2012 SCCAForums.com "Pick the Winners" Contest

SCCAForums is once again hosting a "Pick the Winners" for the 2012 SCCA Solo Nationals. Go to the link below and vote for who you think will win each class. Those who have the highest number of correct picks will take home prizes from the contest's sponsors. Last year I had 37 correct picks, narrowly missing out on the prizes. Hopefully I can improve a bit this year. Voting ends at 9PM CST on September 3rd (Monday night before the Solo Nats) so make sure to get your votes in! If you don't know anybody in the class, just guess or go with whoever has a funny name.

http://www.sccaforums.com/pick-the-winners/2012-solo-nationals

E Street Prepared at the 2012 Solo Nationals

The early registration deadline for the 2012 SCCA Solo Nationals has passed and it looks like we are set for a record attendance in Lincoln with 1,168 drivers pre-registered for the event. We are bound to see some change up or down from this number as we get close to the big event, but things are looking good for the sport.

E Street Prepared class is looking strong this year with 32 entries up from 23 in 2011. 32 entries will mean trophies will pay out for the top 9 drivers in class. To make up the 32 driver grid, there are 22 racecars with 10 two-driver cars competing. We have a wide variety of cars in class including 4 Subaru WRXs, 9 Ford Mustangs, 6 Chevy Camaros, 1 Pontiac Firebird, 1 Pontiac Trans-Am, and 1 Eagle Talon.

Using the Solo Stats book mentioned in my previous post, I complied some stats on the ESP class in 2012. Among the 32 ESP drivers, we have a competed in a total of 164 Solo Nationals taking home 48 trophies and 10 National Championships. Of the championships, ESP superstar Mark Madarash is the largest contributor with 7 National Championships all in ESP. Karen Kraus is a two-time winner (ESPL and DSL) and I added one to the total with my 2011 A-Stock win. We have a great field in E Street Prepared and I can't wait for the Solo Nationals this year.

Entry List Here

Event Website Here

Solo Stats by Rocky Entriken

After winning A-Stock at the 2011 Solo Nationals, my parents bought me a copy of Rock Entriken's meticulously prepared "Solo Stats" book where he compiles statistics and records for every Solo Nationals dating back to back to the 1st Annual SCCA Solo Nationals in 1973.

Rocky's book is incredibly detailed and includes Top Ten lists for most wins, most trophies, largest margin of victory, smallest MOV, and many other categories.  It also includes records for number of competitors, site and race info for each Solo Nats, a full list of all the Solo National Champions, and the Alpha List which is a results record of every driver who has competed at the Solo Nationals. For each person who buys the book, he also makes a "Personal Record" of your Solo Nats history and records. Here is mine:

Updated Goodyear Contingency for 2012 Solo Nationals

Goodyear has updated it's contingency program for the 2012 Solo Nationals. They are paying 4 tires for 1st place and 2 tires for 2nd place. There is a minimum of 5 competitors required to pay out for 1st and 2nd place. This applies to all DOT-R and race tire classes. See the link below for more details:

http://scca.cdn.racersites.com/prod/...r-Solo-NC1.pdf

SCCA's Solo Nats contingencies article has been updated also:

http://www.scca.com/solo/news.cfm?cid=51101

My New FR-S

Ali and I made the trek to bustling Altus, OK to pick up my new FR-S on Tuesday. Putnam Toyota was great to work with. They had everything ready to go when I arrived and 25min later I was driving my new car away. Here are a few cell phone photos:

So far I am really enjoying the car. It has a excellent steering feel and the shifter is great - the only car with better shift feel I've driven is an Acura NSX. Especially for it's price, it feels very solid and well built and clearly the Toyota test drivers and engineers put effort into all of the driver inputs - the seats are good, steering wheel is nice leather and a good size, shift feel is great like I mentioned, the handbrake is a good location for e-brake drifting, and the pedals have decent spacing for heel/toe downshifting. I have about 400mi on it now and am doing a 1,000mi break-in so I haven't driven it too hard yet. I will have more reviews and updates to come as I learn more about the FR-S.

Front-Engine, Rear-wheel-Drive Sport

or FR-S for short......I pulled the trigger a few days ago and put a deposit down on a 2013 Firestorm Red Scion FR-S with the 6-speed manual transmission. My new car just arrived in America and should be at the dealership in the next few days for me to pick up. It took me well over a month to find a 6MT FR-S in a color I wanted. Red was my top choice and I finally found one that happened to be allocated to Putnam Toyota in Altus, OK. I never thought I would be buying a car in Altus, OK but Kim at Putnam was great to work with and found me the car I wanted! Putnam Toyota is about 250mi from San Angelo so I will be making the trek after work one day with Ali to pick up the new whip....I can't wait.

Adios Miata....

I've been talking about selling my Miata for about a year and a half now....but I finally did it. I listed the Miata for sale last month and now it is on it's way home to an autocross in Virginia (go figure!). Corey lives in the Norfolk area and will be autocrossing with all of the Tidewater guys, so he will be racing against a bunch of folks I used to race against!

Here is the car right before he started the 1,500mi journey home:

I am going to miss this car - the great Miata chassis and steering coupled with the responsive Turbo engine was great fun. Now for the fun part though.....what to replace it with??

ESP Camaro Testing in College Station, TX

 Lane and I packed up and ready to test in College Station

Lane Borg and I did a two-day "Solo Nationals Prep" test in College Station, TX in his A-Stock Corvette and my ESP Camaro. The test days were hosted by the Texas A&M Sports Car Club (big thanks to these guys!) and we had the help of our friend and co-worker Josh Pu'u. Josh helped us swap parts on the cars, take tire temperatures and generally helped run the test. He was a huge help and neither of us would have gotten as much done without out him. Also in our posse for the weekend was our buddy Yama. He brought his rad Porsche Cayman R for some HQDA (high-quality dicking around) and drifting. He also took all of the photos you see below...except for the photos you see of him drifting his Cayman (wouldn't that be a neat trick). I took those photos with his camera.

Quick Spoiler Change

As for the testing, Lane and I both had very productive weekends. I tested 7 different combinations plus many control re-runs evaluating the new rear spoiler, UMI 2-pt. subframe connectors, twin-tube rear dampers, and monotube rear dampers. The spoiler was a significant lap time improvement on our test course - 0.2-0.3s consistently on a 33s lap. Obviously the time gain here is very course dependent, but that is what it showed on our test track that we set up to simulate the speeds of a National Tour SCCA course. The spoiler improved peak grip in high-speed corners and improved average slalom speed and made the car very progressive in transients. It did induce a bit a of understeer in high-speed offset slaloms, but it really allowed me to hammer it through standard slaloms. The subframe connectors improved average lap time by about 0.1s on our 33s test track with improved turn-in especially in slaloms. It made the front end more direct feeling and allowed me to carry a bit more speed on corner entry (less understeer). My damper tuning was less of a time gain and more of a learning experience - I learned which damper settings I liked and didn't like from a driving feel point of view. Lap times were similar but the monotube dampers made my lap times more consistent because the transient balance was more predictable and they produced less brake hop on corner entry of the hairpin corners. 

Yama's drifting sequence:

ESP Camaro Spoiler Project Update

Measure....measure twice

Cut 

 Check fitment

Make brackets and rivet to the Camaro

Spoiler mounted to Camaro minus support struts

Rear view of mounted spoiler

These are the Longacre spoiler supports that I will be using to support the top-side of the spoiler. As you can tell, the spoiler is way too tall. The blue line that can be seen drawn on the plastic is where I will be cutting the spoiler down to the 10" limit specified by the rules. This 10" maximum will be measured from the top of the trunk lid which will give me less usable height compared to some of my competitors due to my factory spoiler. Also, the spoiler looks weird because the plastic protecting film is still on the lexan. It will be nice and clear after I finish the project.

Thanks Josh and Lane for all the help!

Rear Spoiler Mock-Up for the ESP Camaro

My friends Lane and Josh helped me mock-up a rear spoiler for the ESP Camaro tonight. Lane and I will be testing his A-Stock Corvette and my ESP Camaro for two days in College Station, TX this weekend and aero testing will be part of my test plan. I am looking forward to see the result. I'm sure it will require some further suspension tuning to accommodate the rear downforce generated but it should a good "proof-of-concept" test for my car. I will post more pictures of the spoiler build as we finish it up this week. The final test spoiler will be made out of Lexan or Acrylic plastic.....not cardboard.

The office chair graphics on the spoiler are pretty hot.....