It felt good to be autocrossing the Integra again last weekend, especially now that I have some competition with Clint running DSP. I was able to stay ahead after each run, but it was only by four tenths in the end. Given the tire advantage I had, it kind of takes away from the victory. On paper I should have won by a lot, but I'm just not as good a driver. Despite running in the morning, I still paxed a 956. Looking back at past stats, that's pretty consistant with my scores in the spring (952, 950, 953 in Jan, Feb, Mar respectively).
In the morning I was pushing everywhere, and just generally running poor lines. My last run I tightened up some of the lines, blew about 3 turns and a slalom, and didn't lose much time. In TO's I cleaned up those turns, kept the better lines, and the extra grip from running later dropped my times almost two seconds. That was good for a score of 980, easily the best score I've had at a Phoenix area event. In January I had a competition run that would have been a 974 were it not for a cone, but...well, there was a cone. So I'm happy with my performance for the weekend.
In afternoon fun runs I ran the Saab a few times, and those stock tires are just terrible. The best I could manage was only good for about an 895 on the DS pax factor. I was surprised at how easy the car would rotate with the pressures we were running, however (suggested by Jay B). Well, easier than I would have expected, at least. It really needs some better tires, particularly in a better size. Something tells me that 205/55-16 isn't the hot size for STX, no matter what car you're driving.
Posted by Ben at September 20, 2005 10:44 PMThanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
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