Random musings from the autocross...

Went to an autocross yesterday. Random musings:

The 944 rolled over 227,000 miles on the way there. I think I'd be dangerous if I ever autocrossed a car that hadn't pretty much gone to the moon.

We had ~12 new people. Fun!

Overheard after the driver's meeting: "Yeah, I'm new and need an instructor, but my car doesn't have a passenger seat".

When's the last time you saw a stock 1979 Z/28 Camaro autocross?

When's the last time you saw a stock 1979 Dodge Aspen autocross?!!?!??!?

Triple-crossovers are confusing. Also, they make the run groups take forever because you have to wait so long to send out car #2.

My wife runs timing & scoring better than I do.

My wife got to about 3 seconds off of my pace. Awesome! I can't wait until she's faster than me, then I can retire and just setup the car for her.

Overheard in the hot pits by one of our competitors: "Not only am I losing, I'm getting my @$$ kicked by a PREGNANT LADY!!!" (Mrs. Javelin is almost 5 months along and pretty visibly pregnant).

My daughter likes autocrossing. She kicked like crazy all day. Nice. Did I mention this is the 4th autocross she's driven in the womb?

I berkleying love Hankook R-S3's! They got overheated and came right back to life after a quick water spray. Nice!

Always have a fire extinguisher in the hot pits for the grid worker...

Don't run an oiled air filter on your Prepared 260Z if it backfires through the sidedrafts a lot.

DryChem is a bitch to clean out of engine bays and rollcages.

Why did the car in front of me have to catch fire?

Why do people freeze when they hear "bring the fire extinguisher!!!!!!!!"?

Thankfully the car behind me had an extinguisher. And a person that knew how to react/use it. They need a new one now.

I need more power.

I need to fix the A/C.

I need to fix the broken rear shock.

Man, I love autocrossing!

I'm kind if nervous/excited about autocrossing next year. (I also find it interesting that "autocrossing" is in my autocorrect log...) The Saint Louis people are super nice (although they were hitting on Wifey, guess its a compliment LOLZ.) Should I roll out the Zx2 or the 240sx Skyline hybrid first?

In reply to Javelin: I so wanted to be there! I have had a great time with your club so far this year. Maybe next one, I had too much homework this time (school sucks). Jeff

Our event insurance indicated that we are required to have 2, 5lb equivalent BC extinguishers present. Our events are small (max 30 drivers), so we keep them near to the start/stop/timing area.

Cheap enough that you are almost foolish not to have on hand... besides, if they are used I am sure that the driver of the car they were used on would gladly buy the club a new one.

Enggboy wrote: Our event insurance indicated that we are required to have 2, 5lb equivalent BC extinguishers present. Our events are small (max 30 drivers), so we keep them near to the start/stop/timing area. Cheap enough that you are almost foolish not to have on hand... besides, if they are used I am sure that the driver of the car they were used on would gladly buy the club a new one.

We actually have 8 50Lb extinguishers. We had one at each corner station and one at timing (with 2 spares). Our SOP is to have one in grid. Somehow, it got overlooked yesterday. Luckily, timing was close, and, we had plenty of personal ones on the grid. The person running from timing with the 50Lb one got to the car right as the other person started spraying. Only damage was the actual airbox. We had fire for less than 5 seconds, if that.

I too learned some fun lessons autoxing yesterday:

1) Race tires (even used ones) make your car turn like Superman compared to street tires...

2) $15 Rockauto special brake pads don't do much to stop your car under heavy braking...

3) Unloading your drive tire with an open diff on a rapid camber change leads to a 3rd gear rev limiter bounce (equal to 84mph based on gearing/tire size) when your car is only going 44mph which when re-loaded = the fastest way to do a 180...

Oh yeah that and: Drivers with V8s tend to spend too much time on the right pedal...

It took me three reads and actually clicking in the thread before my brain stopped turning "Musings" into "Mustangs".

I was sad to not see a bunch of poorly-suspended, overpowered cars in various states of improperly cornering.

ReverendDexter wrote: It took me three reads and actually clicking in the thread before my brain stopped turning "Musings" into "Mustangs". I was sad to not see a bunch of poorly-suspended, overpowered cars in various states of improperly cornering.

You should have heard Mrs. Javelin's responses to me telling her I want to autocross next year! They started off with the obvious "it doesn't have a front end and hasn't moved" to the insightful "it's too long, too wide, and won't handle well". Ha!

I'm a little less than two weeks away from taking the Turbo Sentra out on it's maiden outing. Just have a new pair of rear shocks to go to have the suspension fully set up. I got three degrees of negative camber out of the front! Should stick well. Getting very excited about it. I took a hard corner over the weekend, and the beast just explodes off the corners. This is going to be fun.

we had a Nissan Leaf at our a-x yesterday

Three degrees, really? I'm only running 2.5 up front in the foxbody, and that's because of my dynamic camber loss with any compression (my front roll center is on the ground ). With that much I lost a bunch of braking grip compared to -1.5... and to do that with a FWD? Do I just drive like a sissy?

I had to miss autox due to having a kid on that weekend, but damn I miss it already. I wanna get the mx6 sorted so I don't have to worry about breaking one of the GOOD cars. Or maybe the MINI.....