EvolutionM - Mitsubishi Lancer and Lancer Evolution Community - EVOlutionary's 2nd trip to Solo2 Nationals

I will try to update this thread each day of the week I'm out here in Topeka for the 2007 SCCA Solo2 National Championship . . . check back often!

Friday, 9/21/07
Pulled out of Midland, MI this morning at 8am with the EVO in tow. We made really good time all day - pretty light traffic and not too much construction. We cruized through Illinois at about 75mph the whole way even though the speed limit is 55 when in tow. The radar detector saved me more than once! We could have made it to Topeka by about 9 or 10, but we already had a hotel lined up just west of St.Louis thanks to Priceline, so we stopped for the night to get all rested up for the week. We should pull into HPT at around 1pm tomorrow. We are staying at Amerisuites in Topeka. Got an awesome deal on Priceline for $45 per night. Regular price is like $90! It even has a full hot breakfast every day with eggs, sausage, bacon, etc!! It should be a great week!

As for the car, it's been a long year getting it all together! Seems like every couple races we made some major changes that needed more testing time. I got all the main parts on and a base tune reflash the morning we left for Winged Warrior this spring. Added the front splitter/undertray a few weeks later. That made the car real loose so we softened up the rear sway bar. A couple races later we added the rear wing and that made it push alot because the rear now had too much traction (relatively). Around the same time we switched from my year-old Kumhos to a fresh set of Hoosiers. For those who don't know - the Hoosiers run quite a bit wider for a given size. (TIP - don't switch from Kumho to Hoosier and go right to a race without driving the car to be sure they clear the fenders!!!) Made a couple more adjustments and the car came back to neutral. We ran it like that for a couple months and did well as some National Tours and a Pro, but the car was definitely down on power compared to where it should be. Finally I was able to line up a date to get it tuned. Tym Switzer spent alot of time working on it and messing with cam settings to get me exactly what I asked for - as wide and as big of power curve as possible. Although I didn't think it was possible, turns out you CAN have too much power for autocross! Perhaps a great driver could tame it and make it work with proper throttle modulation on corner exit, but not I! We spent a couple events messing with boost control to get the power right where we want it - manageable but fast. Give it full throttle coming out of a corner and the rear will step out just a bit when needed to get you lined up for the next element. Part of that is probably also due to a diff change. Even on low power we were getting some inside wheel spin coming out of corners. The new diff has completlely taken that away, 100%! The car is now as fast as it's been all year, but I don't know if it will be fast enough. There is a lot of extremely tough competion out there. I just hope to at least match my results last year - a 9th place finish - just 1 spot out of trophies. We'll see how things go. It's going to be an awesome week with some awesome weather!! Now it's time to sleep . . .

Saturday, 9/22/07
Hit the road again today. Stopped at Hardees for breakfast. Whoever came up with putting an omelette on a biscuit so you can eat it while you are driving is a f'n GENIUS! Almost as much of a genius as the guy who thought to put the sausage gravy INSIDE the biscuit so you can take it on the road! When we were about an hour out of Topeka we stopped for gas and I commented on how great of time we were making so far. BIG mistake. We got caught in some stupid traffic coming through Kansas City. Remind me to never make stupid comments like that again . . . Anyway, we got to the site, got the car unloaded and got registerred and tech'd. There are alot of crazy cars out here. Probably the coolest is a '53 Sprite with a 3-Rotor Mazda engine. That thing is absolutely nuts. I saw Warrtalon cruizing around but didn't catch up with him to say HI. Met Daddio. He was tearing up the track again today. We went out to eat at Chilis and I had the Chicken Club Tacos. They were delish! That's really all for now -- the EVOs are kicking some butt so far and I hope for that to continue throughout the week. More to come tomorrow after the test and tune session.

Sunday, 9/23/07
Finally got to take a few runs on the surface today at the warm-up event. It feels pretty grippy, definitely more than last year. Once a few cars go through the line gets pretty defined by a layer of sand at the outside of each turn. If you come in or out too wide you get into the sand and you're pretty much on ice until you can bring it back on line. Anyway, the car was working OK. We're having some popping and sputtering issues with on-off-on throttle conditions. Checked all the vacuum lines - no probs there. Tried turning the boost down even more, no help there. I think it's just the cylinders loading up on excess fuel when you're off throttle, then burning it off in the header when you get back on it. ??? Who knows. After the warm up we sat around and plotted out the week a little bit. Then we went out to eat dinner at Timberline Steakhouse. ALL YOU CAN EAT PRIME RIB, baby!! Tomorrow they have all-you-can-eat BBQ Ribs! We may have to make a 2nd appearance there! After dinner I went back to the hotel and promptly crashed. I woke up at 1:30 with all the lights on in the room thinking it was 1:30 in the afternoon and that I had overslept! Dang it! Upon looking out the window and seeing it was dark and rainy outside I realized that it was still night. l went back to sleep . . .

Monday, 9/24/07
I'm sitting in my cozy hotel room right now drinking a Cold Hop by Boulder Beer Company. That will be followed up quickly with a Fat Tire Amber Ale by New Belgium Brewery. This is quite a treat. We don't get either of these in Michigan. Fat Tire I had back a few years ago when I took a mountian biking trip to Colorado. I love it and haven't been able to get it since. The Cold Hop I have never heard of before, but I like hoppy beers and this one is pretty tasty! On to the recap . . .
Woke up not so early this morning as there really wasn't a whole lot going on. Went to the lobby of the hotel and had a great breakfast - English muffin, sausage, eggs, milk, apple juice, orange juice, coffee, Belgian waffle with strawberries and maple syrup . . . that's not the menu, that's what I ate!! Then we went to Starbucks for a real coffee. That got me going. We got to HPT around 9am or so and went right out to walk the course. This is the first time I have walked a course only 3 times and be able to visualize the whole thing in my head! I was pretty psyched about that. Here is the course. Rotate the map upside down to get a better idea of what we are seeing as we walk up to it. The left course on the picture is what we call the right course, and vice versa.

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e3...NatCourses.jpg

The East course, or boomerang shaped one is what we run tomorrow. You start with a sharp right hander in 1st gear. Shift to 2nd right before you enter the 1st slalom. You carry alot of speed down into what is a really shallow right hander (the fishhook turn), then a couple offsets. There is one cone here that will get murderred over and over again. This leads into another slalom followed by a big sweeping 180. The last outside cone here is also going to get clobbered. Across the back you basically have a few "S" turns ending into a left leading into the final slalom. The key in this slolom is who can go full throttle first and hold it through to the end. Many cars will be coming through the finish at 60-70mph, or maybe faster.

I will try to review the West course tomorrow night along with the first race day recap. Had Subway for lunch today. Chicken Bacon Ranch is excellent. There is a laundromat right between that and Pat's Pig (BBQ joint) that will wash and dry and fold your clothes for $4 per load. That's pretty sweet. Then later we went to Olive Garden for dinner. I had the Gorgonzola Beef Pasta or something like that. Very excellent! When they said we got salad with the meals I asked the waitress what kind of dressings they had. She looked at me funny and said "This is an Italian restaraunt - the salad has Italian dressing". I guess that makes sense now doesn't it . . .

EVOlutionary