Minnesota Autosports Club ran its MOWOG 5 autocross on Sunday.
It did run well overall.
There were some things from which we can learn for the future.
Some of the problems we had in cone-chasing were inevitable with a
crossover. There was a delay after the cone was hit before the worker
could safely reset the cone.
Several people had problems with course-following. On about six occasions
I witnessed folks driving reverse-direction on the course after the second
crossover.
I do want to thank the eventmasters for being responsive to the requests to
move the finish lights upstream. I know the Lotus was moving right along
in the finish area, and I was grateful for the extra space to get it hauled
down.
As for my own performance: What can I say? I sucked. I put down a
pretty good first run, just tracking. When I turned up the wick, all hell
broke loose. I double-DNFed my second run. I put together a decent third
run, about 1.5 faster then my first, but later found I had tagged a cone
with the back wheel on the starting turn. The second run trio was one bit
of foolishness after another. The R1 tires from 1996 have not aged
gracefully, and they allowed what is left of the LSD to overpower the
fronts. (Friends don't let friends put LSD units into cars that don't need
them or want them, but apparently some previous owner didn't have any smart
friends. A dose of Slick-50 Man Tran has helped to neuter the thing, but
maybe it's time for another dose.) I was not patient enough to accept that
and had some moments of terminal understeer, sometimes involving the
assassination of pylons, but always losing time. I had to stand on my
first run.
This pushing business is a lot less fun to watch than wild oversteer, so I
didn't even put on a good show while being slow. Lessons? Don't try to
fight the car while fighting a virus. And do something about tires. I
wonder if Formula Vee can still bring them back?
Still in all it was good to get Grace N. Violence back to the
autocrosses. My trophy runs at the VTR nationals were almost too easy. I
was sitting way up high (yes, a TR4 is "way up high" compared to the
Formula-car vantage point of Grace) where I could actually see the course
ahead, and things happen a lot slower.
The good news is that Grace is still as responsive as ever. She handles
offsets and slaloms just fine. It's these tight sustained corners that
are the problem. With tires that actually stick and some driver
re-education about the size of the car and dealing with understeer, I
might actually get back to turning decent times one day.
Thanks to everyone (everywhere, not just in Minnesota!) for your efforts to
preserve our sport.
Phil Ethier West Side Saint Paul Minnesota USA
1970 Lotus Europa, 1992 Saturn SL2, 1986 Suburban, 1962 TR4 CT2846L
pethier@isd.net http://www.mnautox.com/ http://www.vtr2002.org
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