Marina autocross

I did it again!
Lost to a Camaro...
I came in second in ESP.

BOB IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!! :dance:
I was so disappointed when I heard that he was not going to be there this year, you can imagine my surprise when I saw his car in the pits... It made my day!

I have a dilemma with that Camaro... It looks like it has lower control arm relocation brackets that change the geometry of the rear suspension, thus, making it ESP illegal. Another, of the "regulars" in ESP has a Mustang that is COMPLETELY ESP illegal, but needs every advantage possible to keep from looking like an out of control drifter out there.
I've decided that I'm not going to call this out... at this time, anyways.

Because Bob and I have a plan... :lol:

We think that Camaro Jacob probably got lucky and pulled off one good lap... it was that kind of track, fast with a nice straightaway, but one set of three, 20 foot, parallel gates to be negotiated. I've never seen a section of the track that required so many courseworkers. I hit a cone on three of the four laps... I think that it was the same cone each time! Lol.
We're not going to take any chances with Camaro Jacob, though... His car is fast and he just started autocrossing this season so he's bound to get better...
Bob seems to think that I'll have a better chance driving his car, on the R compound tires, so he offered to let me co-drive his car this year. I think that's what I'm going to do. Im also going to get a set of Hoosiers and a Torsen differential for my car. Then we can switch cars and use the Bullitt for some of the events.
We'll, at least, get the points to where it's Bob and I in the first and second positions and then reevaluate the plan from there...

Hoosiers FTW!!!!!

A6's are AWESOME!!!
I wanted to wait until the results were posted so that I could study the times and get a good idea of the true gain of using R comps. It looks like they shaved exactly 2 seconds off of my time. There's probably some more left though because they completely changed the way that the car drives so I'm going to have to make an adjustment to my driving style.
Incredible! For those who have never driven on R comps, I can't even really describe what a difference that they make. You can, basically, just toss out whatever you thought the limits of the car are on street tires, and relearn the new limits of the car.
It's too bad that the "entry price" of the tires is so high though... I was cringing about spending so much on tires, but after only 4 laps, it made it seem like money well spent. :thumb:


The Camaro that won ESP the last event didn't show up to this event so we thought that it was just the three Mustangs in ESP. Bob and I decided to just drive our own cars because it seemed unnecessary to co-drive. Hell, I wasn't even going to put the R comps on my car and just use street tires so I could compare times with Bobs car which had R comps, but the temptation was too great and I threw them on at the last minute. After looking at the results, it seems that a Camaro and a Boss 302 snuck themselves into ESP but ran in the group before us. Lol. I, of course, saw the Boss 302, and it was a different car than the one that normally shows up. I never noticed the Camaro so I have no idea of specifics on that car. It doesn't matter though, Bob and I would have easily beat them both on street tires...
I had a couple of "personal bests" at this event... For the first time at Marina, I had the overall fastest Mustang and I broke into the top 30 of overall top times of the day coming in at #29 of 99 drivers.

Soccerluvr4 said:

1 question for you Ron..... Are the A6 worth the $$$$$$? Lol id love a set of track wheels and tires but they are pricey.

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Lol
l had to think about that for a while.
No one will argue that the A6's are the best autocross tires available. The only drawback is the expense. It really adds a LOT to the cost per lap when you include the tire wear into the equation.
It was kind of funny, as soon as I started taking them out of my car, people were coming around and giving me good advice on what to expect and how to best utilize the tires. I think that the best advice that I received though, was to not waste the first half of the tires figuring out that the limits of the car are FAR beyond what they were on street tires, and to, right from the first lap, start driving the car at what you think is BEYOND the limits of the car, and keep going faster until you reach the new limit.
I was about as fast as I was ever going to be on street tires in my car. I think that I was fast enough that I can make the switch to R comps and be able to use them to my full advantage without having too much of a learning curve where I'm just out there driving around and wasting them.
What I would recommend, to anyone starting out, is to use 200 treadwear street tires until they were absolutely certain that their skill level had risen to a point that they could be fast enough to get the full "bang for the buck" out of the race tires.
Haha. That was a complicated answer!
No. They're not for everyone. You can go out there and have a good time, be competitive, and NOT spend a lot of money doing it.

Anyways, I'll let you be the judge of if they're worth it or not...

bullitt1075 said:

Wow! That's great Ron! So now it looks like I've got to spend some serious cash on R comp rubber to keep up with you?!?! That's sweet that did so well and broke into the top. 30! Hopefully I will make the next event. Do you think I could get away with running F-Stock? I don't think I'll stand much of a chance with you guys in ESP now.

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Thanks!
I think that the rear wheels on your car would bump you out of F-stock. You could change back the CAI easy enough and nothing else is visible. Gary probably wouldn't care though because you'll play hell trying to beat him and that 5.0 of his... The closest that I came to him, on street tires, is 2/10ths of a second and I'm not sure but I don't think that Bob was ever able to beat him on street tires either. If you want to try, I'll loan you my Dunlops, they're the same tires that he has on his car.
If you want to wait until the event after the next one though, or any of the remaining events, we can put the Hoosiers on your car and co-drive it, you HAVE to experience these tires on our cars to believe it!
Same thing with you Andrew, you're going to have to make at least one trip to Marina this year.
Haha. These tires are WAY too b!tchen not to share so you guys have got to check them out!
I'm going to have a new differential installed for the next event so Bob is probably going to co-drive my car at that one because he wants to try out that new diff to see if he likes it.
There are 6 more events after that though...