I switched my tires tonight so I don't have to do that before the event tomorrow morning. I figure it'll be a bit cooler in the morning so it won't totally kill the tires. I just put my frs radios on the charger. Otherwise, I think everything is set to go for tomorrow. Hopefully we won't get any nasty weather tomorrow.
Just pulled the passnger seat out again. It's a little weight savings, but mostly, I'm bringing two sets of tires tomorrow (three if you count the ones I'll be driving there and back on), so I need the space even more than the weight savings. Car is still all ready to go from last weekend, so it's just loading up the rallyx gear after I get my boy in bed.
I hate to say it - but I'm going to have to cancel as well. I'm all set, my gear's all set, and the car's all set - but my parents bought a new house and we've been moving them for the last three days. I'm both too beat and way too behind on work for the 14 hours worth of driving to get there and back. Have fun everyone, and I'll come out and see you guys at a future event. Are any of you coming down to Nashville for the National Championship? Mark? Brent? We'd all love to see you down there. --Josh #33 SA
Registration will be open at 8:30, but Carrie and I plan on getting there at 8am. If you get there before that you can park in the open lot outside the gate.
Ready Set Bed We just got home from setting the course and hooking up the hoses and whatever else it is that we did....things are blurry Josh, sorry to hear you aren't able to make it. We were looking forward to seeing you. We look forward to hopefully seeing you at Nationals. We would like to go. Here is a picture of course set up. We found a non-competitor in a new class (yet to be approved by SCCA) of vehicle to check it out. We made some changes per her recommendations. See you all bright and frickin' early in the morning. Carrie (& Brent)
good god do i hate dragging those hoses around. that is one thing i wont miss. looks like fun will be had. good luck to everyone.
That was fun. A big thank you to everyone who organized and ran this event. I think things went very smoothly for how many cars were there. It was a blast. The track was great, both the surface and the layout. People did some good driving today I thought. Thanks again, I really can't say enough how much I appreciate the hard work that goes into something like this to let us go have fun for a day. ... now, let's see some pictures and video! please.
I'm glad to hear that the event went well. That was a lot of entrants. I'm curious to see how many ended up in SA. What was the surprise that Mark and the guys had in store? A new timing/scoring display system of some sort?
Quoted for truth! That venue was amazing. Thank you again everyone. A special thanks to Mark Utech for giving me some coaching today. It helped a lot.
Yep. Electronic timing to the thousandth with an 8" tall display at the finish. Very nice once the initial hiccups got ironed out. In the future, we'll look at laying out start/finish so not only the driver, but those waiting in line can see the time too.
Honestly, I'm not sure how good an idea it is to give Utecht such immediate feedback on his times. Today he didn't just win. It was a beatdown.
Awesome event, and glad I could finally meet people on the board. I definetly need to iron out a couple things (ie. TIRES), but I definetly still have room to improve... I don't feel too bad, though. I started off with a 55.9, finished the day with a 44.4 ... could have done a lot worse for my first time out. It was really nice to get feedback from you guys too, though I think I forgot most of it once I crossed the start line. :laugh: Also, I definetly should've borrowed a wrench from someone and pulled my strut bar off (only thing that put me in PA, rear sway didn't show up on time). 9 cars in PA, only 2 were in SA .. and one of the two retired. Thank you again, for the amazingly smooth event (even with the timing bug at the beginning). I'll definetly have to make time for the next one!
Dog Daze Thanks Thank you from Brent and I for all who came out to participate, volunteer or spectate at the RallyCross today. We were very pleased with the turn out as well as how well everyone did. Given the number of competitors we were impressed that we were able to get 9 runs per driver in. This shows just how much effort everyone put in to being efficient with the change overs. I really enjoyed the new timing system once we got the bugs worked out. I see a lot of great uses for this in future. Hope to see everyone out at the next one...September 21....Princeton. Carrie
I'll try to get them up to the LoL site in the next couple of days. Mostly, I need to convert them from the format Carrie used for the event to the one I use for the web site. Anyhow, the gap from #1 (Mark) to #2 (Brent) was 12.706 seconds, or on average better than 2s/run. Since Mark got into the 35s range, you can see just how big a 2s/run difference is. The gap for #2 to #3 (Todd) was less than a second.
Sorry for the formatting. Class Car # Name Total Time Run Set1 Run Set 2 Run Set 3 M4 83 Mark Utecht 225.005 77.642 76.487 70.876 PA 41 Brent Carlson 237.711 82.284 77.022 78.405 M4 11 Todd Jarvie 237.989 82.38 78.146 77.463 M4 111 J.B.Lewis 240.406 83.632 79.675 77.099 M4 52 Dan Drury 242.572 85.043 80.937 76.592 PA 14 Amy Springer 244.042 85.058 79.783 79.201 M4 9 Derek Wagner 244.083 85.972 81.008 77.103 PA 77 Denny McGinn 244.666 83.59 79.832 81.244 PA 153 Joel Kucera 245.951 85.762 81.443 78.746 PA 84 John Sulaski 246.181 83.953 82.93 79.298 PA 62 Michael Clapper 248.778 88.313 80.201 80.264 M2 710 Mark Holden 248.862 82.918 81.491 84.453 M2 121 Frank Buntzen 253.487 85.263 82.21 86.014 M4 63 Chase Remmen 253.568 87.412 82.301 83.855 M2 217 Seth Reithmeyer 253.7 87.569 82.153 83.978 M4 21 Derek Bangs 253.888 87.575 83.292 83.021 M4 7 Mike Wagner 255.467 89.107 87.058 79.302 SF 537 Paul Peters 255.596 85.32 82.789 87.487 PA 678 Chris Luhman 255.737 85.341 85.6 84.796 M2 177 Guy Reithmeyer 256.235 88.578 79.994 87.663 M2 458 Chris Gordon 256.758 83.973 80.71 92.075 SF 751 John Kimmes 258.852 84.886 83.015 90.951 M4 88 Hans Nielsen 266.898 91.601 93.589 81.708 pa 480 Luke White 268.575 98.288 86.428 83.859 M2 13 Erik Dahl 274.537 95.774 85.84 92.923 PF 42 Chris Champion 274.728 99.635 88.936 86.157 M2 31 Scott Parrott 275.355 94.341 88.203 92.811 M4 100 Josh Storlie 279.021 101.18 94.234 84 SA 115 Ryan Butz 280.239 92.785 88.997 98.457 M2 514 Ian Seppanen 282.051 109.457 83.078 89.516 pa 243 Kyle Rodriguez 283.076 100.281 92.14 90.655 SF 54 Chris Tuominen 286.627 99.581 90.443 96.603 SF 17 Kevin Vongsaphay 288.865 100.27 91.481 97.114 M4 76 Cale Isaacs DNF 82.052 dnf dnf M4 44 Jason Anderson DNF 87.739 85.048 dnf SA 1 Bill Berard DNF 80.746 80.709 dnf SF 5 DNF
I need pics of car 83 for an article I'm sending to SCCA about the event. Please post here or PM/e-mail a link to me. Thanks!
I suggest we alternate starting order for each of the groups, PA definatley had the advantage running 2nd all day. Although M4 did do a great job cleaning the track.
Brent was faster than you think considering we were running on Kumho Ecstas, a dedicated summer tire! I felt bad that I didn't bring the snow tires down to put on my wagon, I thought I would be driving down from Bemidji in the a.m. and wouldn't have time to change them. Thanks for a great event! After having 1 cone in 2 of my first three runs I had a pretty big 2 second hole to dig myself out of to get back in the running. Have three run sets gave me the time to keep digging. I loved the new timing system. It's nice having immediate feedback to tell you if something you are doing is working or not. The Leggy will be back for Princeton! Don't forget to sign up and work Ojibwe Rally! http://www.ojibweforestrally.com/workers.php A bunch of us are going to go up Thursday a.m. to banner Saturday's stages, hang out with the crews at the practice stage, then go see Kenny Bartram's motorcycle stunt show at the Bemidji Speedway Thursday night. Send me a PM if you'd like to join us for bannering Thursday. Amy
did scott have his bug running? did todd bring the VR-4? what time did the runs finish up? in case you cant tell i really wish i had been able to make it.
i had alot of fun guys, im kinda upset the RS didnt blow haha but it was still a good time and im more then satisfied with my results.
Thanks, that was a huge improvement for me. I finally caught Joel and Amy:biggrin: Next in line is Utech:laugh: I figure I'll catch him after he retires from racing Yes, I am totally hooked!
I REALLY need a good shot of car 83 asap for an article going to SCCA. I would like to submit the article today. Please contact me if you have something I can use.
So... who should I PM? I'm looking for a little feedback on what I thought I was doing right/wrong and didn't really like about my car. I wanted to ask during the event, but most of you were either in my run group, or in the group that ran while I was on cone detail.
#243, the black 2.5i - wingless, stock exhaust (which merited the "turn your car on" joke at the awards)
Ok, well, I think I remember watching you a couple of times through the pin turn. IIRC, you were more or less treating it as a slow-speed, continuous radius turn. Trying to think about doing this in an AWD car (it's been a while). What seemed to work best back there was coming into the turn aggressively in 2nd on the section just before it, shifting down to 1st about 1/2 between the gate and the apex cones, then braking moderately at the same time as turning in hard. Braking before turning leads to making it a three point turn (right Amy?), but braking and turning puts the forces on the front tires and helps the rotation. As soon as the car starts to rotate, get back on the throttle hard to get the rear end to come around (this is why you shift to 1st before the corner, because now it's too late). The car should be rotating and sliding at this point. Once the car rotates around, straighten it out and get into 2nd once you've built back enough speed to not bog. A good thing to remember with a non-turbo car is that you typically have a broader power band to work with, so there are some situations where you can avoid downshifting, but this wasn't one of them. Some people e-braked this corner. That never worked worth a damn for me in my WRX, and when I stopped doing it in the Sentra I gained a second.). Overall, my approach to the course was this: Start a bit wide and try to get the car rotated as much around the right hander before the start line. As soon as I got the car straight enough to take a hand of the wheel it was into second and back hard on the gas. Coming into the first left, I was pitching the car before the apex and not lifting or braking at all until I was past the gate (taking the little wiggle as straight as possible). Then as wide as I could going into the pin turn, down to 1st and on the brakes/turning hard left. As soon as the rotation started (if it did, this didn't always work well), I'd be working the throttle to get the car to come around and back in 2nd just after the apex cones. Hard on the throttle though the crossover, and depending on the traction, either some straight-line braking just before the turn-in for the right, or simply pitching it sideways (worked when the track was dryer, not when wet), and back down to 1st. The the key for the left-right-left was not coming in too fast and going wide on the first left. Turning in early and keeping tight to the apex at exit allowed for good setup of each successive element. This was all 1st gear and a lot of traction management for me with FWD. As soon as I finished the final left, it was right back into 2nd, and hard on the throttle through the kinks. I never determined if it was better to shift to 1st going into the final right hand and spin coming out, or to stay in 2nd and bog it. Either way, I'd pitch it in early and get back on the gas as soon as the car was pointed the right-ish way. Some of that applies only to FWD, but a lot of it applies to AWD too. I'm also not saying that was the best way, that's just what I was doing, and it worked pretty well for me. I'd be happy to hear what Mark U thinks of what I described.
mark h., you seem to know enough allready about driving. you should let me go to TimO's in your place. your run sounds pretty good. i think that bogging in second and keeping traction feels slower but in reality is faster than spinning the tires in first.
I disagree about getting back on the throttle to help the back end come around on a Suby in this case. when you get back on the throttle, you transfer weight to the rear and that will STOP the rotation. By staying off the gas and trail braking, you keep the weight on the front end and the back continues to come around. Once I had the rotation I needed, THEN I would smash the gas and counter steer to stop the rotation and head back through the gate. That's what I was doing on my runs and it seemed to work for me. Remember that every car and every corner is different and this may not have worked for someone else.
yeah, your spring rate is just a bit higher than the rest of us. i remember practicing this stuff with you last summer and when i could get it to work it was awesome. we need to do that again.
Obviously by the fact that you consistently pulled out very fast times, 35 second runs during the last run set. Both Mary and I responded by saying Holy @#$^ We couldn't see a lot from timing and scoring...but a got a chance to take a peak once in a while. One nice thing that we noticed with the new timing system is that we didn't miss any times while distracted when Mark was out on course....there is something about that exhaust that makes me have to look :biggrin:
The lesser the spring rate, the greater the weight transfer. The technique works better in softer sprung cars, all other things being equal.
