That anyone who autocrosses with Trackbird takes his or her life out of their own hands. :leaving:

I'll just throw out some random words and you can make your own story because I'm not one to tattle.

two-seventy
grass
timing station
scatter
cones
flatten

Well, that's enough randomizing for now.

DO TELL....you know you want too

That's "Five-forty" I'll have you know.

Get it right.



Oh....and I seem to remember your name, my car, drainage ditch, grass (agricultural racing) and 180+ in a sentence.



Oh, and you left out "Flat spotted" (the entire set of 4).

Oh come on....let it go

I'll let Absolute speed explain it. He saw it, I was just along for the ride.

Tell....this sounds like the X Games......

Lets just say that I was running on a set of Nitto 555RII's that were "dead" and I'm not sure if the tires are even partially to blame or not, I had a "slight" problem with oversteer in the slalom (on several runs). This was a 60-70 mph slalom. You'll get good distance at that speed. He may be able to tell it better than I can.

However, ask Absolute Speed about his run in my car.....

I just figured it up.

70.305 gallons of gas
19.074 MPG (ouch) (pulling a trailer "too fast" and much autocrossing)
1341 miles
$163.26 in fuel

LOL! This has to be the autox thread of the decade!

Well, since Scott seems to be absent, I'll try to explain more fully.

The course started and ended with the same slalom (single entrance/exit). The slalom was about 55-60 mph at the beginning of the course, followed by a "wall" of cones (non slalom) and then a 90 degree corner with a bunch of pointer cones, etc. So, the slalom was reasonably fast. This course was setup on part of the road course and on the return to the same slalom, you "could" use the curbing from the inside of the road course corner (6-8" high, smooth curbing) to make a faster/straighter entrance onto the straight (you only had 1/2 of the lane due to the "wall of cones") and into the slalom. The problem is, my car made enough grip that I could "drive through the grass" at the top of the curbing (just make a straight line out of it) while being wide open in 2nd gear. Because of this, I was carrying considerable speed onto the straight (and into the slalom). On a couple occasions, I seemed to be carrying just a bit too much speed to effectively get through that slalom. I spun (or nearly spun) the car on 3 out of 7 runs (on day one) and one of those was a "huge" spin at roughly 70 mph. I stuck both feet in (hard) and watched the world go by 1 1/2 times (540 degrees and a few extra). I stopped, pointing backwards with my rear bumper facing the timing and scoring table (and the GTA he had parked there) and about 50 feet or so from that car/scoring table. I'm guessing the slide covered about 150 feet (or so). If you figure that 150 feet is a "decent" stopping distance from 70, and I was doing it with lots of sliding, I don't think it's unreasonable to slide that far (I didn't measure the marks, but they went a long way).

The good news is, I was 1.5 seconds behind Brian Burdette and his wicked ESP car (not to mention that Brian is a phenominal driver, he is amazing to watch). He was on Fikse FM5's and 315 V710's (I ran what used to be Sgarnetts old, dead, 275 Nittos that were from last season). We did a 2 second penalty for race tires which put me in 3rd or 4th (I was about 1.8 seconds faster than the next two cars). Overall, I had a blast and would do it again. That was possibly the most fun I've ever had reeking complete destruction on what was left of a set of tires (they are complete toast now, right down to the 4 flat spots and the 2 tape weights that came off).

So, the scoring guys moved the GTA, changed their shorts (sorry Dean and company) and resumed running the course.

Sounds like fun!

Then there was the run where you finished by driving forward through the grass for about 300 feet, this time on the other side of the timing equipment....

Over two days, I did 16 runs in my car, and only spun once, and that was on my wickedly killer Hankook Ventus II's that were on the car when I bought it and I did so overpowering them out of a tight turn. I also hit probably 1 cone for every 8 Trackbird hit, so that was like four for me.

Since race tires got a 2 second penalty (and this was only a 42-45 second course) , I didn't use my Toyo RA1's that I brought for use on the road course. But in the fun runs after, I made 4 passes and knocked off 1.8 seconds and got really used to the extra grip. Trackbird then offers his car up to me after complaining it was loose and blaming his innocent car for his spins. So I was going to prove that I could outdrive him in his own car and prove it wasn't that loose.

So I made it back to that curb, hit it where I wanted to, and carried about the same speed I had in my F-stock car on Toyos, but then I entered the slalom. Somewhere's in there, I must have been too sharp on the wheel. or just too fast for those old Nittos, but the back end came around in a snap. Both feet in and the car was now rolling backwards through the grass at probably 50 +/- So I stayed lightly on the brake hoping to keep some control in the grass, and just eased the steering wheel so that I kept the retaining wall that I was traveling along, parallel to the passenger side. I didn't know until Trackbird told me, but I guess the car stopped a few yards before a shallow drainage ditch, whew.

But I don't feel bad about what I did to his car for all the cones he made me shag since I worked the slalom when he drove.

Yea, I'm not thinking the nittos were worth 2 seconds on that course....

And, I wasn't driving through the grass, I was sliding.....for a really long way.

Actually, you slid past the drainage ditch. If you'd been 3 feet "deeper" into the grass, you'd have landed a wheel in it at speed. Oh well, it happens. Your run looked really good until that little problem.

I bashed many cones this weekend and spent a bunch of time sideways/backwards. Dead tires seems to be one of the reasons, a loose nut behind the wheel may explain the rest.

And, thanks to Sam Strano who offered suggestions (I called him trying to figure out why I was spending so much time backwards) that really helped the car (yes Scott, it was worse on Sat than when you drove it). Unfortunately, it only helped make the car "better" (and as good as it would likely get), but not great.

I was "on a mission" I guess and was probably driving at 11.5/10ths on tires that were between 4 and 6/10ths of what they should have been. Brian Burdette said to me "well, you are certainly attacking the course". He later admitted that the runs that I got "right" looked really good (and felt pretty good). I'm not sure that my car was going to go any faster on that course with those tires (if Sam had been there, he'd have probably been able to prove me wrong). On a good note, I equalled my best time from Saturday, but without the cone I hit saturday. So, my personal FTD for both days was within .008 or something of each other and on day two I didn't hit a cone. I guess I was consistant.

And, as I said, the event was a blast. The nittos have been reduced to "good smoking tires", or I may run one last event on them (they are not corded yet) this weekend. I hate not getting my money's worth out of something. There's still rubber on there.....

It's getting to be time to order a new set of Victorracers (I'm going cheap...I'm not going to be $100 faster on the extra $100 in tires that the 710's cost.).

And, for reference, I was actually into 3rd gear before the timers (exiting the slalom) on a few runs. That's how fast this return slalom was (and the course was pretty quick in spots as well). And, I think the curb "bashing" has taken a toll on my front left wheel bearing. It is starting to make some noises. I had wear marks over 1/2 way up the sidewalls of the rear nittos from the landing when coming off the curbing. It was really pulling those tires under the car.

Oh, and I was making my first run and wondering what the banging was in the rear of my car. It turns out, it was my helmet that was in the rear seat bouncing off of the side panels. I hadn't put it on yet when the starter waved me off (and I went). I realized it somewhere in the final slalom (that I wasn't wearing a helmet). I didn't have a stellar weekend, but I did have fun.

I really don't understand it. Those tires were fine in 2003 :leaving:

Yea. I figured as much. I think I did quite well, even if I couldn't beat the index (2 second adjustment) on those tires (or with my driver ).

I was wondering how old they were because I remember that you killed a clutch on them and I couldn't get enough grip to ever put my clutch in danger. I figured they were "here" so I may as well go beat them to death (and I did my best). I remember you telling me to get rid of them after last year, but I'm cheap and I never listen. So, they won't be a problem much longer.....

Well you got to see the people I run against locally. How did Brian do overall? Brain is fast in that car, with very few mods. I love going head to head with him at every event, keeps you honest when you run against other people that can drive.

Brian was the fastest car/driver there. Patrick Joyce (I think it was Joyce) drove Brians car and was second fastest, I was third behind them (raw times, overall).

Great! I got most of this in the short phone conversation with Kevin on Sunday.

Now I am slightly worried about running with him next weekend. The good news is that I will at least not be working when he is running!

Hey, just because I drive like a blind man who is suffering from road rage is no reason to beat me up. I still have the car control skills of your average 5 year old and I'm not afraid to use them.

I thought racing was an aggressive sport. It's no Sunday drive out there. Besides, we had just short of plenty of run off room (if you ignore the armco down the side and the tirewall on one end), I didn't see a reason not to push the driver, er, uh, car. I was doing great on most of my runs, right up to the point that I ran out of talent.

:drive:

Aww, shucks man. I was just messing with you. I'll show you how to drive on Sunday!

As loose as this car suddenly is, I think it will be an adventure for all involved.

:drive:

any videos ????

Nobody caught it on film and nobody got photos of me taking the high road over the curbing. I was using the whole curb and almost the grass on the inside (I really took the high line, but it made the last corner almost straight). I figured I could at least have a blast if I wasn't going to set the world on fire with my times....not that they were bad.

Yeah, me too.
6 runs = 18 cones.
What really pissed me off was the run with 5 cones I was 0.1 sec faster than the S2000 and I was running my Supercars (truck still not fixed).

I bought them in late spring 2003. I also ran them at an Evolution on slick pavement in snow flurries in Spring 2004. I was actually impressed by how well they worked under those conditions. It was only taking one short run to get them warm enough to stick well. Of course, that was about a year ago

I'm sure they are well past their prime now, but I'll still point out that Nittos love LOW pressure. On my old camber-challenged setup I usually ran them somewhere around 35f/28r hot.

Good, because on day one I ran 36/33. Then, I called Sam for his thoughts on my rotating wonder and he said to drop the rears. I ran 36/28 for Sunday.