I finished first in A Stock at this past weekend's autocross at Rosecroft Raceway, beating a C4 'vette on race tires by nearly a second. Pablo (bluedot) was third (last for this event) in his first time out in his Evo and his first AX in three years. Ignoring cones, he was about a second off my pace. In his defense though, I think he was just having fun difting the car when he would have been faster keeping it straight. Fun to watch though. And you know what, this car is friggin' fast. What JW, you just figured that out after three autocrosses? No, but it's the first time I've actually seen one run from the outside. Pablo was flying!

What else was interesting was that Pablo & I ran in the wet. Most, if not all of the times that beat me were run in the third or fourth heats, when the course had largely dried. It was definitely an AWD day up until then!

For comparison, my time would have placed me:

- 2d out of 4 in SS (missing first by less than 0.2 to a Viper running in the 4th heat)
- 2d out of 8 in BS (missing by a little over 0.2 to an M Coupe running in the 3rd heat)
- 1st in all other stock classes
- 1st out of 9 in STS
- 1st out of 9 in STX
- 4th out of 11 in SM (1-3 ran in heats 3 & 4)
- 1st out of 5 in SM2
- 1st out of 3 in ESP

My PAX was 20 out of 101. See http://www.autocrossers.com/SESCA.html for full results.

I will have race tires and an alignment for the next event if all goes according to plan, it should be very interesting!

JW

 

John, just caught this thread... congrats on the June FedEx field win too. I was supposed to be there for that one, but last minute things came up.

I am looking to be out again and see how the dry handling works out. I am expecting a little more predictable drifting, as the car did understeer a tad in the wet, but still so much more neutral than the Eclipse. I will most likely stay 100% stock, so shouldn't be any threat to your points , and yes I am mostly looking to feel how the car handles near limit (as much as AutoX can do that for me).

Cool meeting you, and catching up with some of my old AutoX friends whom I don't see much of. Hopefully I will be out when other Evo guys come and get to talk to them too. Keep up the good driving and take the AS crown for the rest of us!

Pablo.

 

I'm still waiting on the results from this past weekend. I ran in the first half of the first heat, which meant I played street sweeper for everyone who came later. On the bright side, it was warm enough for me to actually get some heat in the tires. I did chew up my LF tire pretty badly though -- hope it was just something special about that course, I can't afford to be wearing out tires at that rate...

JW

 

One guy over on the RX-7 forum complained about the same thing:

 

I don't remember having problems like that (at least not that severe) at Rosecroft before. Of course I'm running the Ecsta now instead of the Victoracer and that is supposed to be softer. Maybe I will go back to the Victoracers.

Or maybe I should just run the Advans at Rosecroft. I'll give up some time, but my race tires might live to fight another day. That doesn't really sound like me though...

JW

 

Does the softer compond ecsta make up for the width over the victos (235s vs 255s)? Of couse a 265 /17ecsta would be great- wishful thinking.

 

I wish I had some hard data, but I'm just winging it. I may go for 255's next time now that I know they fit, but here are the main reasons I went the way I did:

- Cheaper than Hoosiers
- Softer & lighter than Victoracer
- Shorter than 255 (less sidewall flex, better gearing, lower cg)

Given the current level of competition locally, I could have probably stayed with the Advans, but I'm sure as more Evos and STis get bought, that will change. Looking forward to it too...

JW

 

I hear ya, Hoosiers are a hassle for local events. Even with the 255's, I wish I had even higher gearing. I'm coming from a car that can go maybe 67 mph in 2nd. On the faster courses I'm bumping the limiter on the Evo and losing time going to third to often, good for tighter ones though. It'll be interesting what the 3 guys can do this weekend at the tour.

 

Please elaborate... I'm guessing that you mean one of two things:

1. Expensive.
2. Not streetworthy, so you end up changing your wheels and tires before and after your autoXing.

Am I close?

 

All of the above, but especially changing tires at the event, which is one reason people get trailers.