NASA "ChillyCross" @ VMP

Zach Hill · **Posted:** Tue Jan 17, 2012 12:06 pm

What a day. While it may have been freezing cold and nobody's tires really worked the way they wanted, it was a pretty fun event and an epic day. The course was long and challenging (~60 seconds) and the pavement had lots of grip considering the temperature.

It was fun figuring out how to drive on R-S3 255mm tires in nearly freezing weather. The car seemed to understeer a bit more (which I absolutely DETEST), but it's hard to tell if that's due to the new tire setup or the temperature. I ended up with a 58.3 clean, and on Noah's last run he managed a 58.0+1. He was cursing that "non time cone" for some time. :lol:

Gwen and Jim were also there, driving the wheels off the Mini as usual. Note of humor: For some reason, Gwen and Jim were entered into their Novice class! National champ in Novice... the poor n00bs! :lol:

Also, my class was wrong, so was Kevin's, and the grid & registration system was very hectic. Yeah... :roll:

We left the event caravaning with Jackson & Daniel, and Carlton & Jason. Just after starting out, my car started exhibiting a bad vibration and shuddering on acceleration. I decided not to worry about it until after dinner. We found a Mexican restaurant nearby as is tradition, and we ate a much needed dinner and drank Dos XX. We decide that it would be best to jack up the car to see if maybe a CV axle was damaged or binded. So there we were, in the parking lot of El Capara Mexican Restaurant at 8pm in 27° weather under an S2000 on jackstands. We inspected the CV axles which looked fine, played with the diff & driveshaft which resulted in some resistance when spinning one way. We decided to drive the 2 hours back to Durham and hope for the best, so we packed up and reconnected the trailer and were about to go on our merry way...

...when Jackson's E30 would not go into gear: his linkage was broken! The shifter was completely loose and wouldn't do anything. So, we unpacked the jack and all our tools again, and this time jacked up the E30 (still in the parking lot of El Capara, mind you). Somehow, after about 30 minutes, a Swiss Army knife, and some zip ties, Jackson managed to get the linkage removed and out of the way so it didn't fall onto the highway on the drive home and got the transmission shifted into 4th gear (this seemed the most logical gear to choose for a 2 hour drive down I-85).

Some of you might know Jackson's car: it's the beige E30 that makes a lot of noise when it backfires due to his two-stage launch system. I also should mention that in the morning they arrived at VMP, the muffler fell off of the car, making it even louder. It sounded like machine gun fire at the event. So here it is, stuck in 4th gear, ready to drive back to Durham. We all pushed his car around the El Capara parking lot to gain speed until he pulled out onto the road, barely stalling and sputtering the whole way, and with a loud backfire and a shot of flame out the exhaust, he was off!

At that point we all drove home at 60MPH in a 70MPH zone... BECAUSE RACE CAR!

Here are the results from the event, and I'll have videos up soon on my Picasa page in my sig in case anyone wants to see the course.

Thanks very much to Jackson, Daniel, Carlton, and Jason for sticking with us and making sure everyone got home safely! :thumbsup:

Kevin Allen · **Joined:** Thu Aug 28, 2003 6:42 pm **Posts:** 3479

I want that STi. Or I want to duplicate his setup on mine. :shock:

That looked fun. Probably not as scary as a GT-R, but still...

jeremy gast · **Posted:** Tue Jan 17, 2012 12:33 pm

sounds like it was a fun day. The classing with NASA is weird!!!

Gwen Habenicht · **Posted:** Tue Jan 17, 2012 1:04 pm

We had a pretty good time too. I think it's funny that we're considered to be novices there. Hey, whatever works. We actually missed the pre-register and just figured we'd register once we got there. Good thing we got in line when we did...we were going to unpack the care first...we were the last 2 drivers that they let register. Needless to say, there were some pretty cranky guys behind us. Then, they only had 1st heat sheets available and since they don't allow two drivers in the same car to run in the same heat, initially they were only going to let one of us register. We both just pretty much protested and said, "no, we're the next two in line, we're registering", so they let us.

We ran on my daily driver Toyos which are showing signs of wear, but it was cold, there was no way we were running on used up Hoosiers, and no real testing to do, car wise at this point, so this was a perfect day for me to work on some issues I'm attempting to modify in driving style. From that standpoint, a day well spent. Also, for me, the shift to third and back to second before the two 90 degree lefts was a great opportunity to work on the down shift, heel/toe and rev matching...which is really overkill, but hey, why not have fun with it?

We left the event needing gas, thought we'd get some "just down the road a bit" and ended up running on "dashes" for the last few miles, hoping we'd make it to an exit, or that one of you guys would drive by and see us freezing on the side of the road. We did finally coast, sorta, into a service station. We tend to do that a lot. I think it's part of the adventure. :whoknows:

The location was great, and from that standpoint I'd go again, but in the big scheme of things NASA autocrosses will go on my list of events to make when there's nothing else going on.There stuff is just too weird. But, hey, it's January, and we've already autocrossed. What's the down side?

Cash Davidson · **Posted:** Tue Jan 17, 2012 1:34 pm

Gwen Baake wrote:

but it was cold, there was no way we were running on used up Hoosiers

Yeah, I should have heeded this advise.

This pretty much sums up my typical run:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_9Ar1aR ... e=youtu.be

Apparently my ice racing skills aren't what they used to be. It was fun though.

Zach - sorry to hear about the troubled ride home. I passed on the invite to dinner cause I had to hurry back home.

On a side note: In our search for autocross sites, have we considered VMP? Closer than L'burg (at least from my house).

noahfleming · **Posted:** Tue Jan 17, 2012 2:12 pm

The event was fun, but man - they really did have some serious problem with timing and scoring. I also had to continuously call in cone calls, car numbers, DNFs, and re-runs for other worker stations because no one was doing what they were supposed to do. Pretty poorly run event in my opinion, but fun none the less.

I have to say that I really like the VMP site, it's a great surface and I was surprised how much grip it had, even in 40F weather. I don't think I heard the RS-3s make a single chirp the whole event, but that's probably because I was "doing it wrong"

I'm not sure if we've considered this site before, it's about 2 hours away from North Durham, but that's about the same distance as L'burg for me. I'd make the trip again, absolutely.

Gwen, they also made me change my registration from running first heat to third heat as they wouldn't let Zach and I run together. Ofcourse we found this out after we had both registered and had been given both worker and run assignments. Apparently it's caused problems in the past for them because of the way the line up cars in order by car number and having the same car with 2 numbers would make things difficult for them. Given the issues with timing and scoring on Sunday, I can see how adding complexity to the grid could have made things worse :wink:

.

Here is my fastest run: http://goo.gl/y5XT0

JamesShort · **Posted:** Tue Jan 17, 2012 2:54 pm

Every time I go to a NASA event at VMP I say I won't go back because NASA never has their crap together: logistics, timing equipment, classing, run groups etc etc etc.

But as Gwen said, in January, there are no other events so why not. I hate how they put a 70-75mph (90+mph for the C6Z06s) braking zone right before a 20mph 90deg turn which happend to be in a section of pavement with low frequency undulations so it was very easy to actuate ABS.

Matt McGrain · **Posted:** Tue Jan 17, 2012 2:55 pm

So it sounds like VMP is ~2hrs from RDU, grippy in January, and 60 second course potential. Hmmm, that sounds pretty awesome actually... The question is could we get 70+ entries to make the trek. We're still looking for a venue for the last points event in October.

Glad y'all had fun despite the challenges and January seat time's never a bad thing.

noahfleming · **Posted:** Tue Jan 17, 2012 3:12 pm

My fail video, including windshield wiper before the start and spin after the first turn: http://goo.gl/8WzM7

Stephen Westerfield · **Posted:** Tue Jan 17, 2012 5:03 pm

Gwen Baake wrote:

We actually missed the pre-register and just figured we'd register once we got there. Good thing we got in line when we did...we were going to unpack the care first...we were the last 2 drivers that they let register. Needless to say, there were some pretty cranky guys behind us. Then, they only had 1st heat sheets available and since they don't allow two drivers in the same car to run in the same heat, initially they were only going to let one of us register. We both just pretty much protested and said, "no, we're the next two in line, we're registering", so they let us.

Makes me glad I didn't go. On Thursday when I went to the website and saw prereg was closed and they were only accepting a few walk ups, coupled with the $45 day of event entry fee, Judi and I decided to pass.

Dustin Fredrickson · **Posted:** Tue Jan 17, 2012 5:23 pm

Matt McGrain wrote:

So it sounds like VMP is ~2hrs from RDU, grippy in January, and 60 second course potential. Hmmm, that sounds pretty awesome actually... The question is could we get 70+ entries to make the trek. We're still looking for a venue for the last points event in October.

VMP was "ruled out" before my time, and I believe THSCC's last (and maybe first, for all I know) event there was my very first autocross back in '02/'03... It was POURING rain that day, and given the ~150' of visibility, is about all I remember. I have no idea what circumstances surround us having not ventured back there, but may be worth polling some of the "old(er) timers".

Cash Davidson · **Posted:** Tue Jan 17, 2012 5:30 pm

There were a couple of things I wished they'd have covered in the drivers meeting: 1) how to properly call in cones and DNFs (I was at T&S receiving cone calls in the 1st heat). 2) stay away from the T&S table ( I was backup hand writer and people kept coming and asking questions or just standing around blocking our view of car numbers)

They really need to get a remote timer for the finish lines. Between the cone calls coming in and the guy standing over my shoulder radio-ing out the times and cones to the person with the post-it note pad - it was very tough to keep the numbers straight. Then add to that random people walking up and asking about work assignments or "how much for a pastry".

Gwen Habenicht · **Posted:** Tue Jan 17, 2012 6:25 pm

Yeah, the no timing display was a pain. Things were pretty weird for the first couple of runs, timing wise. They had Jim's first run at a 73. something, or a DNF, but they didn't know which. Since we knew neither was a possibility, we just considered it a sign of things to come. NASA not being able to handle two driver cars in the same heat is a pain as well, but when you're the guest, you play by their rules. (I still like that we were put in Novice class however.)

I'm in Bahama, north of Durham, and it was about 2 hrs, 20/30 minutes for us from my house. Of course it's over the river and through the woods to I-85 from here, but we figured by the time Jim came from the other side of Sunny Fuquay it would have been about 3 1/2+ hours total. I guess if you're right near the interstate it's less of a pain.

I would imagine that some of the nay sayers could argue that we'd be venturing even further into VA for NC based events, but when you look at the size and shape of the facility, plus indoor plumbing, :sing:

I'd certainly consider it worth looking into for rates, availability, etc. A well organized, well run event there would ROCK! Decent sites, well, any sites, are no longer low hanging fruit. The track program ventures out of state. I see no reason why the autocross program shouldn't as well.

Kevin Allen · **Joined:** Thu Aug 28, 2003 6:42 pm **Posts:** 3479

I also think we should run some events there. I ran several times with us and VMSC back in the old days, and it was always fun.

And I go to NASA autoxes not expecting some huge, professionally-run SCCA event, just something fun to do with my car. Don't expect more than that, and you'll be happy.

Gwen Habenicht · **Posted:** Tue Jan 17, 2012 6:53 pm

Kevin Allen wrote:

And I go to NASA autoxes not expecting some huge, professionally-run SCCA event, just something fun to do with my car. Don't expect more than that, and you'll be happy.

You're right, and I didn't mean to sound cranky about how they chose to run things.I was just a little surprised. This was my first NASA event, and their track program always seems like more of a well run machine-so I just figured..... That was sort of Noob, wasn't it? Maybe that's how we ended up in Novice. :shock:

Thanks for agreeing that it's a possibility worth investigating as a new site.

Gwennie

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