THSCC Forums

Great course; thanks, Jim!

I shot (and kept) 176 photos this weekend, including setting up for the school & autox, & lots of action shots. I'll get them posted eventually, but here's a preview...

http://home.att.net/~kevinmallen/shawnstheman.jpg

Nice driving, Shawn!

PS - now that I've entered the digital age, I can easily make CD's of the entire event...

Over 50% of the credit goes to Kevin Hoff. What a great guy to work with. We had a good time laying out the course on Saturday. Thanks Kevin.

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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

Kevin and Jim did a great job with the event.

They picked out a new location in the vast expanse of Laurinburg where the concrete was still in really good shape compared to our normal area. Then they must have showed up at like 6:00 am the day of the event and used the weedeater for like 3.5 hours before the event to get the course cleared of weeds.

I'm guessing that Kevin's hands are still numb.

I must admit that I had my doubt's that about their plan to run in the new area but they pulled it off with a lot of hard work on there part.

Thanks guys.

Shawn

Jim - when I thanked Kevin, he said it was all you. What a team!

yea, the afternoon runs were awesome; lot'sa grip...i had a lot of fun yesterday!!! Thanks to everyone that helped organize and run the event.

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05 MCS

Once again I had a great time at Laurinburg this weekend. You know this stuff must be fun if you....

a) Drive 3 hours to get there
b) Spend lots of money on 2 nights of lodging, food and gas
c) Drive poorly and "lose the course".....twice.....and still had a good time!

The course was fun even though Jim designed it for an MR2 again. I was looking forward to our typical LB course but the change was refreshing. Looking ahead was more critical than ever and I didn't do it well enough. Hence my getting lost....twice....ack!

A few others thoughts in no particular order to summarize this weekend.........

1. Concrete rules....even if you have to drive 3 hours to get there.
2. Looking ahead really does work....if you actually *look* ahead....duh!
3. Cones hurt an otherwise good run. My very first pass was a 55.00X.....plus one! I got worse, not better.
4. Patrice is still really FAST....on ANY course.
5. Carl is silly fast....especially in a Neon.
6. Kevin Allen takes great pics and drives VERY WELL. He needs to move to PRO class.
7. "Jim Diesel" is still fast even on Patrice's old tires.
8. Dan Ecclestone needs to stay in PRO class. He's stupid fast in a stock car already. How fast would he be if his STi was prepped to the extent of the ESP rules?
9. If you were a Novice and didn't attend the school on Saturday, where did you finish? The trophy winners all attended.

And last but not least, the quote of the day from Scott Johnson regarding some smack talk in STS:

"Someone talked trash, but someone ELSE took it out".

Kudos to the event organizers for another great one. See some of you Friday night.

_________________
Vincent Keene
'06 Ford Mustang GT (track rat)
'15 Dodge Charger R/T (yeah, it's got a HEMI!)
'07 Ford Fusion SE (205,000 miles and counting)
'98 Chevy Z-24 (retired)
'93 Acura Integra (Team SWB 24HOL Car)

Nice driving shawn! You bastard
15 thousands, I shouldn't have eaten that 1/2lb burger at lunch dammit.

Thanks for getting this together jim and kevin h! It was a fun course, although a bit too tight for my tastes. Honestly, I don't think 15 cone slaloms belong in laurinburg very painful. The smoothness of the new location concrete was very cool, although the paint and the grass did play havoc on my car setup. I used the same setup I found testing a month ago on the "usual" concrete we run at laurinburg (which also worked awesome in topeka), and the car was uncontrollably loose on the 1st run. I ended up running the rear full soft and front full stiff to control the transition oversteer.

-Tom

I told this to several people at the event:

This club makes chairing an event _easy_.

Jim and I took care of the course, course map, dash plaque, and weedwhacker duty . Neither of us remembered the worker sign up sheets so Miles took care of that then everything else happened automatically. The various leaders/specialists took over their positions and things ran like clockwork.

Thanks everyone, especially Miles, Carl, Mary, Shawn, and of course Jim. I had a great time.

--Kevin H.

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2003 WRX (again!)

Or maybe I should put "sticky tires" on Tom's car and run in ESP? I think Dan and I could have some fun with that; what do you think, Vincent?

dude... you didn't so much lose the course as you tried to move it by punting the cones.

The pics are up! I made them smaller than usual this time, to save space and time and to hopefully get some people to buy a print so they can see what the picture really looks like. ; )

http://kevinmallen.home.att.net/autoxphotos.htm

I was learning how to use the camera this weekend, so some of the results weren't totally stunning (directly off the memory card), but with a little tweaking in photoshop any of these should make a nice, big print. I promise that next time I'll be fully prepared!



Kevin

OK that's just not funny at all. You and Tom will *have* to run PRO. Besides your goal was supposed to be to beat Dick W. not me.

BTW, Dan never keeps a car 12 months so he will have another car before next year anyway. I'm not too worried, but if he shows up he might need extra tires. The air might somehow escape from the ones he brings.

_________________
Vincent Keene
'06 Ford Mustang GT (track rat)
'15 Dodge Charger R/T (yeah, it's got a HEMI!)
'07 Ford Fusion SE (205,000 miles and counting)
'98 Chevy Z-24 (retired)
'93 Acura Integra (Team SWB 24HOL Car)

Hey, I learned a few things this weekend myself:

1. Really worn out Kumho V700’s are a *slight* bit stickier than really worn out Michelin Pilot Sport Cups.

2. Putting said less sticky Sport Cups on the rear of a nicely balanced car makes it as loose as a $4 hook**, um, let’s just say it was loose.

3. Even after somewhat rebalancing the car by disconnecting the rear sway bar, making a LARGE shock adjustment and using totally bastardized air pressure settings, it doesn’t help a lick in a straight line when trying to recalibrate my right foot.

4. Really worn out Sport Cups work *much* better when smokin’ hot. Luckily (???), given the amount of rear wheel spin we were getting, it didn’t seem to be a problem heating them up.

5. Watching your co-driver trying to acclimate himself to a treacherous car setup with a sudden 200ft-lbs at the rear wheels of a 2200lb car is somewhat amusing. Needless to say he did a great job considering the conditions and the only person to spin the car all weekend happened to be me. Doh!

6. Hitting the final small cone on course in the midst of a clean 52.4 conservative run doesn’t put you in a great state of mind for your last run.

7. During said last run, after making an awesome drive through to the first turnaround and then running wide 3 feet doesn’t lead to rational thought.

8. You can’t make up for lost time by trying harder at the next gate. While I already knew this, apparently I need a refresher because that was my first thought coming out of the turnaround.

9. Spinning at the very next gate after the turnaround from trying to hard does not lead to a faster lap time. Well, at least I can finally say I spun the car out. I’m convinced the car thought it was my nameless co-driver *cough* Rob Plank *cough* and decided to spin on its own.

10. Sliding sideways through one of Laurinburg’s finest anthills in a convertible with the top down is not highly recommended. Unless you’re in need of a little extra protein…

11. Running out a tank of gas after your co-driver puts 87 octane in it for the ride home is no fun. If I wanted to drive that slowly, I’d have kept a stock Miata.

12. Finally burning through the tank and getting the proper 93 octane in it makes the car much more entertaining.

13. Finally getting your #$@@#$!!! internet service installed at the new house after a nearly 1-month absence and getting caught up on the forums rules!!!

Jim

p.s. Anybody want to warm some rear tires for me at next week’s NCAC event? Seriously!?!

When I first walked the course, I was a little worried. It seemed really tight to me. That's not what I go to Laurinburg for... My feeling is that we can have tight courses at parking lots like RBC. After driving it on Sunday, I realized that it was tighter than I would have preferred for a Laurinburg course, but generally more open than it looked-- except for the 39' slalom on the way back. That was sooooo painful in a bigger car.

I realized by lunch time though why I was so frustrated with the course. It wasn't because it was so tight as much as it was because it required skill and vision beyond my ability. I couldn't visualize the course. We often talk about looking at least two to three gates ahead. That wasn't nearly enough for this course. You had to look three gates ahead and know where the next two were after that. So, it required vision and memory.

In the morning, I just couldn't get that course in my head. Maybe it was fatique. I would look up and just see a sea of cones, but I would know that the next gate was a sea of cones to the right and one after that a sea of cones to the left..... and beyond that I couldn't remember.

By the afternoon, some of the mental fog lifted, but I never felt comfortable with it. And somehow, I hit one cone one all three afternoon runs and was never aware of hitting any. That is very unusual for me to not have a clean run in the afternoon, and to not know which cone I hit if I hit one. I was pretty frustrated.

But clearly, it was just my day to be off. Great and incredible driving by many others showed me just how much I still have to learn.

I appreciate Jim and Kevin's hard work on the event. I have to admit I had my doubts when Jim laid out the course on Saturday and we couldn't see the cones for the weeds. But he and Kevin and others that cleaned the course made it all work.

I realize that we all have different opinions about what makes a fun course and we always will. That's why we have a variety of events, styles and course designers. I used to take it personally when I designed a course and then people complained that it was too fast or too open or too this or too that. I try not to now, and I realize that people like a course that fits their skills and their car's capabilities. It's just the way things are and that's really ok. I think the course on Sunday was not as open as we should have for a Laurinburg course- but that's just my opinion. I didn't think some of the slalom gates met the 45' Solo2 minimum for slaloms. I realize there were sections that were open - and many that were more open than they appeared. All in all, it was ok. But I wouldn't want to see it again at Laurinburg!

Don't get me wrong- I'm not advocating wide open courses at Laurinburg that put the small cars at a disadvantage. I think our average layout there in recent years has been pretty fair to both, and the results have shown that.

Stay tuned for a new configuration next time though. Shawn and I have mapped out a super 7 turn high speed sweeper, 1.1 mile course.... in our dreams?!?

By the way- I didn't get the worker sheets out- I suspect it was our worker change coordinators that did that. Steve or Phil I suspect.

And thanks to Jim Pastorius for riding with me Sunday and giving me some really accurate, honest and excellent advice on the things I needed to work on. I appreciate that Jim! (even if I couldn't actually do it- I at least know what I need to work on!)

Miles

Miles, I've heard several other people say this about Sunday, including myself. I was unknowingly hitting so many cones that I convinced Tonya to watch a couple of runs and tell me where I was hitting them. I was pretty much hitting the same cones each time. I don't remember a time where I could only locate 1/3 of the cones that I hit. I'm not sure if I just wasn't paying enough attention to the car, or if it was because I was hitting so many of them.

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In need of car.