SCCA Rallycross East Coast Championships

Knurled wrote: Trufax: My next rallycross car will have subwoofers, since I have a trailer to carry tires now. With bluetooth connectivity, I will be able to bump tha bass on course without annoying CD skippage! (Reality: I had one of my rallycross videos get blocked by YouTube because of copyrighted content. It was when I was driving Evan's 2.5RS at Nationals a couple years ago and he had Daft Punk loaded in an iPod or something. YouTube recognized it and gave me a peepee-whack)

Not sure if you recall, but when I came to Ohio for the GLDivs in 2014(?) I still had a stereo in my car and was blasting metal full-volume on every run. I'm quite convinced certain songs resulted in faster runs than other songs.

Metallica got me the fastest run of the weekend by any RWD car. And you could hear it easily on my roof camera :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi7MAzSJkLE

best part: Josh Sennett (bluej) in his farmer's hat and GRM shirt at the very end lol...

I am convinced that Bad Apple!! gives me the best run times. It's something to do with the drum beat. Like the Dixie Flatline's artificial heart, it gives me the right timing.

Inside Outside Fast

irish44j wrote: Metallica got me the fastest run of the weekend by any RWD car. And you could hear it easily on my roof camera :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi7MAzSJkLE best part: Josh Sennett (bluej) in his farmer's hat and GRM shirt at the very end lol...

Nah the best part is that this is off of Ride the Lightning, and not some post-Rasmussen crap.

Knurled wrote:

irish44j wrote: Metallica got me the fastest run of the weekend by any RWD car. And you could hear it easily on my roof camera :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi7MAzSJkLE best part: Josh Sennett (bluej) in his farmer's hat and GRM shirt at the very end lol...

Nah the best part is that this is off of Ride the Lightning, and not some post-Rasmussen crap.

truth :)

In reply to irish44j:

Part of what makes Bad Apple!! so rad is that it's the same chord progression as Orion.

Weird J-pop video game music has its roots in American metal. So it is appropriate to listen to it while driving Japanese metal in a motorsports practice that is weirdly American.

But I may be taking teh Volvo to ESC 2017 and I am confused as to what to listen to. It's a Swedish car built on a Japanese chassis. The closest thing I can figure is I need to listen to a lot of Sabaton?

I cannot fathom doing any form of performance driving while music is playing.

"Back to the magazine... It goes on to say: "The new class is going to be a production drivetrain with a custom chassis. 'We're going to have minimum height, width, and length standards, and a safety design,' says Hyatt. 'It'll be a production-based drivetrain with a maximum displacement in a frame that somebody built. We're in the process of fine-tuning the details, so the proposal will hopefully be out soon. Then we plan to pilot the program in 2018 and, hopefully in 2019, it'll be a full-fledged class.'" "

In reply to Jaynen:

I wonder what the cost target for this spec class will be... I can't see people spending more than the $5-10k a used, logbooked rally car costs on a spec vehicle which isn't street legal and only works for SCCA events. Maybe they'll figure out how to make something inexpensive, or maybe the rules will be open enough to allow more interesting builds, but I don't see a spec rallycross car working.

ProDarwin wrote: I cannot fathom doing any form of performance driving while music is playing.

I'm pretty much the same way. Music is fine, up to a point. Beyond that, I won't actually be listening to it anyway, so I might as well turn it off. But I do see people rallycross with music cranked, so I guess it depends on the person.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ wrote: In reply to Jaynen: I wonder what the cost target for this spec class will be... I can't see people spending more than the $5-10k a used, logbooked rally car costs on a spec vehicle which isn't street legal and only works for SCCA events. Maybe they'll figure out how to make something inexpensive, or maybe the rules will be open enough to allow more interesting builds, but I don't see a spec rallycross car working.

I completely agree. At a typical event in our region, out of a field of 50 ish cars, there might be 5 that cost more than $5-10k. I think a huge draw of the sport is that you can be pretty competitive without shelling out big bucks.

Yeah I agree, which is why I still think allowing UTVs which have other uses would be good :P but thats my outsider opinion we will see how I feel after seeing the event this weekend

irish44j wrote:

EvanB wrote:

irish44j wrote: I think SCCA has an official "rallycross package" for prospective venues that lays out the requirements.

And it even has a Miata on the cover.

clearly trying to increase female participation

That's fine with me.

ProDarwin wrote: I cannot fathom doing any form of performance driving while music is playing.

Only something with a driving beat (no pun intended). It's in the background, nothing more. Nothing that gets your attention.

TIL Knurled hates stage rally because he can't find a codriver who will freestyle pace notes over video game soundtracks.

moxnix wrote:

fasted58 wrote: My region is mostly all auto-x. While there is some interest in Rally-X and sites could probably be had w/ all the land around the big hold back appears to be organizing and operations. So, what does it take to start a Rally-X from the ground up?

Where are you located? Jim Rowland did a good presentation at the national convention? in 2016 about starting a rallyx program and has a website to go with it. Web version Presentation Website

Thanks for posting that. Very informative.

Location is SW PA.

My experience has been road racing and tech inspection. I have no skills relevant to organizing an event, more so starting one from scratch. It has been tried before, over five years ago but fizzled out. Hoping interest picks up in the region. Maybe I'll have to attend a meeting.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ wrote: TIL Knurled hates stage rally because he can't find a codriver who will freestyle pace notes over video game soundtracks.

That and the stages are so LONG! Anything over 90 seconds and my mind wanders. I found myself daydreaming during a run at one of our Enduros.

Man 90 second autocross runs was one of the main reasons I ran with BMW vs the typical 50 second SCCA course in San Diego

Jaynen wrote: Man 90 second autocross runs was one of the main reasons I ran with BMW vs the typical 50 second SCCA course in San Diego

Long courses are fun, but...

Nothing I hate more than a region that does a long course when they don't have space for it. I feel like this comes from the 'more is better' mentality. 60 second tight course on a miserable lot is nowhere near as fun as a 35 second fast & fun course on a good lot.

FWIW, most rallyx regions have courses a whole lot longer than 50 seconds.

Knurled wrote: In reply to irish44j: Part of what makes Bad Apple!! so rad is that it's the same chord progression as Orion. Weird J-pop video game music has its roots in American metal. So it is appropriate to listen to it while driving Japanese metal in a motorsports practice that is weirdly American. But I may be taking teh Volvo to ESC 2017 and I am confused as to what to listen to. It's a Swedish car built on a Japanese chassis. The closest thing I can figure is I need to listen to a lot of Sabaton?

I think Babymetal did a song with Dragonforce as the backing band. That's about as close as I can do.

Otherwise, can't go wrong with Sabaton. We just saw them last month :)

ProDarwin wrote: I cannot fathom doing any form of performance driving while music is playing.

For me, that was after I spun out in wet grass on the first run of the weekend, instantly falling ~20 seconds behind the class. So at that point, I was just trying to have a good time since I wasn't gonna win. But, I almost did win...so maybe it worked :)

Jaynen wrote: Yeah I agree, which is why I still think allowing UTVs which have other uses would be good :P but thats my outsider opinion we will see how I feel after seeing the event this weekend

Ironically, UTVs are typically far more expensive than the cars that most people are running at rallycross....

EvanB wrote:

irish44j wrote:

EvanB wrote:

irish44j wrote: I think SCCA has an official "rallycross package" for prospective venues that lays out the requirements.

And it even has a Miata on the cover.

clearly trying to increase female participation

That's fine with me.

lol, touche'

fasted58 wrote:

moxnix wrote:

fasted58 wrote: My region is mostly all auto-x. While there is some interest in Rally-X and sites could probably be had w/ all the land around the big hold back appears to be organizing and operations. So, what does it take to start a Rally-X from the ground up?

Where are you located? Jim Rowland did a good presentation at the national convention? in 2016 about starting a rallyx program and has a website to go with it. Web version Presentation Website

Thanks for posting that. Very informative. Location is SW PA. My experience has been road racing and tech inspection. I have no skills relevant to organizing an event, more so starting one from scratch. It has been tried before, over five years ago but fizzled out. Hoping interest picks up in the region. Maybe I'll have to attend a meeting.

FWIW, if you're in SW PA, you're probably only 2, maybe 3 hours from Harrisburg where Susquehanna Region SCCA runs. They're a pretty good-sized club with good courses and experienced organizers. Have you been there? A bunch of us will actually be there this saturday (at the Farm Show field) rallycrossing - you should come check it out.

ProDarwin wrote: I cannot fathom doing any form of performance driving while music is playing.

I'm 100% with you. I can't even back a car up with the music on let alone try to do any performance driving.

I introduce a buddy to auto cross, he had a 350z and was in the novice class. He had never autocrossed before. Went out with the music cranked. The sumbitch not only set the fastest time in novice he also set the fastest time in B stock. He said he had fun but he never went back.

I hate that guy.