Spent the whole weekend driving the ST at autocross events, and boy did that tire me out!
For an added layer of fun, my cousin drove up from Colorado Springs with his new Solstice GXP, and took part in the event. He even crashed on our pull-out couch so that he wouldn't have to do a bunch of extra driving. He hadn't seen the TVR in person yet either, so it was fun showing him that on Sat night.
Saturday was Rocky Mountain Solo's Speed-train event. We did three exercises in the morning, and then ran a timed full-course for a while in the afternoon. The exercises were - Triangle course, slow slalom transitioning to fast slalom, and skid-pad. The afternoon course connected all these elements into a complete course.
What I learned:
- My seat has a manual adjustment for height. I did not know that before. Yay, my helmet now clears the roof without slouching!
- I can brake very late on tight elements.
- A Mercedes AMG C63 can be nicely hustled around autocross features by a total beginner. There was a guy there pushing his new expensive car very well. Boy was that a big car, though.
- Fast slaloms can be taken at full throttle.
- Keep those hands moving on all slaloms - no time spent with the wheel pointed straight!
- My Focus will blast around a skid pad in howling full tail-out drift-boy mode. I did this while looking sideways to the other side of the skid pad. The instructor actually giggled a little.
- If you get seasick at all, then autocross instructor will not be on your resume. They soldiered thru admirably and with only moderate greenness.
- You can put down a quicker autocross run by skipping the last offset before the finish line.
- Cancellations for lightning stink when you're in the second run group and your runs get cut off half way thru the session. Got 4 runs, which beats no runs.
Sunday was the next RM-Solo race. Same location at Front Range Airport. G-Street had 8 drivers in 7 cars. There were two other Focus ST's (one with a co-driver), two Civic SI's, one Rabbit GTI, and an old Turbo New Beetle. Everyone in this class is fast, and I will be working hard to become competitive. Everyone else has RE-71's and is measuring tire temps and pressures. Their times were in the low 34's on a day when the very fastest cars were going 30-flat.
I took my first run and promptly missed the first sweeping left-hander. I knew it right away, so I just drove really hard for the rest of the run. Almost spun on the turn-around when the back end started sliding like crazy. Ended up with a flustered 40-sec DNF. I don't feel too bad about missing those gates now - I worked that corner in the afternoon and saw probably a half-dozen others do exactly the same thing.
Run 2 I took very conservatively - wanted to get a time on the board. Ended up with 42.6.
Run 3 I just pushed harder to see if I could chip down that time - 39.6. Better.
Run 4 they told us would be our last. Weather expected in the afternoon, so they wanted to get run group 2 on the course. I pushed a bit harder still and tried to look ahead, and ended up with a 39.17. So that's good. Dropped some time with every run.
I ended up 7th of 8 in my class - my first non-last place finish! I didn't get to talk with the guy in the Beetle - he might have been a total newbie too.
Looking ahead I want to start understanding tire pressure and temps. The car seemed to be hooking up a little better on the fronts and stepping out a bit in the rear. I want to get that a little more neutral, maybe. I plan on running the stock Eagles thru the end of the year or until the totally fall apart.
My cousin had a ton of fun too in his first ever autocross. He managed to clock a 39.69 best, and wasn't far behind one of the other A-Street drivers. He picked up some used wheels for the Solstice this morning - he's totally hooked!