Proof is in the pudding!! A lot of you guys know about my "project cheap autocrosser" project that has turned "not so cheap autocrosser" project....

Last year this guy in a "prepped " Miata has been consistantly wearing my *** out in CSP SCCA autocross racing. Every event, he would beat me by anywhere from .5 second to over a second. No matter how hard I tried, he would pull it out every event and WEAR MY *** OUT!!

They always said.... "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results"..... I stopped the insanity!!

Over the winter I stripped 130# worth of crap out of my car, installed Tokico Illumina shocks in the car, installed RE Speed Camber plates, finally got a good alignment, and put fresh tires on the car...

Proof.....




Before...







NOW!!!!








As they said in Fast and the Furious.... "I threw him a beating"!!!

This time I beat him by close to 2 seconds!!! The look on his face was priceless!!! He could not understand it... He even had fresh tires on his car!! He thought he was loaded for bear!!

That really works out to be about a 3 second improvement by doing improvements to my car!!!

 

wow 3 seconds is HUGE

 

Congrads

 

Great news Jim!

I can't wait to put some new (to me) shoes on my baby. One of my competitors once told me that he breathes a big sigh of relief whenever he sees me roll in on cheap tires yet again. "You're still going to beat me, but at least I won't have to quit racing due to being completely humiliated". I wonder what he'll do for fun now? lol

Man, when you get up here for some racing, we are going to have one hell of a good time!




.

 

Time to rename the car "Crushinator," Jim. As you crushed him.

 

Perhaps "Sir Wins-a-lot"

 

Funny thing is.... I am finally starting to believe a 1st gen really CAN!!

Some of the guys I used to compare myself to, I am miles ahead. My mentor that helped me in the early days, I ran 5... yes FIVE seconds faster than him this past weekend!!!

All this with a 100% BONE STOCK 12a with a BONE STOCK Nikki!!

All I can say is wow.... If I had more power!!??

 

Wow, that's impressive. I have a feeling I'm going to embarrass myself. I did it the other way. Built a car and I still suck at driving it.

 

Come up here to Nebraska and try your luck against a two time national champ in a fully prepped 94 Miata. Last year he usually beat me by about 10 seconds per run. This year I have Illuminas and the Respeed plates also. I also have a new strut bar and new 13x8 wheels for my 215/50R13 Kumhos. We'll see how much closer I can get now. I would be great to see some other FB's in CSP at National events. There is a ProSolo and National Tour in Lincoln NE Memorial Day weekend and the National Championships at the end of August.

 

Oh I am sure I would get my *** handed to me by the serious CSP guys!!! I just am having fun with my local guys!

Good luck and hopefully you will tighten that 10 second lead!

 

Nice!

Getting excited that time of year is coming around again!


On a side note: Is that my 2,000th post? Only took me 10 years...

 

That's one of the reasons I've stayed on the cheapest tires I could find for so long (5 years now?). I figured that if I could get good enough to hang with the fast race rubber guys, then everything would be easy once I put those tires on my car.

I've always heard that the fastest way to learn is to run cheap tires, and that putting on race tires before you were ready would just hide all your mistakes so that you never learned anything.

I think the fastest way to learn is from the Underdog position.

I hope I'm ready for real rubber now, I think I am.

 

If your stomping race tired, supercharged Miata's on the cheapest summer tire avialable, I'd say yeah, your ready.

 

lol. Well, I have managed to beat that damned SC Miata a couple of times, but I am by no means stomping him. I think I've always stayed close enough to keep him looking over his shoulder though. We'll see what happens after I get the tires on.

It's great to see what a difference it made for 80sOldSchool, very encouraging!

 

The way you guys are running sounds like an excuse to step up to at least a divisional level if there is one in your area. As much as I would like to win I can tell how much I am improving on the national level every local event. If I just wanted a trophy I would race by myself in FP. If nationals wasn't 60 miles away I wouldn't think about going, but I did learn a lot last year and even DFL I had a blast. Good luck this year and I hope you beat more of those pesky Miatas for me.

 

I can't speak for Jim, but I work for a living and have a wife and three kids. So a shot at the Nationals really isn't an option for me right now. Maybe in a few years when the kids are older.

I have attended some divisional events in the past though, and didn't exactly embarass myself even with my Sumitomos. I'll probably go over to Detriot this year and scrap with the fastest guys in the state this year just to compare (once I get the tires mounted of course).

 

Is this meant to imply you have some serious race rubber ready to go?

 

I'm one mouse click away from buying a set of "slightly" used Hoosiers. Most have about 95% tread remaining. It won't be as nice as a set of brand new Hoosiers, but at 80% off I'll just drive a little bit harder to make up the difference.

 

heat cycles not tread! although even brick hoosiers are going to scare all your competition

 

Yeah, I know. Not ideal, but a hell of a lot better than what I've been using.

I actually did get to run some Hoosiers for a couple of events back in '09 or '08. They were rock hard, and already down to the cords when I bought them (actually I bought wheels and the tires came with them). That made for two events where I was actually competing for Fast Time of the Day (FTD). They made a hell of a difference.

I'm pretty sure that these "take-offs" should do me just fine.


Hey Jim, how the hell do you read Hoosier sizes anyway? I've seen some use the standard 225/45/13 etc. but then others are like 21.5x8x13 or some such. What does it all mean? lol. Also, what kind of temps have you been running? I'm getting impatient. You're already out there racing, and I've still got another 2 months of winter to suffer through. lol.

 

I run the 225/45/13 A-6's this works out to be a 20.9X8.5X13

The ones that are "other" than like 225/45/13 are their road race slicks which are not legal for CSP.

Also pay attention to bias ply slicks vs. radial slicks. The turn in of the bias slicks are slower than the A-6 tires.

I would try to get A-6 tires if you can. The comppound is optimized for Autocrossing.

BTW, I ran New Hoosier A-6 tires all last year too. It was the shocks, camber plates, alignment and the cars weight loss that I believe made it faster.

I did not completely wear out my old A-6's. I have plenty of life left in them. I want to mount them up and hit the road course for some track days this summer.

Kentetsu, sucks about MI weather!! We race year around!! I have already ran 4 autocross events this year and a two day lemons race with a 2nd gen turbo II !!!

 

I wish we could run all year. We try to run from the end of March to the beginning of Nov. Sometimes it works out sometimes not. Our first event is March 27. Last year it was a week earlier and we had to remove some snow from the lot before the event. We usually try to have 8 or 9 regional autocrosses a year. 6 count for the year end points and 2 are the March and Nov. ones so if they get cancelled it doesn't affect the points. We have been trying to do a Mirrorkhana type event in the middle but haven't had enough interest yet.

 

hoosiers site isn't so hot, but they do have a nice tire guide, http://www.hoosiertire.com/pdfs/tctR6_A6.pdf