My Evo versus your Z? Shall we see?

 

The only input I have to add is: I suck at going fast on street tires. Loved the Z, but give me r-comps please!

Also, there were some rumors after day two competition that Mark Hill may be protested due to overly rolled and or pulled rear fenders. He was running Enkei RPF1's in 17x9.5 +18 ET. I was approached to help back the protest. (I would have moved up to a trophy position) But declined. Having had an evo with mutilated rear fenders. I came to the conclusion that while his fenders may have had been slightly out of spec (grey ruling anyway) that they did not offer a performance advantage.

P.S. Brian Peters is a truly gifted driver. I've been doing this a long time and you can recognize the experts while they are on course. Brian was one of those examples.

 

You don't want any part of his Z.

 

Bring it. We racin' for pinks or what .

 

Let's just keep it simple and put a single Benjamin on the line. I'm not greedy and I'm out of garage space anyway.

But seriously -- racing for fun is fun. Racing for money is work.

 

how many of those disadvantages do you think would disappear if evo's were allowed to run on 255's or 265's??

 

From what I could gather in talking to Brian and watching cars on course and the outcomes, I am of the belief that a well driven Evo/STi could definitely have won. I know Brian won by a significant margin, but with the depth of the class gone (no offense to those that competed), there wasn't anyone to step up and push the issue. Courses were pretty fairly balanced between the two with no excessive advantages such as in past Nationals (i.e., Slalomfest, Sweeperfest, etc.). I think Geoff missed out on a good opportunity for back to back wins. I know the West Coast events have been fairly one sided, but Lincoln is an entirely different animal. Part of me kind of wishes I had run STU this year...but SSR was just WAY too much fun to pass up.

 

whether you believe it's fair or unfair, the only way they know is if you write your letters!

 

From my personal experience:

The Evo and most AWD cars struggle on courses:
_With long sweepers after sweepers; it is really hard to carry decent speed with an AWD front heavy car with 245s all around without under steering thought the whole turn.
_High speed courses; The Evo X GSR second gear is short; supposedly 62-63MPH but after checking with a GPS I see that I barely touches 60MPH on second, so I find myself on red line more than once on some courses where going to 3rd gear is not a good option…

The Evo and most AWD cars may have an advantage:
_ Low traction courses. (Snow, Rain, Gravel, etc)
_When there are some reasonable tight turns and short straights, unless that they are way too tight U turns where you are completely out of boost, but for the most part you should be able to get out faster than other cars, and with a short straight, you have to slow down again and rocket out of the next turn, another short straight, out of the next turn… every time that you can use AWD to pull and push you out of each turn.
_Courses where there is not much room for turn in “set up” where you cannot swing wide and increase corner entry speed (that favors other cars); so tight gates; more point a shoot courses.

Transitions and slaloms: I really don’t know; I feel that sometimes the car is really good and sometimes is not. It may depend on the car set up and the spacing of the slalom, but I feel that it may be pretty equal.

Again that is from my personal experience and I suck as a driver also!

 

Jeremy has a national trophy capable (or better) SM Evo. Car vs car, his Evo is faster.

That being said, lets not derail this thread.

 

That's fine, but even Shoe's car doesn't out-sweep mine...has a whole lot more scoot under power though!

 

I am still not clear on this one. Earlier this year at the Match tour we had fun runs at the end of Saturday and we ran the course backwards. The longest sweeper was something I decide to test during those and second and third run went over the edge of traction on all 4. I was expecting lot of push as most of other cars would do and having to lift half way there in order to get back to course/line, but I've got a big surprise. Front end went wider, but rear did too. So, instead of push, I got into the drift. The greatest surprise was that car was still steerable through all of that sliding! I wish I had SoloStorm that time to see the numbers, but from the "seats of the pants", didn't feel slower. As a matter of fact, I have went way faster that I missed entry for the Chicago box that was coming right after that sweeper - twice!!
I know that everything was pointing out that I was overdriving the things, but it didn't go slower as my times showed at the end.
So, you are trying to say that is only GSR limitation - SST version doesn't have that issue! Right?

If I ever manage to stiffen things for my car suspension wise, I think I would enjoy this part even more. Right now it is fight between leaning left and right and how quickly that can happen without upsetting anything else. STU guys should have this problem!

 

^ evo x with ayc should have less of a problem on big long sweepers than the older cars

 

I think 255 would definitely be a step in the right direction for AWD cars in STU given the results at Nationals. IMHO, Mark Hill is no slouch. If I were still running in STU, I would start writing letters to the STAC/SEB.

West course was more about transitions and handling, East course was more about outright speed, relatively speaking. East course (designed by Vivek) this year was crazy fast, just like the East course (designed by Strano) last year. It's no surprise the Z made up time on the West course.

 

imho we used to have a set of those +18 Enkeis and they were great for the front end of the car but in no way would fit in the rear, which ultimately became such a pain in the *** (not being able to rotate tires) that we had to give up on them (and run huge spacers instead). While probably not a performance advantage it sure would have been a whole lot more convenient.