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| In grid waiting for first runs. |
Completed six (SIX!) runs at the local PCA autocross on Saturday. If you're scoring at home, the car has now finished 15 autocross runs since 5.3 Volume 1.1 has been unleashed.
There weren't any issues with the car other than coolant temps were running close to 220 near the end (and with only a couple of minutes pulling to the line for a rerun after "stopping" for a downed cone on my final run). Although poking around online that doesn't seem too unheard of for LS operating temperatures, so maybe I'm over-thinking.
I did make one small change to the car after the WDCR autocross -- 1,050-pound springs in front with new UMI weight jackers. Previously the car had 950-pound springs and a weight-jacker kit from some other company I won't name (been dealing with them since back in the SR20DE days and vowed never to buy from them again ... so swapping out their weight jackers for UMI's was something I've been wanting to do for awhile).
I also installed an oil-pressure gauge. Since TunerStudio has an oil pressure gauge as part of its gauge cluster (viewable running the software on a laptop), I figured the Megasquirt 3 Pro should be able to support an external gauge. Peter Florance of PF Tuning did his magic and sent me a "tune" to upload so that a gauge could be wired into the "trunk" of extra wires on the standalone DIY Autotune LS harness. Spliced in power and ground with the already functioning coolant temp gauge, and ... it worked! To me that's a major achievement because I suck at electrical stuff.
The course might have been one of the most complicated courses I've run since the late 1900s at Fentress Airfield where, because of the site layout, courses routinely doubled back on a section that had been run before. But Fentress was an oddball site. The Bowie stadium site is pretty straightforward other than a row of islands.
This one on Saturday had a loop right off the start where you circled around and went through it again in a different way. Walking the course with my 25 years of autocross experience, I thought I wouldn't have any issues remembering which way to go but figured there were going to be a lot of DNFs.
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| The first local autocross in 25 years where I felt I needed a course map. |
Unfortunately, I got to work as corner captain during the first heat and made more calls to timing for off-course runs than maybe perhaps my entire career of autocrossing. There must have been at least 30 off-course calls. Twice drivers had three DNFs on one run in that section.
I'm not sure why the course was designed this way other than to make it 60+ seconds instead of 45. Make a 45-second course that's easy to follow, people have less DNFs and have more fun getting actual timed runs. A handful of drivers had instructors riding along on their final sixth runs!
And the course had two tight offsets that were painfully slow in my Camaro -- I was one-handing the steering wheel going from lock to lock.
It's a Porsche club, and I'm not a member, so whatever. Probably won't run with them ever again. It sucks since FedEx Field is no longer an option, the "best" sites in the immediate area have dwindled to Waldorf and Ripken.
Other than a crappy course, things went OK for me. Improved my time on every run and my final fastest run was clean.
I think.
As I'm writing this, four days later, results haven't been posted. Their "live timing" website also wasn't working, so I couldn't check times/cones as the event progressed. Oh and they had the announcer's volume so low I could only hear if I was next to the speakers at the timing trailer. Not that I was trying to be super competitive, but it would be nice to know where my times stood in comparison with faster drivers. Is my shitty Camaro any good?
Edit: Just after I posted this, results were released. I was sixth in raw time, seventh in the SCCA index class and 20th in PAX.
I guess at this point every autocross is a test and tune, so I shouldn't be caught up in the final results. Especially since there weren't any other C-Prepared cars.
Here's a link to my fastest run, a 62.7:
Temperature was only about 75 degrees, but I think I might try a bigger radiator since summer is imminent.
Next up is the WDCR autocross in Waldorf on June 18. I'm really starting to feel more confident in the car not having a mysterious whack-a-mole moment like what plagued me two years ago. It's feeling like back in the ESP days where I could just stab it and steer.
(Note: There's a little Easter egg in this blog post. It's a link to results from my very first autocross ever.)
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