stripethree

Austin was rainy, so the camera wasn’t out much. Just for the rodeo and even then, the pics weren’t that great since I was without a decent zoom.

Here’s some pics from the San Diego National Tour courtesy of fellow Arizona Border Region members (Rob’s camera, and I think Rob took the pics as well).

Video from San Diego

Me:

Anand:

I’ve been busy, the blog’s been neglected.

- March 12: Summer and I fly to Austin for a long weekend. It went something like this: steak, beer, bbq, beer, live music, beer, bbq, Mario Kart Audi R8, beer, more food, rodeo, beer. It was fantastic.
- March 17: Liver still probably recovering from Austin, 15lb. exhaust for R32 arrives and is installed. Along with new rear sway bushings, car is ready for San Diego.
- March 19: After work, drive 400 miles to San Diego with said light, and quite loud, exhaust.
- March 20: Pick up Anand at airport so he can also drive the car at the Tour. Change wheels at Qualcomm and take 4 practice runs. Realize rear tires are way too low and car is way too tail happy. Take 4 more practice runs after adding air.
- March 21: Day 1 of Solo National Tour, I am too nervous ad drive poorly – hit a cone, miss a shift, and sit 6th of 8 at the end of the day. Anand’s in 3rd, after not having autocross-ed in years and never having driven my car. We drive a bit north after autox and hit the go kart track. and In-n-Out.
- March 22: Day 2 of Solo National Tour. Our heat gets the worst of the rain storm and we attempt to keep the car pointing in the right direction in the wet. At the end of the day Anand’s in 4th, one spot out of trophies, and I finish 5th, .4 seconds behind him. I drop him off at the airport and head back to Tucson and during the drive back, realize my motor mounts are toast. Car makes it home but hasn’t been driven since.
- Week of March 23: work is nuts, big project winding down with lots of things to accomplish and, unfortunately, many things rapidly changing.
- March 27: Batting cages with co-workers to prepare for upcoming softball season.
- March 31: Game 1 of softball season. Crushing defeat, 11-1, game called for the mercy rule. It wasn’t pretty. I got two hits and scored the only run. Wanted to pass out after sprinting from first all the way to home.
- April 2: Game 2 of softball season. Crushing defeat again, 13-3, mercy rule called again, but later in the game. Opponents hit three home runs. I manage to turn a double play in one inning to help stop the bleeding.
- Sometime last week: work books trip for me back to the DC area over Easter weekend. They wanted to send me out on Sunday and back on Tuesday. No, thanks. Barter ensues. Out on Friday back on Tuesday. Done. No one else wants to do it, I was warned, we’ll see how it goes.
- Also sometime last week – after much discussion, it’s decided we will likely not be moving out of Tucson all that soon. Decide to at least look at buying a house here since the market is what it is. Start researching, talk to mortgage people at Bank of America, etc… we’ll see how and where this goes.
- Friday: R32 is drive-able but I shouldn’t move it, much less autox it. Offered 4 co-drives for Phoenix on the 5th – Mini Cooper S, Honda S2000, Mazda Miata, BMW 3-Series. How can I not sign up.
- Saturday: spend hours clearing out all the dead grass and weeds in the yard.
- Sunday: catch a ride to Phoenix and co-drive a Mini Cooper S. Forget that front drive will spin tires and understeer, but still do okay. Finish mid-pack in Street Tire 1. Fun car, and cool to drive something different and help impart (hopefully helpful) knowledge on another driver.
- Monday: second to last full day of development on the project I will be flying out on Friday to deliver. Two of three motor mounts arrive, R32 still sits. Get home in time to see the end of the national championship game.

So yeah, I’m kind of tired.

The two hour drive to Bisbee-Douglas International airport was well worth it Sunday, as awaiting the 20 drivers that showed up just north of the border was an estimated 1.25 mile course with wide open sections that put me well into 3rd gear in multiple places. It was probably the fastest speeds I have hit at an autox course since third gear came early, often, and with liberal amounts of throttle added. The course also rewarded looking way ahead, the pivots at each end and a few deceptive offsets were crushing if you overshot, which was easy to do given the high speeds of the course.

My times were 79.569 (+2), 78.123, 78.373 (+1), and 77.826. In TOs, I dropped another 8/10s, but not without cones. The 77.8 was the second fastest time of the day, out paced only by an A-Stock Saturn Sky Redline on huge Hoosiers which ran a 76.0. PAX times were a different story as I beat out the Sky by just over a tenth of a second for the top overall spot. Now, there’s nothing left for me between now and San Diego other than some work on the car.

Saturday, Summer and I made a drive about 2 hours in the other direction to the Arizona Renaissance Festival in Apache Junction.

The guy in the last picture, where he is juggling a running chain-saw, a torch, and an apple, later went on to set off firecrackers duct taped to his chest and got the crowd to pelt him with water balloons in order to cool the resulting heat. Oh, and I did I mention this was all while he was balanced on top of a ladder? Yes, I got pictures.

That was entertaining to say the least and although I’m betting there’s some trick or secret, I’m impressed he emerged uninjured and coherent, minus not being able to hear anything. There were also some people in the crowd with killer aim as he got nailed in the face with at least 3 or 4 large water balloons. I couldn’t remember if, or when, I’d been to a renaissance festival but it was fun, the shows were entertaining and the steak on a stake was delicious. I think I was also just as amused by the sheer number of people just there to attend who were dressed appropriately. The irony of it was seeing grown men or woman dressed head to toe in period correct garb but who totally ruined the ‘act’ by, say, talking on their so-not-renaissance-era cell phone. Ha!

Comps: 56.654 (+4), 54.887, 53.687, 54.200 (+1)
Time Only: 52.817 (+1), 53.339 (+1), 53.516 (+1), 54.934 (+1)

I don’t have much to say about this event that hasn’t been said before. This was good practice for San Diego since it necessitated more than just the initial 1-2 shift, as I was hitting third outbound into the top loop. Unfortunately I thought about it too much and missed shifts and did not look ahead at the course appropriately, both of which cost me time. While my best competition run was good for 9th out of 16th in the PAX category and 10th of 57 overall, I was still 2 full seconds behind the fastest STX car, and there were two other STX drivers ahead of me in the top 10.

One more event before San Diego and it is next weekend at the airport in Bisbee-Douglas.

Well, I hope. Evo School this past Sunday was excellent. It was well worth the price of admission and has me hoping that here in Tucson we’ll get to run a Phase 2 in November. If we do, I will be there. There were only 8 students and 2 instructors so we certainly got the most out of the day.

Rumor has it that after Evo School you get worse before you get better. Something about absorbing what you learn and trying to do too much with it too soon. I’ve got two more events before San Diego, this coming weekend in Tucson and March 1st in Bisbee/Douglas. Hopefully I can make the most of them.

In the meantime, the R will be due for an oil change before SD, the intake needs cleaning, and she will hopefully be sporting a new exhaust real soon.

The day before the event I finally swapped the front brake calipers so I could flush the brake fluid after a year and a half. The bleeder screw on the front passenger caliper snapped off before my track event at Buttonwillow in September of ’07 and thus, brakes haven’t been serviced (2 tracks days and 24+ autocrosses later) since. I also remove the 20lb. aluminum skid plate from the car for this event.

It rained during the morning heats but stopped during lunch and started to dry out b the time I ran in the first afternoon heat in STX Sportsman.

In my competition heat I ran a 41.108 which was good for a 947 PAX score and sliding into the top half (9 out of 20) in the Sportsman category and 14th PAX overall (27th fast time, all out of 124 competitors). By the last heat of the day when I ran for time only, the course had completely dried out and I got down to a 38.902.

The fun part of all this was the car trying to spit out parts (yay!) On my first comp run the car decided it didn’t need the vibration bracket on the driver front brake caliper. Luckily it isn’t at all vital to the brakes actually working and a course worker recovered it for me. During my first time only run, the plastic panel that covers the oil pan slipped loose and dragged on the pavement half the run. Whoops. You can see in the two pictures above it’s already on it’s way to falling out, and those pictures where during the competition heat.

Next weekend is Evolution School which I am anxiously anticipating. Hopefully all the parts will stay on the car, the tires will survive, and I’ll learn a lot.

The first event of 2009 in Tucson, the first event I ran registration in Tucson, and the first event I ran in the PAX category in Tucson. By the way, I also run the website now, which has a fresh look for 2009.

The night before was hectic as I was plagued by technical difficulties trying to print the 107 forms needed for the event. My new-ish laser printer’s toner failed on me and I then went through 2 and a half inkjet cartridges on my other printer, which happily dog-eared every page. Luckily a nearby Walgreen’s is open 24 hours with cheap ink refilling. On site went well, there’s a few things to tweak for next time, but it was smooth. I was anxious since that was quite a large group to handle first time out.

My participation in the event was not quite as successful. Cones on every comp run left me 11th of 15 in the PAX class. Even with more cones, I couldn’t match my best raw time in TOs either. The course was fun and fast though.

I’ve been up to many cars things of late, but what else is new. I took a Solo Safety Steward class here in Tucson last Saturday which was very informative, and I also finished a website for the newly established Arizona Chapter of the Audi Club, North America. It’s not much yet, since we don’t have a lot going on, but hopefully it will grow along with the new chapter.

Next up is probably Evo School in Tucson, maybe the Phoenix event in February if I get tires in time.

The guys in Sierra Vista bought shiny new cones to start off the year and I hit them (the cones…). Lots of them. Sixteen of them, actually. After the first two competition runs, I didn’t have a clean run the rest of the day. Part of the lack of adjustment on my part was that I didn’t know where I was hitting all of them. On my second time only run I was surprised to hear I hit 4. No idea where. Regardless of the cone carnage, I still ran a 67.040 in comps that was good for 8th overall and 3rd in PAX with a 990 score [ Results ]. I wasn’t able to match that time on another run, cones or not, but was pretty consistent, running within 3-4 tenths most of the day.

I am hoping the front tires have 2 more events left in them, but I will be replacing them before the Evo School over Valentine’s Day weekend. I really don’t have a choice. Oh, and I also got another cool glass beer mug as a 2008 STX Open champ award and it’s currently displayed in my office next to the one from ’07. Sweeet.

The off-season is over. It didn’t feel short, it was short. No rest for the weary (or the wallet, for that matter).

Luck of the draw had be in the 6th heat, which is when it decided to rain. As far as me vs. my class, it didn’t matter since we were all in the same heat. As far as me vs. the course, it presented a challenge.

Competition runs: 45.817, 44.604, 44.518, 43.493
Time only runs: 44.072, 44.057, 43.383, 43.342
45th out of 127 in fast times, 32nd in PAX times.

The kicker being that I let another driver take the R for a spin in his time only runs and he threw down a mid-42 second run on his last shot. So again, I’m not pushing the car hard enough. I did get some good advice during my TO runs, with the current DSP national champ riding shotgun (and frequently speaking up to the tune of ‘more throttle!’).

As for the ‘no rest for the wallet’, well, January is turning out somewhat costly on the car front. The R32 got 4 new tires on the regular wheels and will need 2 sticky tires on the autox rims after next weekend. Then there’s the GTI and the handful of things it will be getting fixed…

Note that I’m not complaining, just making an observation. Such is life: I picked this hobby and occasionally it takes my bank account in the yard and smacks it around. Whoops.

The last event of the year in Arizona and the 20th, yes, 20th, I ran at in 2008. I wouldn’t say the autocross year went out with a bang persay, it was more of a screeching sound as I ventured into many, many cones going sideways. Yes, sideways. The pavement was cold, tires were cold, and my right foot was… not. On my first run I came in to the sweeping left (the split near W1) way too hot with the car way too loose. The result was going sideways into a sea of cones. It wasn’t pretty. My second run didn’t go all that much better. Tires still cold, shoe still hot, and another DNF, just not quite as spectacular and sideways this time. My third run I got things in order and ran a clean 62.686, which was a second and a half faster than any other STX Open competitor. Time only heats were shortened because the day was running long but I managed to match (clean) and beat (by a second but with a cone) my competition run.

So, not exactly how I would have chosen to end the year. None the less, it’s done, I won the STX Open series for the Fall (in Phoenix, Tucson, and Sierra Vista for that matter), and it’s time to look towards ’09. Suspension upgrades, driver upgrades (Evo School), and hopefully more competitive times will come.

Summer and I also spent Saturday night in Phoenix to go to the Red Wings – Coyotes hockey game. It was an awesome back and forth game and the first I’ve been to which went to overtime and a shootout. Detroit won the shootout after forcing overtime with less than 20 seconds to play in the third period. It was awesome, and I can’t wait to go again next month when the Wings come back to town.