Managed to take 1st place again today, which means I've still got a perfect record for this season with Chicago Region! (I missed event 5 entirely, but we get up to three drops for the season, so that doesn't matter.) Only managed 39th in PAX, which isn't that hot, but I never really managed to get a truly "satisfying" run in today. I'm trying to work on getting closer to the cones, as that [...]
Lead photo by Andy Seipos. 4 for 4! We are well on our way to securing the Class win now! Not much to say about this event. Things went pretty well overall, I think. I continued to play around with 3rd gear at this event. I'm not sure it was really saving me any time, but I need the practice of downshifting quickly and smoothly from 3rd to 2nd under pressure, so the more [...]
With three of nine Chicago Region autocross events completed, I am halfway to securing the STX Class Champion trophy! I took 1st place this weekend by nearly 1.5 seconds, and managed to finish 27th in PAX out of 157 entries. I'm slowly making progress on that PAX list as it used to be rare for me to crack the Top 30, and I've done so twice in a row now! The course was a [...]
Lead photo courtesy of Austin Boynton. Autocross #2 is in the books! I think the most interesting thing about this event was the course layout, which was quite odd. There were the two long, sweeping turns towards the beginning that were difficult to get right, and then there were a lot of slaloms that led into sharp turns which I kept forgetting existed. Nothing like coming out of a slalom at full throttle only [...]
We're finally back to autocross season, and kicking things off with Chicago Region SCCA's first official event of the year! I had hoped to return this year with a more competitive car (read: header and tune) but financial obligations prevented that from happening. The only change this year is the Fujitsubo Authorize R catback exhaust I installed last November, though realistically the only "performance improvement" I'll be getting out of it is a few [...]
Autocross #9 is in the books! This marks the last autocross event for the Chicago Region, and likely the last autocross I will attend this year. Ended things on a good note with another 1st place win! More importantly, this was THE most exciting course I've raced on thus far. I was shifting into 3rd gear in not one, but TWO sections of the course! It was a relatively wide and open course with [...]
Autocross #7 has come and gone, and I don't think I've ever been more pleased with how an event turned out. The car handled beautifully, and I drove a little bit more aggressively, and I was able to really put down a good time today. 1st place was had in STX, by a healthy 1.5 second margin to 2nd place (a nicely-prepared BRZ). Of course there's another well-prepared BRZ that will gladly beat me by [...]
Autocross #6 is in the books! What a fun course. I can't explain why it was so weird, but many folks agreed that it was a bit unusual. Something about the layout made it difficult to remember all of the elements offhand. This meant, at least for me, that I had to drive the course "in the moment," so to speak. It worked out fairly well in my case, though! Wound up taking 1st [...]
Autocross #5 is in the books! This was kind of an awkward event due to the weather, which forced it to be canceled at about the half-way point. As such, this will be a shorter post than usual. I wound up in 3rd place in STX (only 0.003 seconds behind my nemesis in second place), but he was actually further ahead of me until the results were "adjusted." I'll explain below. Date: Sunday, August 28, 2016 [...]
Lead photo courtesy of DBH Photo. Autocross #4 is in the books! The highlight of today's event was the pouring rain we had first thing in the morning, which wound up delaying the start of the event by about an hour. I had never yet had the opportunity to attend an autocross in wet conditions, so I was actually fairly excited to see what it would be like. As it turned out, a wet course really [...]