Autocross #11 December 7, 2005
This past Sunday was the Equipe Rapide @ Bank Atlantic Center event. My day didn’t get off to a good start — my camcorder refused to do anything other than display “E04″ and my pit crew (aka little brother) refused to wake up after pulling an all-nighter on Xbox Live. Fortunately I didn’t really need any help, the “track” tires were still on my car from the last event so that the new rear tires could get broken in. Adjust the tire pressure, empty the car, put the numbers on, done.
As soon as I arrived, Gordon walked up to complain about his times from the last event. Gordon drives a bad-ass ‘03 EVO in STU and usually whips my ass pretty good, but at the GC PCA event our best times were exactly the same. Go me 
Registration went smoothly, I think that’s the only thing that ER does consistently well — perhaps because that’s when the money changes hands. I walked the course. They changed the course. I walked it again. They were still changing the course. I stopped walking.
I got put in the first run group. That seems to happen to me a lot. I did not run well. For my first attempted I managed to remember the tricky parts but went off-course somewhere that I shouldn’t have. I’m not exactly sure which cone I crossed, and since the camcorder is acting up I probably never will.
My second run was better but still sucky. During my third attempt I realized that the car was understeering badly coming in to right turns, something I hadn’t experienced since getting the front swaybar put in. I got out of the car and checked the left front tire — it was toast, tread coming off in a couple of places. I decided to risk a blow-out, for my final run I dropped 5psi from the front tires and entered the right turns at lower speeds. Managed my best time for the day but that was +4.5 seconds from the top STX car, +5.1 from Gordon in STU. Pretty much everyone I compare my results against stomped me pretty good.
The worst part is that losing this bad was preventable and entirely my fault. I knew the front tires were pretty much done, I put way more runs on them than I expected when I purchased them (used), I just really wanted to finish the year without replacing two more. Now is not the best time to have to buy more tires — my insurance renewal is due, I just purchased a couple of expensive new toys, and there’s still plenty of Christmas shopping to be done. I may just have to skip the next event.
- Posted in : Uncategorized
- Author :tby
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