I never drove well on the right side, nearly spinning both runs on Sunday. I am usually within a tenth or so from right to left, but I had nearly a 1.5 second differential for this event

The good news is the car is getting better, and smooth grippy concrete is in our forecast. It's a shame we had a 4 run event (8 runs in the wet doesn't compare to drying conditions). I think with a few more cracks at it when it actually completely dried (I think 6 heat got the first completely dry runs), I could have really started hitting my groove.

I'm looking forward to Toledo Pro this weekend, praying that my ECU arrives this week (It's been 7 weeks since I ordered it)

Big congrats goes out to all the THSCC for good driving, even the one's that may not have finished as high as they liked, there were a lot that were in contention going into the final day and had a poor 4 run set. Our own Donnie Barnes was in 3rd place after day one, running on Hoosiers in the rain - AB

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'14 Toyota Sequoia Platinum 4WD
Super Westerfield Bros - '93 Integra - LeChump Du Jour
STX 93 - Scion FR-S

Maybe we'll get lucky and have a Pro this season without rain, at least it was over 40 degrees and not pouring all weekend like Atlanta My co-drivers did a great job and were both faster than me on Day #1 - kudos to Chris and Donnie. Running Hoosiers in the wet is a real adventure and they did an awesome job in those conditions.

I was working timing and got a good view of Donna's runs, she was on fire Sunday morning - it was a very impressive driving performance!

Fortunately for me, Jonathan Robert's bump into C Stock doesn't count in the points, so I ended up with 2nd place points for the weekend. Jonathan drove great and he showed that the Falkens are a pretty decent rain tire. If I had to do it over again we would have run Kumhos on Sunday morning. We're changing shocks again this week, so this weekend's Toldeo Pro will be another R&D session. We're hoping to have the new car dialed in soon.

It didn't take G.H. long to get use to his new BMW...since he picked up the win in D Stock.

I didn't get to see the STS and STX guys run, but it looks Buckley did well and Kevin coned away a strong finish. Congrats to Shawn on his 2nd place STX finish - that Courtney Cormier is a helluva driver.

A few other Tarheelers got screwed by the bad weather. When it comes down to a 4-run Sunday morning shootout in half-wet/half-dry conditions, it's a real crapshoot hoping you have the right setup and get lucky and nail a good (or just decent) run on each side because there is almost no room for error. It can be fairly stressful.

That's my 2 cents worth.

Eric

I just looked at the results and saw that I ended up < 0.2 sec from a trophy position, even with my Saturday result on the right course. Damn, that really blows. So many coulda-shouldas. I also noticed that Aaron was not the fastest fwder. Sorry, I heard that rumor on nasioc & posted it here without all the facts. There are definitely some fast people out there & Aaron and I are going to have to step it up if we're going to be taking the top 2 spots.

The one run that was worth the whole weekend though was my first left side run on Sunday. I got a pretty decent groove going & it was feeling pretty good, then when I crossed the line I looked over to the right side course to see Andy Hollis crossing the line after I did. That definitely brought the revs up. Probably one reason why I got all giddy & coned away my last run on the right!

That was the most fun weekend I've had autocrossing in a while. I had highs and lows...on Saturday after the first heat I was next to last and the only person behind me was there because he was dirty on both runs on one side. I had no such excuse. So in the afternoon I just went out and tried to be as fundamentally sound as possible. The car was pushing pretty bad on Hoosiers on a very wet course, but I just did everything as early as I could, looked ahead, and drove around the push with throttle and backing off steering. Came across the line and heard my time and almost crapped a couple kittens. Stayed with the same gameplan and it worked out well...I was third, but the guy in first was on dirt stockers and second place was Jonathan on the Azenis (who has swapped out his passenger seat, btw!). That was the first time I've been ahead of Eric at a Pro on day one, which worked out really well for him as he had a little more heat in the tires and maybe a little drier course for his Sunday runs. He drove really well and proved he *could* have taken a good shot at Telehowski, and we really feel like we can still improve the car some, too. He still constantly shows me stuff every time he gets in the car. Next weekend should be a blast.

All that first day stuff was for naught, however, as it was much drier on day two, which made it a four run event for everyone. I drove okay, but not great, and came in sixth overall (fourth in CS points), which is very respectable considering. I would have never thought I could even have that much fun at an event that was that wet, but I did thanks to having great co-drivers and folks hanging out like Tim and Rod and Jim^2 and Jonathan and others. Having Buckley around is a drag, but everyone else made up for him.

More folks should definitely try the Pro format. I'd really like to see Tarheel able to put an event on like that, but I don't think we have any sites left that could accommodate.


--Donnie

So many cones, so little time...

I think that sums up my past 2 weekends fairly well.

I still had fun and although I didn't drive particularly well over that stretch, I definitely learned some stuff. Hopefully I will be able to apply it in the future and not make the same mistakes. OK, that's probably wishful thinking but a boy can dream, can't he???

Jim

4 run shoot outs really REALLY suck!!! at least with my class being the designated course cleaner. I was .2 out of trophies after the first round, .5 out of trophies after the second round, DFL after spinning on 3 of the last 4 runs.
Running in GS open last weekend really helped step up Donna's driving, that's the best she's ever driven.

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SPIN or WIN!
there's no glory for going slow.

It was a wild and wholly weekend. The great thing about Piccone's courses, you get to select your line. So you can easily hang yourself.

It was unfortunate that it came down to a 4 run shootout. You did your four runs in a matter of 15 minutes or so. Alternating between a left course and right course, although in cone placement similar, the elevation changes made them each unique.

The nightmares kept me up all last night. Each nightmare was the same, the inside rear tire clipping a cone. I can not believe I coned away a win But cones count

Maybe Jim or I will tell the story about our excursion through Silver Springs, Georgetown, Central DC and points east (in the rain, pulling the MR2) on our shortcut to FedEx.

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Jim Pastorius
2008 Silverado VortecMax
1992 Camaro CMC#92
2002 BMW R1150R

2009 3rd Place CMC Mid-Atlantic Championship
2009 CMC Hyperfest Winner

I think we took that "shortcut" with the caravan to Ayer MA a couple years ago... LOL

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SPIN or WIN!
there's no glory for going slow.

If you don't like running Prosols in the rain, I'd suggest you NOT look at the forecast for Topeka next weekend.

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SPIN or WIN!
there's no glory for going slow.