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Thanks everyone! What a crazy rush of emotions and shock over these last few days.
Not sure if anyone actually followed the conditions but I can give a little breakdown of how things went down. Tuesday was wet in an epic way all the way up till right before we started running. If you know nothing of the nats site, east (plane side) course is very slow to drain with west side clearing pretty quick. We had a good breeze and periodic sun poking out but lots of standing water still when 5th heat started. We had a couple people on A7s (Hyman, Rodgerson/Aversa) but everyone else chose H20s. Our game plan was for KJ to put in 1 run on H20s and check the grip and compare others runs to see the delta.
It was totally obvious just watching the grip through the first 2 turn-arounds that H20s were faster and both Stainback and Strelnieks was running quick on them. But we made the gamble that by 3rd runs the course would be dry enough that A7s would be fastest. So for my first run we swapped over to the A7s in a rush and I went out for a run to scrub them in. Grip was no where to be found yet, but getting back we could feel the air in the tires warming when we bled a little off.
2nd run was still pretty slippery but safe. Nothing super special in time but its what I could get out of the tires feeling the grip through each corner. Mostly, I was learning where to be cautious. Watching KJ's final run I could see he was hooking much harder through first couple sweepers and I saw others dropping a good bit of time and into the 71s. Stainback stayed on the H20's and seemed they just gave up on the dry concrete and pushed wide after a sweeper. So he had to stand on run2 in the wet. Strelnieks swapped to A7s on run 3 with codriver doing a scrub before his. He ran after me so I had no clue what he would come up with.
Knowing what KJ could get away with I was at the line talking to myself hard about looking ahead, find the dry line, push it! Taking off, I got a bit sideways with an aggressive start but just held it and short shifted second. Wasn't playing it safe here, I bombed into things at uncomfortable speeds with the water right off the dry line. One slip and I was going way off line. Just feeling the grip using throttle to test it through each sweeper, feeding and letting off throttle right to the point of slipping and powersliding out of each corner. Grip was completely different from the first 2 runs. I knew of 3 points on course to be cautious with the wet, but I was feeling great and the car was perfect for the conditions. The back section had some eyebrows to an offset wall and a wide sweeper right to a quick left and the finish. That section was truly epic, and really played to what my car shines at which is throttle steering.
Coming into the finish I knew it was good but a f*cking 58.2 pops up! Holy sh*t, almost 4 sec drop. I pull to the scales pretty sure I was clean but waiting for a call and watching for Strelnieks to finish assuming he'd find similar time. 1.3sec improvement for him, WTF, I have a 2.3s lead on day 1?!
In a straight dry race, this was a good course for me but Strelnieks and Stainback both have quicker cars for a couple reasons. I'll post about day 2 later, and talk about the cars disadvantages right now..
Congrats Dallas! I think you were talking about Day 1 on the East Course so it should be a 68.5 from you.....clearly you are still in shock over all these. I was watching and scratching my head how you put that big of a gap on them. It didn't occur to me that it was you, otherwise, I would have stopped by to say hi.
West Course definitely falls in favor of Erik's car. I wish I got to run West on Wed instead, that would have given me a better chance.
Haha, clearly the x8.x is all that mattered to me . This was definitely one of those sessions (Tuesday East, 5th heat) where you really had 1 chance and a gamble to get it all right. Not the best way to win AutoX, but we just happened to pick the right side of this roulette, and I got myself psyched up for the last run to just throw it all out there. I don't think Eric Strelneiks knew what I ran before he started and there was just no one else to make it happen after that. So maybe he just didn't have a good feel for what was really possible?
So 2.299 lead on day 1 it was. Just think of the mindset you would be in after the event with that kind of lead. It was like "Is this really possible?", "After 14 years, will I actually clinch a national championship?", "If you f*k this up hows the drive home going to be?". So many emotions that night I just went to bed early and tried to stay calm. All my PNW guys were super supportive, really helped me sort out my plan. Even Tom Berry was out there after my first run which was super cool cause obviously we all look up to him and his accomplishments.
What are you all using for rear diffs? I had the cusco rs on my evo x rear end but went with the carbonetic when I changed to a 8 diff. It is severely injured now so debating what route to go.
Got some time this weekend while the CNC was running to pull the bumper and fender and see what kind of room we have for our winter plans.
I have an extra harness to deal with from the ACD wires run to the rear. But both harnesses and hood latch look like I have plenty of room to use a couple lined clamps held in place with some rivnuts.
Im also looking at clearance on that lip to gain that extra 3/4". I may cut and weld the seam while I have it apart but need to pull the spring so I can articulate the suspension and steering. Assume I'll be doing just a little trimming in places.
Thats how much I can cut the lip to clear more tire. I think Im shooting for 2" of clearance in bump (will have to see if thats enough or too much) but an extra 3/4" at the extreme will be good for getting the front end low which is a big goal.
I'm not sure cutting that is allowed. Isn't it in board of the hub and allows the car to be lower, which is a performance advantage?
Just like the thread we had on FB, the consensus was I couldn't cut more than 1lb of material. But clearance for allowable mods are ok, which tire width is open of course. If this wasn't legal, it sounds like Tim would be quite sad since he's made use of the 1lb rule to get 335s working on his Subi.
Hub face is just an SP rule superseded by 1lb rule.
So throw away the hub face rule and focus on the performance advantage. You can fit 315s on an evo without doing any cuts to that lip in the front or to the inner wheel well in the rear. Doing those cuts only provides an extra performance benefit. The SMAC definitely needs to revisit that fast track clarification and update the rules, because the line is still fuzzy to me.
As I understand it now, hub face still gives clearance to cut the fenders and parts outside the hub face. When we cut rear fenders, its possible more than 1lb is being removed. But inboard if Im just creating small clearance with less than 1lbs removed, then it seems to be legit. But you're right, that needs to be clarified better.
The purpose of triming this for me is to gain that extra 3/4" lowering potential and for a path to 335s. I dont know if its needed, but if Im doing things now I want to be prepared for moving that direction. I also have the latitude to not mess up geometry being that low so for me it just makes sense to push the limits.
Sep 8, 2018, 11:11 AM
. This was definitely one of those sessions (Tuesday East, 5th heat) where you really had 1 chance and a gamble to get it all right. Not the best way to win AutoX, but we just happened to pick the right side of this roulette, and I got myself psyched up for the last run to just throw it all out there. I don't think Eric Strelneiks knew what I ran before he started and there was just no one else to make it happen after that. So maybe he just didn't have a good feel for what was really possible? 
