THSCC Forums

As usual, a fun and well run event.

I must admit that after first walking the course, I hated it! It seemed overly simplistic and had way too many spots where you were flat on the gas for extended periods of time. It looked to be a total horsepower course with just enough elements thrown in to occasionally slow us down.

Boy was I wrong! The course was a total blast! Kudos to Mike Westerfield and Jonathan Rodriguez for a deceiving and very challenging course despite its seemingly open and featureless appearance. I'm still not sure how it wound up driving so much differently than it walked but color me very impressed.

The opening section all the way to the pin turn on the taxi way was a serious gut check to get through there without brushing the brakes and made great use of the narrow section without putting cars in danger. It was the same way coming back out of that section which lead into a fast and fun sweeper. The sweeper opened up on exit which never felt pinched off and you could utilize a variety of lines through there.

The slalom heading out on the main runway was one of the faster ones I've seen all year and was a total blast to drive. It had plenty of room at the entrance to get a clean line started and required a ton of commitment to get through there fast and clean. It was great finally having a fast slalom which didn't have goofy spacing to mess up your rhythm.

The turnaround at the far end of the runway was perfect for giving you enough room to drive in there hard but it really rewarded you for being patient at the exit. I worked that section in the last heat and it was fairly obvious that people who got greedy on exit got way behind starting the next section. It was a great complement to the first sweeper where you could afford to run a little wide on the exit.

The section coming back towards the finish was essentially a slalom with tight spacing in the middle section and really rewarded staying ahead of the cones. If you were able to make a slight adjustment for the tight middle section, you could really fly through there and come rocketing out towards the finish section.

I always hate seeing tight stuff right before the finish (especially a slalom!) and when I first walked the course, I immediately started calling that section a stop box. It turned out that the section wasn't too bad and if you really setup for it, you could get through there with surprising speed. It was much better than any other tight section I've seen before a finish and actually turned out to be a nice way of slowing the cars down.

Great job again on the course guys!

And if you didn't notice, watch out for Eric Sienkiewicz! He is a young kid and relatively new to the sport but he is amazingly talented. He co-drove with me and he pushed me to the limit in my own car. Even though he is a member of "the other club", you should keep an eye on him as I believe he has the skills to go as far as he wants to in this sport.

Jim

X2!

From a noob's perpective - my biggest issue was getting behind on my steering *cough* timing reflector *cough* Taught me a lesson on trying too hard when I should have just been feeling out how much different the new tires were.

Thanks for the ride along help, Art. And thanks Marcus for the spray bottle and tire pressure advice.



Oh great - now there's 2 of you! At least it gives me something to shoot for...

One thing I can beat you on - posting video first!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5270182307656248725

_________________
One of those LeMonHeads...
91/95 Miata, 02 Focus SVT, 01 Ford F250, 09 Suzuki SV650SF
rusty 84 C4 Vette, tiny piece of the General Lei
Irish Sport Horse - 1hp NA!

:crickets chirping:

Dang this is the quietest post-event thread ever. Not sure if this is a good or bad thing....

Im tired still!!

Great course, great event. Kudos to Jonbo and Mike!!!

_________________
02 Focus SVT
STF 9

I would like to say I was a little disappointed that Walter didn't show up. He would have liked this one.

_________________
2001 Honda S2000 - SOLD
2012 Boss 302
2003 BMW 330i

I talked with Walter this morning, he was in Chattanoga. His father had a stroke and is not doing well.

_________________
02 Focus SVT
STF 9

I was thinking the same thing. When I first saw the course, I figured you guys must have all run out and bought Corvettes or something. While hp definitely didn't hurt out there, it was somewhat negated by the open line choices that were available. But if you did have it, it was probably one of the more entertaining courses I've ever seen at Danville. Good stuff indeed.

Edit: Just saw Ryan's post-- I hope everything works out well.

Jim

Walter, let us know if there's anything we can do for you.

_________________
2001 Honda S2000 - SOLD
2012 Boss 302
2003 BMW 330i

+1

I thought it was an excellent course design with good flow between the elements. That ending L-R-L was something most people hate as you always have that gut feeling of wanting to blast through the lights at the end of a course, but it was laid out just perfectly in that it was very driveable such that you were rewarded for proper car placement/speed which was a challenge. Good job.

Here's a link to a video of my last run: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDKq626-3Ag

I was driving my wife's 06 330i, and it is purely stock other than tires. In other words, no front bar and no alignment, so it just wanted to burn the outside edges of the front tires. On Saturday I had finally gotten around to fully test fitting the BFG R1 265/35s on the 330i zhp, and after some laps at the 98-Creedmoor raceway, er, cloverleaf, it was apparent that the tires were rubbing the rear fender lips a bit. It might not be bad enough under autocross conditions to be an issue however, so we'll probably try them at the next event with fingers crossed. Anyway, I opted to try them yesterday on the later model 330 since they cleared ok on it.

Anyway, good job on the course design as it was a lot of fun to mentally rehearse/drive/rehearse/drive/...!

_________________
Current stable:
2019 BMW M2 Competition slicktop 6MT
2011 BMW M3 sedan slicktop 6MT
2007 BMW 328i wagon (slushbox for now)
1975 CanAm 125MX2

Walter.....my thoughts and prayers are with you.

===========================

I've gotta say, in my relatively short time of autox'n, i've never met a course quite like this one! I was able to memorize the course after just one walk through (given my terrible short term memory, that's impressive!!). I first thought the course may have been overly simplistic, but man was I wrong.....it was a BLAST!

My biggest regret was not being able to test the changes I made to my suspension before going to the event. The car was so out of wack it wasn't even funny. During the first 2 runs, it was all I could do to keep the rear end of the car behind me. After some alignment changes it was somewhat better in the afternoon, but nowhere near where it needs to be. Seeing that I ended up 64th in PAX says it all. What's really funny is that my only run in the 49's is the same run that I couldn't get the car to shift correctly (missed 5 shifts)!

I guess it's kinda like golf, all it takes is one or two good shots (in our case 1 or 2 good runs) and we'll keep coming back for more!

ANYWAY....great course!

_________________
Rob Harvey
919-697-5485
1997 BMW M3
1992 Acura Integra (Simon)

Good job guys!

Walking the course, I was sure this was going to be a boring course for the Miata. And for my first couple runs, my attitude showed in my driving. But I woke up a bit in the afternoon, and came to realize the nuances of this course that really did reward even the Miata driver when done right. By my 4th run, I actually got a bit of the "shakes" going after the run. Unfortunately, I really didn't feel like I got things fully together until fun runs, but was satisfied that I at least found the speed then.

Regardless of driving, I had a great time. Thanks again to the chairs and staff for another great event!

_________________
Dustin Fredrickson
-- I'm a nobody --

Dustin, that's the reason why I don't do fun runs.

I walked the course with Karen and Peter and we were done after the first one. It was fairly straightforward, but I wish that I would have rewalked the finish another five times; I never got it right. And I got beaten by a girl that was nice enough to be on the mike during both heats, so that was choice.

Thanks to everybody who helped me out during my mechanical throughout the morning, Chris, Ryan, Dustin and Kevin. I couldn't have made it home without you (or getting AAA involved).

_________________
Has no responsibility whatsoever.

That event was an absolute blast!! Thanks for a great course Mike and Jon. I LOVED the sweeper into the fast slalom. I still think that is where I left some time on the course.

The only bit of dissappointment that I saw happened when Karen fuel starved the WRX in the sweeper. The only guys that went to push her back were Scott Sawyer (TSCC), Brett Shillock (TSCC) and a couple of people I didn't recognize. Not a single THSCCer to be found. (I would have helped, but I was working in the bus at the time.) It would have been nice to see at least one Tarheeler help out.

I once again have to say THANK YOU to our scoring team. You guys really make the event happen. I only had 6 corrections (missed cones and one DNF) to make and 1 small bungle to fix. All in all, a VERY easy audit.

Also, a BIG thank you goes out to Karen Kraus for finding the error that caused the preliminary result to be so screwed up. Turns out that I was the cause of the problem. While trying to figure out how to do the automatic worker assignments, I checked a box. Apparently I forgot to uncheck it. I promise that it won't happen again. If any of you talk to her, thank her again for me!

Results have been sent to Carl and Emmie after fixing the problem with the classes printing out of order. They should be posted soon.

Thanks again to the whole THSCC family for making this a fun hobby.

_________________
Todd Breakey
STS 42 - 1992 Sunburst Miata
Dammit!
"You souldn't play leap frog with a porcupine. You might get hurt." - Eliza

Results are up!

Need dash plaque and course map files, please.

_________________
The person with too many names...
Mary E./ME/Emmie Fisher/Daniel/Daniel-Fisher
(& some others not suitable for posting!).
Help support our habits; BUY http://virginiabreeze.us !

When I first saw that, I immediately thought "Uh oh! WRX? Busted tranny!". Several of us near the bus started to head out there once we realized she wasn't moving but by that time, the other guys already had her headed back down the hill and the car was rolling pretty well. I think several Tarheel'ers were going to help but we just weren't quite as quick on the draw as the other guys who were watching her run closely.

Wes, what happened to your car? I was working the course when you were doing your afternoon runs so I'm guessing it wasn't anything major? I did notice that you were the only CSP'er that was hitting the limiter before the finish but I have no idea where Ryan has his rev-limiter set on his megasquirt.

Jim