If you ain't first, you're last!! But what if you are also first and last?

Shiny new thing! bigger radiator. Will it fit? Does it work keeping
coolant temps down? See below.

Once again, took the win in C-Prepared!

Because nobody else showed up in CP. As the great Dom Toretto said, it doesn't matter if you win by an inch or mile, winning's winning.

With a guaranteed class win, my focus was trying to make myself better. I figure right now, I'm about two SECONDS off being competitive on a national scale in CP. One second is just the guy in the mirror -- ME -- and another second is making the car better. Still a lot to do on the latter, but the cheapest way to fix things is to drive better, of course. Since I basically haven't autocrossed full-time since 2014, I have to be a little rusty and not mentally into it. Like just going through the motions driving parade laps.

No rain was in the forecast, and temps were going to be mid-80s. I was driving in the second heat, so the course was going to be clean.

My first run was tentative, as always it seems this year expecting something catastrophic to happen. The time was a 41.9, but immediately picked up 1.1 seconds (albeit dirty) on my next run. The third run was a little quicker -- 40.5, but that would end up being my fastest run even though I had two more left. The last two runs felt faster in some cases but I made a few mistakes and was narrowly off that 40.5 (40.6 and 40.7).

The good thing is that I just bought Solo Storm so now I know where I lost time! Actually, I know exactly where I lost it on my last run -- heading into the "slalom" before the 180 turnaround, I tried to unleash more  #merica bald eagles with the gas pedal and got loose. That was it. 

According to Solo Storm, that run was going to be about a half a second faster than my third run, but I threw it all away.

That section on my last run:

And compare that to the third run where I didn't mess up:

Actually, if I wanted to, I could use the Ghettoracer* Theoretical Fastest Lap using fastest sector times, and with my second run as the baseline (didn't use Solo Storm on the first run), I coulda-woulda-shoulda been in the mid 39s!

The only time I used data acquisition before was with EricK in the Solstice (13 years ago!). I remember being able to overlay our runs and figure out why he was faster than me. There was one event where it was pretty obvious I was braking too much in one section, and knowing that helped me pick up time on the next run. 

So now without a co-driver to compare to, I can at least look at data from runs. Here's a video of the 40.5 with the data overlay:

The car is feeling like the ESP days with the old reliable L98. Man, this car has no issues!

[RonHowardNarratorVoice]There was still an issue.[/RonHowardNarratorVoice]

Sometime in the past four years, I replaced the gas cap. Not because there was anything wrong with the old one, just thought it would be something cheap to replace since the old one is who-knows-how-many-years-old. Actually, I think the new one was installed trying to diagnose why the fuel pump was dying a few years ago (not sealing?).

The new cap, while it was an OEM-style replacement, hasn't fit quite right. It would take a couple tries before it fit snugly. When filling the car up Sunday morning, I wasn't paying attention to how many times the cap twisted before it clicked. Twist, click-click-click -- it must be good, right?

After my second run, Steve Mitchell, who was the safety steward, ran over to me in grid and said corner workers reported the car was leaking gas on right-hand turns! WTF?!

It's a gas, gas, gas!

We took a look, and sure enough the left-rear quarter panel by the fuel door was coated in fuel. I took the gas cap off, put it on again -- it spun a half turn and clicked three times.

After the next run, Steve said corner workers were again saying gas was coming out.

I was ready to load it up on the trailer since I didn't have a fix. Messing with the cap and trying to twist it on repeatedly, it finally made two complete rotations before clicking. Steve affirmed that would work, and the car didn't pass gas on my last two runs.

When I got home, I did some internet research and found a Stant cap which should be a better fit. I can't remember where the current cap came from whether from the south American rain forest site or PepAdvancedZone. I guess all GM fuel caps don't fit alike.

Going back to the original theme trying to better myself (since the car is sooooo reliable now), comparing video from the previous autocrosses this year, I was closer to the cones and only hit two total for the event.

Without CP competition, all I can do is compare times to other drivers. I picked a few "top" drivers from the previous WDCR autocross and measured how I did against them then and how I did on Sunday. In every case, I closed the gap. Nothing huge -- a tenth here, four tenths there, but it's still progress.

What's Fonzi like?

One change to the car since the previous autocross was installing a three-row radiator. At the PCA autocross, coolant temp was climbing toward 220 before my final runs. Not terrible, but it was only 75 degrees that day. I figured with summer coming up, it couldn't hurt changing the skinny OEM-style radiator with something bigger.

Champion Cooling makes one that is basically a direct fit for third generation F-Bodies, and it's around $250 through their eBay store. Just have to trim the rubber snubbers (I made new ones out of foam), and it fits with the stock upper shroud and fan assembly.

Champion Cooling three-row radiator 
installed!

Sunday was about 80 degrees, but the coolant temp didn't go over 210 and seemed to hover in the 200 zone.

Something that I did before this, in an effort to keep the interior cool, was install heat shielding where the headliner would go. Since my car is in C-Prepared and I don't need no stinkin' interior, I had removed the headliner and pretty much everything else except for the dashboard. If you've never stripped a vehicle interior, it is FUN! I did it one other time with my road-race Sentra SE-R.

After I did that though, I noticed when putting my hand on the top while inside the car, it was freaking HOT! It doesn't help my car is black.

So I got a roll of shiny thermal heat shielding that has a sticky side, trimmed to fit and pressed it to the roof.

Here's a comparison with the interior of my truck first and the Camaro (both are black):

Truck interior, 114 degrees.

Car interior, 99 degrees.

It didn't transform the inside to an arctic tundra, but a few degrees cooler helps at least psychologically. "Man it's hot in here but it could be 15 degrees hotter!" I would almost argue it's a "comfort and convenience" thing if you're required to run a full interior to replace the headliner with a thermal barrier. But if you're in a class like that, your car probably has air conditioning anyway.

Next up is an autocross on Saturday -- postponed because of possible inclement weather July 8 at Ripken Stadium with Brandywine Motorsports Club. 

Bonus pics from qiu_media:

Original uncropped pic from above spewing gas.

Another pic, a few seconds earlier.

* Ghettoracer was (still is?) this guy on "The Sandbox" racing forum who got banned a couple times. He would brag about running fast laps as an instructor in a student's car among other transgressions. One of my favorite things was his Ghettoracer Theoretical Fastest Lap. If his fastest lap was X.XX, he would -- based on his faster sector times from other laps -- add sector times together, so in his mind, that was his actual fastest time. Like your fastest overall time was 1:31 on lap five, but you went two tenths faster in once sector on lap six, and a tenth faster in another sector on lap 10, so you really ran a 1:28.