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The King of fine leather and Donna Frank won their respective classes at the Huntville Tour.
Aaron drove on edge corded front tires on day one, but had them flipped overnite to take DS trophy.
Donna showed what she learned in the Evo school to decisively put away ASL despite coning her fastest sat run. Her raw time on that run would have put her less than one tenth from trophies in AS open! Only STS2 had more entries this event.
Jim F. and Chuck F. coned out on Sunday taking away any chance at trophies. I was 0.4 out on Sat, my best nationals showing so far.
Other NC drivers of note: GH Sharp won GS in his brand new MiniS, Jinx Jordan won FSP after Jeff Zimmer coned the winning run.

There was some "excitment" on Sat when an STS2 Miata decided to take a side trip into a deep drainage trench after getting out of shape through the tight offset at the finish. The driver was unhurt, the car suffered relatively minor suspension damage thanks in part to a soft bottom in the ditch catching the car. After a couple more cars came close to repeating the flight, SCCA softened the offset to prevent much more serious consequences. It did show however that a tight finish is not always the safest finish!

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

Congrats Donna and Aaron! Sounds like the Crossfire is much more to Aaron's liking after some changes to the setup.

Hey Chuck - looks to me like Collett kind of took AS to the shed this weekend. Maybe the Solstice is right where it should be, and hasn't obsoleted every other car in AS? That's what I'm hoping for. Yet another car that's "right there" in a diverse class of cars...

Also looks like you drove quite well Chuck, so congrats on that. Wish you were going to make Laurinburg, but trust me, I hear you on the tire budget thing...

--Karl, who is on a path to buy three sets of A6s over the course of the season...I should be doing events solo, but having a codriver is a heck of a lot more fun...

Hmm, it looks like I am not the only one cording the fronts on the Crossfire in very few runs. Either way congrats to Aaron and Donna on winning their respective classes.

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2010 Honda Fit Sport
Couple of bicycles

That's a stretch unless you were just referring to yourself. I had no shot at a trophy (like I would have stuck around to pick it up anyway ) cones or not.

I did discover Sunday morning that my 15-year-old pressure gauge was reading ~11psi too low! When I went to check pressures for the morning runs, I noticed that it was reading 11psi without being hooked up to a tire. According to a gauge that actually work borrowed from a competitor, Mark Pilson (my co-driver for the event, a great driver and a super cool guy) and I must have been running ~20psi in the front and ~16psi in the rear all weekend. Oops. The car was feeling rather mushy the last few events and now I know why!

I'm pretty sure it must have broken just before the Sanford event since I checked all my car's tires with the gauge that week and they are fine. After being so suddenly loose in Sanford a few weeks back, I went over the car and couldn't find anything. Heck, even my rear sway bar was still attached. Anyway, I made a few changes to the car (including adding more front bar) and while it was better, something was still off but I couldn't put my finger on it. The car was pushy with the new front bar but anything was better than the way it felt at Sanford.

I guess I shouldn't feel too bad because Ann and Andy Hollis both drove my car for a couple of runs on the practice course (I took the cone clinic) and they didn't notice anything other than the car felt a little pushy. Neither one of them got within 1 second of my runs in my car but when Andy jumped in his, he immediately put ~.5 second gap on me. Not too bad considering the circumstances and I was running the "wrong" tires.

After putting the proper air in the car on Sunday, Mark went out and promptly spun in the first turn. Hah! My old car was back! It felt much better but it turned in so well that I kept running over cones with the front of the car which isn't something I do very often. Needless to say I couldn't adjust quickly enough in just 3 runs and I was done. Mark managed to clean up his last run thankfully but it still wasn't enough to overcome the Bridgestone advantage and snag a trophy spot.

It was still a great weekend and I had a ton of fun. I'm still trying to thaw out from the meat locker that was our hotel room (Buckley and Hertwick were penguins in another life apparently) but considering my car only has "off" and "blast furnace" coming out of the vents, I'm almost normal again. Well, as normal as I get.

Jim

Regarding Hollis's times, I've run out of adjectives to describe the Bridgestones. Damn.

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Has no responsibility whatsoever.

Let's not get too carried away. The event results were skewed by several factors and if you weren't there, you can't draw many (if any) meaningful conclusions.

They are still not R-compound fast by any stretch but I guarantee the STS/2 PAX *will* see a decent hike next year. In the meantime, you guys are in trouble.

Jim

What Bridgstones? I'm going to get some real tires this month - is there a better alternative to Azenis for STS?

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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!

I've had one digital tire gauge go completely bad, but I've never had one just read wrong. Supposedly there is something about the way the sensor on those works that they just *can't* read a little off or anything. If they go bad, it's obvious. Otherwise they're nuts-on. The tenth-of-a-pound gauges do cost more than the half-pound ones, and half pound is probably good for most. But I firmly believe tenth is better, and that's all I'll use. Needle gauges can be okay, but I find it's very hard to finally notice that they *are* off when they invariably die, as Jim found. I'd rather my gauge completely quit (like the digitals do) if they're gonna be broken. You can always borrow one in a pinch.

Just food for thought.


--Donnie

That great info Donnie, thanks.

I picked up a digital (1/2psi variety Longacre) one on site just before I left for home and I was a little nervous since I have always used the needle ones in the past. They had a few regular needle gauges there but I figured I might try something different this time.

I was planning on getting a second "sanity" gauge of the needle variety but I think I may get another digital that reads 1/10'ths after your post and use the one I just got for the sanity/backup gauge.

Thanks again for the tip,

Jim

RE-01R's. Honestly, if you aren't going to get them shaved down to next-to-nothing, the Azenis are just as fast if not slightly faster. See the recent GRM test for further info and that has been backed up by many people at this point.

And the 'Stones are extra-pricey for anything above the still hard to get 15"'s. You actually can't get a set of 15"'s currently without talking to the right people and promising your first-born. It's a rather sticky point of contention among several of the national competitors right now but I'm staying far out of it even though I'm currently sitting on 2 sets.

Jim

Thanks - did some searching and it looks like I could only get 225/45-17s anyway, which may or may not fit, and makes my 1st gear gearing worse.
Looks like 215/40-17 Azeni's are going to be my ideal.

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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!

At the rate we are wearing fronts, we will be buying about 12 sets of fronts this year.

We ran 10 runs at Sanford and 4 practice runs at Huntsville (medium grip asphalt). On my first run of the event, the driver front started to cord the outside edge. Yes, on the 15th run. Bryan drove his first and the passenger front began to cord. The cord caused the car to push on our 2nd runs and our third runs had the steel belts coming undone. Not fun.

It's a shame that I coned my 2nd run on day 1, for it would have given me better breathing room.

As for the car, here are the stats and what is so puzzling in regards to the cording issue:
Front: -1.5 camber and 1/16" of toe out

Rear: -1.5 camber and zero toe

Double A Arm front suspension and multilink rear... this shouldn't be happening with the car.

We weighed it twice throughout day 1, and it came in at 2931 and 2940 over the two times. 56% of the weight is up front, but that's only 1646 up front on 245's. We were starting pressures at 48 cold and the car was never pushing.

We will be having a talk with Jeff Spear of Hoosier today. I will provide pics of the tires later, but it's down right scary.

Likely, we will need to run Kumho fronts and Hoosier rears and disregard contingency. The car can win, even on cords.

Bryan is ordering some CCW's for it today that will shave about 35 pounds off as compared to the stock wheels. That will get us in the high 2800's, which the RX-8 weighed 2890.

The new bar and spacers made a big difference in turn in and the car is killer in transition. Hopefully the DC ProSolo will be friendlier - AB

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

Wow you did worse than I did on the fronts. I got 28 runs before cord started showing. I am going to flip them and run them at the Triad Dixie event before getting new fronts.

PS: If you guys are still going to run Hoosiers on the front for DC then you might want to wait till after the Dixie event. I am picking up some corded tires to test fit on the front. Hint, hint, they are bigger then the 245s. I might just order some Kuhmos for the front and throw away the contingency as well since the tire wear is ridiculous.

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2010 Honda Fit Sport
Couple of bicycles

Double A Arm yes, but, if the geometry of it is such that the camber curve sucks on compression, it could be making the situation worse, not better.

Only thing that leaps to mind for me...?

You're looking at the 275's? With the upper arm bolt, I don't think they will fit, even with spacers. We're just going to suck it up and buy a set of 245/35/18 Kumhos and put them on the two sets of front wheels we'll have. I don't think that the tire width is the problem, for the car never pushed at all, even with the 30mm bar... that is until they corded.

The cording absolutely affected my driving at the event on both days, physically and mentally. When you're running on cording tires and you feel the car pushing, all you can think is, 'wow, it's continuing to get worse', instead of focusing on line, etc.. I won't deal with that again.

Karl is probably correct. We're going to get a camber guage and level the garage. Then we'll pull a spring up front and measure the car at different points on the camber curve. If what I suspect is correct, some caster adjustment may help. We're also going to take it to alignment specialist that will loosen the entire front suspension to remove any slop and maximize camber.

Outside of the cording issue, the car is a hoot to drive and I'm pretty confident can win on the big stage. - AB

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