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Slow to update, slower to autocross

Yes, I know. Site hasn't been updated. Blah blah blah. I really meant to update it last night, but instead I slept for 11 hours. It was great.

So, yes, slow to autocross. The One-Make Battle: Integra continued this weekend, with rounds 2 and 3 of the fall autox series. To recap, round 1 of the first-ever showdown resulted in a victory for the aging GSR, though barely. The Type R was still on street tires, and only lost by 0.4s (5 points). I was able to pick up more time than Clint in TOs, spreading the gap to 1s on a 70s course. Not quite as much as I'd like, given the tire difference.

Round 2 was like a whole different battle, mentally. Now there was almost no reason I should win, because the Type R would be sporting some brand new V710s. Even though they were only 205's on a 6" wheel, it's still a big step up from Falkens. I thought 1s on a 71s course wasn't enough, and I was right. Running in B group, still on a pretty green track, I couldn't do any better than a clean 51.8 to Clint's 51.0. My last two runs were both dirty, IIRC. That always hurts, but I don't think they were much faster anyway. That 0.8s margin of victory was worth 15 points, pretty big.

It TO's we both got faster by a fair amount - I went down to a 50.5, but apparently I had been hitting the first cone on the course the whole time, and nobody had told me. That time would have been good for about a 982. Clint took the half-as-old Type R down a 49.8 and a 995 score. Always good to see what can be done when you run with good rubber on the course.

I also tried out my camera mount on Saturday, and it wasn't too bad. I don't know much about video compression, so I just cut out everything but my last run and left it in mpeg2, at a massive 63MB (right-click, save as). I think that was the 50.5s run. The seat moves around a bit much, but I'll try to hold it in place a bit more next time.

Round 3 of the One-Make Battle was a bit more frustrating. I think Clint ran a 45.1 on his first run, but couldn't break into the 44's on any of his last 3 runs, finishing with a 45.0. I wasn't doing particularly well, starting with a 46.6 on my first run, and a 46.0 on the second. My last run I came across the line with a 45.4 that I was quite happy with, but apparently I had a cone called on me. :-( With wheels that stick out past the car, I don't hear/feel any cones that I hit with my tires, just the ones that hit the car itself, so I had no idea I hit it. I had to stand on my 46.0, a full second slower than Clint, and we finished with scores of 970 and 949. My 54.4 would have been good for a 962, making the final results a lot closer.

For some reason I just couldn't pick up the time in TOs, and that was frustrating as well. I couldn't top a 45.9, despite each run feeling better than the last. No idea what was going wrong. Actually, it was one of the few events where just about everone did relatively poorly in TOs. The best TO pax score was only a 981, and usually there are at least a couple scores above 1000.

Possibly the best part about Sunday's event is that someone got my picture. :-P You can see it here. For some reason I haven't had many good pictures taken of my car since I got the new wheels, but I think that one was pretty good.

So there you are, after 3 events, here's how the One-Make Battle is going:
Clint  951 972 970  2893 (Total)  1942 (Best 2)
Ben   956 957 949  2862 (Total)  1913 (Best 2)

I figured it out a couple days ago, but I think if Clint gets anything better than about a 972, he clinches the Fall Series title. Which it seems that he'll likely do, because even if he doesn't get a 972, I still have to get near 1000 to have a chance. Oh well.

Slightly more interesting is what happenst when you eliminate the cones, look at TO runs, and just compare pax scores for our absolute fastest raw times of the day. I don't have the numbers with me, but it puts us only 3 points apart for the season, with the same dropped score if you look at best 2 of 3. A lot closer.

Looking ahead, what can I do to go faster? Well, what are my current excuses. 1, no Type R. That'll always be an excuse. 2, no V710s. That can be fixed whenever I burn off these tires, but I'm not really anxious to do that, as it's still a $600 expense. 3, I make dumb mistakes. Yeah, that would be a good one. Cones cost me about 14-17 pax points in competition runs, so that obviously hurts.

I suppose those are really the main excuses. I could always blame OTS shocks, or the lack of an LSD, but I should be able to overcome that. Those are both things where I'd really like to see what my car would be like with them to know if they would be worthwhile purchases. Driving better would be a good place to start...probably because I'm cheap. Of course, now there's no local event until December, so I get a nice little break to think about why I'm so slow. :-P The One-Make Battle comes to a conclusion in two months!

Posted by Ben at October 13, 2005 11:05 PM