Not bad. I know Lisa took home the win but didnt hear about Tom. He said the Evo wasnt quite ready but was taking it anyways.

 

We didn't get to any of the aero or suspension upgrades with how long it took getting the car driving again after last year's engine failure. Overall pretty happy with the results considering how good the other cars and drivers are in SM.

 

So here's my recap of this past week:

I started off the week with the West Course which is a course design that I'm used to in Lincoln. Designed by John H. - it had elements that felt much like a local there. I was quite confident and relaxed at the start of the heat. Ended up in 2nd place after three runs behind a multi-national champ in the Porsche. Only about a tenth back, I was feeling good. However, there were definite hesitations and missed braking points that cost me a good half second - which left a me wondering what could have been. 49.XXX's were possible - no doubt in my mind. How deep into them is anyone's guess.

Day 2 - the mile long course. I tried conserving energy by not walking this over and over. I believe I walked it 3 times total the night prior and my feet weren't loving life.

I started off pretty bad. The first slalom - the car just stuck. Gripped harder than I was expecting and literally ran a cone right over. Which then threw me off on making the left hand turn right after. I got off of the racing line a few times and my rear tires were absolutely gunked up with OPR. The next two runs were battles to simply lay down clean runs. My rear really was wanting to step around on me where in normal cases it would just stick. I feel like this was the loosest the car felt all year. The heat, the OPR, etc. Definitely waned on me and my confidence just wasn't there. Unfortunately, my fastest run wasn't saved on video, which kinda stinks as I would have loved to review it. If it was anything like my second - it then wouldn't be very pretty.

I ultimately ended up dropping to 5th at the end of it. Definitely frustrated for the massive screw up on run 1. Next year I really need to seriously consider bringing extra tires to swap on, just in case this situation arises. That is my biggest take away from this year. Live, learn and don't repeat the same mistakes.

The positive - I met a LOT of great people. Got to talk to plenty of evo owners as well, which frequent this forum which was always a good thing. So many people offered to help assist/offer input during the downtime between runs as well and for that I'm truly thankful and humbled.

As much as I want to blame my car - I can't. I know what the evo is capable with the right mindset. I just wasn't in that mindset Day 2. But I'm not going to lie - the thought of running a smaller tire is interesting to me. We'll see what next year brings!

Huge congrats to the Tsang brothers. Mack killed it at the pro-solo and both brothers finished 1/2 at Nationals - pulling it out on their last runs as well. Good guys and I hope they come back to defend next year! STU is a great class - a LOT of awesome individuals in this class and the bar has been raised yet again. I hope to see this class continue to stay strong and grow.

Video of West Course: (should be higher definition soon - still processing)

Pictures:

Rear tires after day two's mishap:


Weight reduction:

 

Good seeing you again man and very nice performance!

 

Great to finally meet you in person Brent. You definitely crushed it on day 1 where the AWD was really a limitation with all those decreasing radius sweepers and no where really to have good pulls. I would 10/10 pick anything RWD balanced over AWD on that course.

Day2 I could definitely see you were struggling with confidence in the car and handling to be able to hold throttle or speed through critical elements. And its not on you, its 100% a hard thing to not hit the brake when your brain is screaming at you to slow down. Still a great job with the 5th place. I had a feeling coming into this that that Tsangs were going to do it this year because Mach and Justin have been on FIRE lately. Mack especially, he's definitely a great competitor.

Looking at your OPR, I would run more camber. That's actually part of how I've worked towards finding how much camber I need. Keep adding more till OPR scrubs off. Then I assume Im using the whole tire. IMO its so important to get the tires to a place they self clean so you don't have to worry about it and the car is consistent run to run. For very similar reasons I run 315s and I don't go the 335 route. I want the tire to be consistent so I can drive to what I feel and know. Not guessing based off changing conditions.

But again, super great meeting you. Your car is immaculate!

 

So what happened to your Diff? It was a TRE 12 wasn't it?

 

^ I'm pretty sure it was a Cusco gymkhana diff but we'll see.

Congrats to all the Evos that showed up in all classes and great job to all the trophy winners!

 

Dallas! Likewise and it was great to talk to you. You've definitely helped me over and over and over with questions I've had over the last years. Man - I wish I had more time to talk but that's the way things go! Thank you - Day 1 went well no doubt! It kills me I didn't get into the 49.XXX as it might have been enough of a lead that couldn't have been overcome with the day 2 performance. Live and learn - I just gotta get better at pushing/riding the limit and simply trust the car.

Your comments about day 2 are spot on. Man - it's painful watching my day 2 videos. There were spots that I was letting off and/or braking in which I shouldn't have. Now I have a year to think about it, lol!

I appreciate the insight about the camber - makes sense. However, I believe I'm running pretty darn close to max camber in the rear already, unfortunately. I will look into it further though.

Thanks again! Yeah - for 109,XXX miles on her, she's looking cleaner than most evos I've seen in the flesh - with half the miles. However, I also do paint correction/ceramic coating of vehicles as a side hustle - and I've definitely put time into this car as it needed some loving when I first purchased it a couple years back!

 

Thank you, sir!

 

Awesome performance guys!

 

I'd love to open this following point up for discussion:


I have to admit - It intrigues me that the STI that's taken the top spot the last 2 years is still just running a 255/40/17 A052. I looked into the difference in weight between my current setup vs a 17x9.5/10" wheel with a 255 A052 - and the difference in weight in my case, would be approximately 24lbs of rotating mass and unsprung weight.

Thoughts? I really don't want to end up spending another $3,000.00+ on buying another set of wheels and tires - when this year already I've spent so much on tires alone.

I'd really love to hear everyone's thought process in regards to this subject. 18s vs 17s on a STU trim Evo.


Pros to the 17" setup
Lighter weight
Cheaper tires
better longitudinal acceleration
possibly a narrower stance

Cons
Less overall grip than the wider tires
Overheat quicker

 

Are the STIs limited in any way from running more wheel/tire options?

 

meanwhile i'm here trying to figure out if I can even stay focused for an 80-sec run

 

I know there was one running a square 265mm tire. I've read on the forums and heard first hand that possibly wider would work - but I'm not 100% certain

I couldn't even get the first 10 seconds right -

 

This was also a point of discussion among the Colorado guys. The consensus was that the STI that won the past two years has just been developed for years to specifically win these types of courses on Lincoln concrete. Certainly developed for this more than my car, and possibly more than every other car on the STU grid. Combine that with some alien drivers and it's hard to beat, even on 255's. I'm sure there's some trade off on wheel width to rotating mass, but every time I've gone wider tire, I do better locally. I'd be terrified to spend money on 17x255's as my though process has always been MOAR RUBBER.

With that said, all these comparisons of 285 vs 295s and yok's vs stones, would pale in comparison to a true A/B test of 295/285 18's vs 255/265 17's. I'd be fascinated to see that.