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A Month Of Autox

Busy month, this weekend is my first one without a race. Just before the first event, I also picked up a used set of Hankook Ventus RS2s, one of the better autox tires out there. After figuring out tire pressures, these things are a huge improvement on my daily drivers. They should last the rest of the season too. And then it’s on to r-compounds next year.

July 8th I drove down to Connecticut to drive with a local club. Went down primarily to mix it up with some other MINIs, which was a blast comparing times and watching them. Turn out was decent, and in SM I took 4th place out of 8. Another MINI was 2nd. Our times were comparable, neck and neck most of the day, but I was cone happy. At the end of the day, I was 4/10ths of a second off of him. I believe my car is better set up handling-wise, but he has the power. Another day!

July 15th and I was at my home SCCA region, MoHud. Here I eventually placed 5th out of a large class of 14. The cars ahead of me were all regulars, and I solidly beat a few others who are making it to a lot of the events. I feel as if I can gain another position, but then I’m SOL until I get a lot better, give the car some more kick, and buy some r-compounds.

July 22nd was back to Ithaca College! Glen region was hosting an event on-campus and I just had to make it to this one. It was a lot of fun being back in Ithaca. My mother and I made it a weekend, but didn’t get to do a whole lot. Ate some decent food. Brought the dog and he behaved wonderfully. Glen is a small region and not super-competitive, which explains why I placed 1st out of 2 entrees in SM. I beat a Chevy Silverado. :roll: Regardless, I’ll take the win. Looking at raw scores, I was also 5th fastest out of a field of 30 (excluding the karts)! Beating me were two Miatas, a Corrado, and an M3. Not bad company, eh? I felt very good about this event, even though I coned my fastest runs. I’m getting used to the sticky tires and can’t wait till the next round.

First Autocross (Ever)

So July 30th, I took the MINI to my first autocross. It was at Fulton-Montgomery Community College. In the parking lot, of course.

What is an autocross, you may ask? Well Timmy, it’s where a bunch of guys (and a token female or two) get in their cars, set some traffic cones up in a parking lot creating a tight, twisty course, and then see who can get through fastest. There are a variety of classes, dependent on amount of mods (lack of), amount of power (lack of), and so on. A stock MINI Cooper S is in “G-Stock” (for comparison, the Cooper would be in H-Stock). Most autocrosses are sponsored by local chapters of the SCCA. In this case: the Mohawk-Hudson chapter.

This time around, there were three other cars in G-Stock with me. A ’94 Integra, a ’91 Audi 200 Quattro, and an ’04 Mustang (assuming base V6). I placed third, behind the Acura and Audi, ahead of the Ford. Best times were:

43.344 seconds
43.653
44.239
45.625

My six runs were as follows:

44.239
43.644+3
45.107
42.672+1
43.617+1
44.044+1

What are those “+#” you ask? Well Jimmy, those numbers indicate the amount of cones that I hit per run. Each cone is a 2 second penalty. So, although my fastest run was 42.6 seconds (coincidentally, the fastest run in G-Stock that day), I hit a cone which added 2 seconds.

Am I happy? Sort of. I didn’t make a complete fool of myself. However, I was pretty slow (the fastest cars were doing 35 second laps, and most of the experienced guns were in the sub-40s). Also, oddly enough, my first lap was my fastest, which should never happen. That first lap I was just concentrating on doing a nice tight, clean run. The rest I tried to go “fast.” More than likely, I was just over-driving, burning up my tires.

But the good news is that the next autocross with this SCCA chapter is in ten days, August 20th, at Adirondack Community College. Yeehaw!