Featured image above is courtesy of Jason Kositarut.
I was told I should try attending some other autocross events with different groups. Milwaukee is the one that apparently has all of the stiff competition, but in the interim, TSSCC (Tri-State Sports Car Council) had an event this weekend, and I happened to be free, so I went! I finished second in class at this event, which I am quite pleased with considering the competition (detailed below.)
Date: Sunday, May 29, 2016
SCCA Chapter: n/a (TSSCC is unaffiliated)
Location: Lake County Fairgrounds, Grayslake, IL
Weather: Partly Cloudy, Dry, Light Breeze, 70-80 degrees F
———-
Car: 2015 Subaru BRZ
Class: 345 STX
Wheels/Tires: 949 Racing 6UL (17×9)/Bridgestone Potenza RE-71R (245/40R17)
Brakes: Hawk 5.0
Suspension: KW V3 coilovers, Raceseng Cas/Cam plates, Velox LCAs
———-
Raw: 48.923 (2nd of 9 in Class)
PAX: 40.899 (27th of 111 Overall)
———-
More Fine-Tuning
This was the first event with proper weather which allowed me to focus a bit more on trying to fine-tune my setup. At my last event, turning the suspension all the way up at all four corners resulted in a significant reduction in body roll, but did have the side effect of introducing just a bit more oversteer than I really wanted. Today I turned the front up fully, but backed off the rear compression and rebound by two clicks. The car was a bit more neutral in this configuration.
As usual, though, there is always something new to experience. In this case, it was the different racing surface up at Lake County Fairgrounds. Two things here stood out to me. First, there was a helluva lot more gravel on the surface during our initial runs. In fact, my first run of the day was mostly an exercise in trying to keep the car going in the correct direction as it slid all over the gravel (cold tires didn’t help, obviously.) That was really only an issue on my first run, however. The second issue was the unevenness of the racing surface, and this was something I had to contend with on all of my runs. Route 66 is much smoother, so fully stiffening my suspension wasn’t really an issue. Here, however, there were several parts of the course where the car skipped around quite unhappily, and this made it difficult to put the power down and maintain a clean line. I didn’t adjust the suspension for the rest of the day because I was focused on tire pressures, but for future events at this location, I will likely go a bit softer with the coilovers at all four corners to allow the car to manage the uneven surface a bit better.
Speaking of tire pressures, I started at my usual pressures, but went a bit lower as the day went on and that did seem to help me. Towards the end of the day I was running something around 30-31 PSI up front and 29 in the rear. I’m kind of happy with the way the car sticks now. It’s rather neutral in this configuration, with perhaps a slight propensity towards oversteer, however I might need to make it a bit more tail happy because throughout a single run, I noticed it would start pushing towards the end (which cost me an otherwise excellent run on the very last turn when I understeered the crap out of the car.) So for the next event I might try upping the rear a tiny bit and see what that gets me.
Stiff Competition (Literally)
There were several vehicles in STX today, but there were two in particular that proved to be a tough challenge. Both were BRZs, and both of them were much closer to “fully prepped” than my barely-not-stock car. Check them out!
I am not terribly familiar with either of these vehicles, but I did get an idea of what they were like. I actually rode along with the black one during one of his runs. He has plenty more modifications than I do, and two things in particular really stood out to me: First, he has much stiffer springs than I do. This isn’t surprising, as I chose the softer V3s intentionally, and I don’t intend on going any stiffer (for now, at least), but it was fun to see what a difference stiffer springs can make; his are about twice as stiff as mine. The car stayed much flatter (I believe he has bigger swaybars as well) and was clearly a bit more composed through the twisty parts of the course. The other thing that really impressed me was the severity of his brakes. He has a big brake kit, but that doesn’t really improve stopping distance. What made that difference was his brake pads, which are autocross focused, and have tremendous stopping power right out of the gate. He was able to violently decelerate the car in a way that I can’t possibly manage with my current HAWK Street Performance pads. I still managed to just barely edge him out at this event, but that was all down to cones. His car is most definitely capable of being faster than mine!
The white car is in a different league altogether. He was behind me in grid, so I was able to talk to him, and he takes autocross very seriously. As he described it, his car is fully prepped, and has every possible modification allowed in STX, as he bought the car with the specific intention of making it an STX vehicle. This means tons of parts, a different rear differential (possibly a different transmission, I can’t remember what he said about it), all manner of suspension parts (even stiffer springs than the black car), a tune, a higher rev limiter, AP Racing big brake kit, etc… The car is an absolute beast. He took 1st place at this event, besting me by about 0.7 seconds. Considering the car he is driving, and the fact that he is much older, and much more experienced at autocross than I am, I’ll allow it 😛
…maybe I should look into a few more performance modifications…
Here is my fastest (non-cone) run of the day. I think the most obvious take-away from this video is that I really need to work on tightening up my line. There are also a few places where I think I should have gone a bit wider coming into a turn, which would have allowed me a quicker exit.
