After arriving home last night at 4pm, I'm still pretty beat. Here's my take:
Overall, I'm pretty happy with the results. The courses were screamers, but they both put us either hitting the limiter in 2nd a billion times, or shifting to third for short bursts, which weren't helpful. The Civics and BMW's barely revved out in 2nd, and the 2.5 was deep into 3rd for most of the course. I wish we had a set of 17" with 225's on them
To be in 3rd place about .4 sec out of first on day one was good. I couldn't put it together on day 2, nearly spinning the car on all three runs. I was hanging it out with a 'win or spin' attitude. 5th is decent for the first dry time in the car. I'm glad my co-driver removed his head from his arse on day 2
Things we learned:
1) TRD needs to hurry up with our piggyback ECU - the lack of low end torque was a killer in the turn arounds and when we needed third and couldn't shift at the optimal time.
2) We need more meat. No way we're going to make 205's work on concrete at least. 225's are going to be the ticket, but that means bigger wheels as well. Not sure yet what we'll go with, but we'll be sticking with the Kumho tire more than likely. I wouldn't be surprised if we're running 17's up front and 15's in the rear before it's all over. The gearing may hurt us on the shorter/tighter courses, but the gearing disadvantage on a long course, combined with wheelspin was a killer.
3) We need seat time. Although I feel pretty comfortable in the car, I need to get you used to all the adjustability of the car and use it to my advantage, instead of just trying to adjust the car like it's still stock.
4) BMW's with the right course could be unbelievable. Terry Baker and Gary Meredith were screaming fast. Terry on the Kumhos and Gary on the Falkens. On a course where they can open up that v6 and not rev out until 65mph, they can stay in the meat of the power and just cruise.
5) The STS crowd is a good group of guys. I was real happy for Ryan Thompson taking me to the woodshed by 1.1 seconds on day 2, even after beating him the day before.
At least we got a lot of people looking at the car. It's a real eye catcher now:
- AB
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