Ok, I initially wrote this at 2:42am, but it's now about 11:15am and Scott Meyers has already sent me my lap times! So, my official lap times are as follows:
Ok, so my super-goal of 44.xxx did in fact come true! For any of you who didn't talk to me before the event, this was my first time running a full race tire. Off came the Yokohama A509's and on went my brand new Kumho V700 racing tires. My initial and brief reaction to these tires is "wow". They're amazing. If I had run this event on my street tires I probably would have seriously struggled just to turn maybe a 46.5xx or so.
Scott also tabulated the top PAX time, which was set by Mark Huffman in his ASP Lotus Elan. His raw time was 39.023 (!) which equals a PAX of 33.248. With my car being classified as HS, my PAX was 34.711, so I was only about 1.5 seconds behind Mark, and my PAX% was 958, which is far and away a new personal best.
So I am extremely pleased with the new Kumho tires. The rears show virtually zero wear, and the fronts show only very minimal wear. They definitely have some wear at the outside shoulders, but overall they look pretty good. Hopefully they'll hold up well at the Open Track I'm attending in a week. They certainly provide all the grip that I was looking for, even brand new.
I also got to drive Daniel DelVecchio's 96 CSP Honda Prelude VTEC at this event. Many big thanks to Daniel for letting me drive his car! My best time in it was 45.768, which is actually pretty good. It's riding on Nitto 450 tires, which aren't really a made for autocrossing tire. Also, the front shocks don't quite seem up to the task of taming the aftermarket springs. He'll probably be doing some upgrades over the summer though and will be ready to blow away the field come September. This will be a car to watch!
Big thanks also to Tage Evanson who helped me put my street tires back on after the event at 1am using his jacks, garage, and air tools. He's currently working some of the bugs out of his CSP Integra GS-R and will very likely be running with me at Firebird in September on their roadcourse. We went for a spin around some backroads near his house, and the GS-R is far more at home in high-speed stuff where the engine can be kept up in the high revs and where the powerful brakes actually get use.
Lastly, thanks to everyone else who was at the event and shares their thoughts and ideas with me. With the driving portion of these things only lasting 3-4 minutes or so, the people there really make the events more enjoyable. See you all in September!
Page created: 6-5-99 at 2:58am
Last Updated: 6-6-99 at 11:15am