JakeRobb

So, I raced in my first SCCA autocross on Sunday.

The car club at my school used to do parking lot autocrosses, and I raced in a few of those in previous cars (nothing noteworthy), but this was my first time racing the Camaro, my first SCCA event, and my time on a road course.

The event took place at Waterford Hills Road Racing in Clarkston, MI. It's a nice track. The safety guys insisted on filling the back straight with slaloms and lane changes, so the course was pretty technical and top speeds for most cars was in the 60-70 range.

The set course covered about 1.2 miles of track. FTD was set by a shifter cart (duh) at 54.3 seconds.

I ran with t-tops off and A/C on. There were over 200 drivers there, so each driver only got three laps.

My first lap time was 86.2 seconds, babying it and learning the course, and leaving it in 2nd.

On my second lap, I tried dropping back to first in a couple spots, but I'm not any good at heel-toe yet, so I think I actually lost time on that. I did carry a bit more corner speed and brake a little later in a few spots, so overall I shaved two seconds, for an 84.2.

On my third and final lap, I left it in second the whole time again, braking much later, and carrying even more corner speed. On this lap, I managed an impressive six second improvement, with a final time of 78.3 seconds.

I ran in TESP (Street Tire E Street Prepared), and was the only driver running in that class, so I got to take home a First Place trophy. It's pretty cool that I got a trophy on my first time out, even if it doesn't really mean anything.

I learned a few things. First of all, my brakes (stock) are MUCH stronger than I knew. Given a few more laps, I think I could have saved five more seconds just by braking even later.

I'm really happy with my GS-D3's. They hung on tight through all three laps. They're a little vague at the limit, but I kept pushing and they kept hanging on.

There was a guy there with a 2002 Trans Am, completely stock except for a set of race tires, and his best time was a 68.0. There was a stock '04 GTO on street tires that ran a best time of 78.8, and a stock '05 Mustang GT that ran a 72. There was an '06 Z06 that ran a 69 without breaking a sweat -- I'll bet that if he had pushed it, there was a 60-62 to be had out of that car.

I'm pretty pleased with my first time out. I have a lot of room for improvement, and I learned some of the car's strong suits and weaknesses.



Pictures coming soon.

Capn Pete

Road racing is a lot of fun, eh? Certainly more WORK from a driver's stand-point than drag racing. Also, a lot more work on the drivetrain, as both my 10-bolt and 4L60E have found out since the weekend of June 24/25th.

I ran at Mosport International Speedway (here in good 'ol Ontario!) on their DDT (driver development track ... not the BIG road course! ) and times for the weekend ranged from 59.xx to 74.xx seconds per lap. My best was 68.13 (only 2 seconds slow of "average"). There was an open wheel, custom race car (with a non-turbo'd rotary engine ) that posted the 59 second lap. Then a Subaru WRX STi got ~60.xx and THEN an '06 Z06 ran 61.xx . The next best times were ~62.xx +.

But yeah, I blew my 4.10's on the Sunday, and ~3 weeks later, my tranny is toast.

................time for a 6-speed!!!