How am I doing?
 

I'd like to get an opinion on this. :)

I've been trying to prove that you can succesfully autocross an fb and reliably kill Miatas (among others). This is a stock port 12a running in CSP (although I consider the race to be against everybody, not just those in my class). Most other mods are listed in my sig.

A couple of notes on the cars that did beat me in this latest event:

1. First place Subaru. Built by a well known shop in Chicago, purported to have well over $100k invested.
2. The second place Solstice is boosted and on huge tires worth more than my car. lol
3. The 3rd place MR2 is also boosted.
4. The 4th place Miata is, you guessed it, boosted.

All of them run either SSM or ASP. Here are the Raw Times, and a video of my fastest run. Let me know what you think of my efforts. :)

Oh, I'm CSP 98 in 5th place out of 69 total entrants.





.

By far the best way to see how you're doing is to apply the PAX modifier and see where you land. If you have any recent national champs in your region, even better.

2012 SCCA Solo PAX | GotCone.com

Raw times don't really mean much aside from local bragging rights

http://www.sccaforums.com/LinkClick....edownload=true

Here's an example. Packwood national tour results, sorted by PAX

Assuming the Subaru is A) class legal, and B) nationally competitive, the top CSP in the country would theoretically run a 43.837

It doesn't seem like you're region is terribly competitive... so it's impossible to judge.

A quick google search came up with this:
http://detroit-scca.org/e107/e107_fi...reliminary.pdf

the same STi that was 4 seconds ahead of you was 50th in PAX. not terrible, but not great either.

Have you ever been to one of the Detroit region autocrosses? they seem to have a decent sized group, it might be helpful to go just to see how you compare.

Looks like I came in 6th overall in PAX. One of our locals is John Koster, who I understand placed pretty highly in SM or SSM at the nationals last year. He drives a CRX, and I do not beat him. :) I'm hoping he makes it to the race this Saturday, because it's a very tight course with no significant straights, which will definitely benefit me.

I have been to some of the Detroit region's events up at the airbase in Oscoda, Mich. That was about 6 years ago though. I would like to get up there again.

I haven't been to any National events, and I won't bother with this motor setup. I'm sure it would be pretty humiliating. lol. I'll at least have to move up to a 13b. Or maybe a turbo setup if I decide to move out of CSP, which would probably be smart.

Anyway, it's all fun for now, at least until my boys are a bit older...

Pax Pos. Pos. Class # Driver Car Model Total Factor Pax Time Diff. From 1st

1 1 SM 6 Mike A WRX STi 43.381 *0.866 37.567 0.000 0.000
2 1 ASP 10 Rich H Pontiac Solstice GXP 45.530 *0.863 39.292 1.725 1.725
3 1 AS 74 Chris B BMW 1M 47.564 *0.844 40.144 0.852 2.577
4 1 CS 3 Scott L 97 BMW m3 48.394 *0.833 40.312 0.168 2.745
5 1 SSM 1 Andrew Z Mazda Miata 46.021 *0.879 40.452 0.140 2.885
6 1 CSP 98 Mark W 85 Mazda RX7 47.391 *0.857 40.614 0.162 3.047

So Mike A is 7/10's quicker than me on PAX at that event so pick up the pace Mark! Are you still using street tires? If so the CSP PAX is not really doing you any favors.
Bring it to the D this Sunday for an event on a huge lot at the Pontiac Silverdome

I'm on Hankook race rubber now Bruce. I'll have to see if I can get things together and make a Detroit race yet this year. :)

If you want to see how you stack up, ask one of your local hotshoes to co-drive. They should also then be able to offer you setup advice. I used to instruct at a school our region would put on, and it was amazing to me how badly setup some of the beginners cars were. They were fighting an evil handling car and thinking the whole time that they were the problem.

I'd give the same advice to road racers. Find someone that is consistently fast in a similar type of car and ask them to drive your car for a session or two. Had a customer a couple years ago ask me to drive their car for a race weekend and we made some simple changes based on what I felt that really helped them with the car. The novice driver was simply too green to know what was happening with the car. He just knew it was hard to drive and thought he was the problem.

That is a very good idea C. Ludwig. I daily drive the car as well, so I'm very familiar with it. Maybe too familiar to recognize issues that would be obvious to someone who was driving it daily.

At the race last weekend, I pushed a lot harder than I am used to. My goal was to be on the edge of control throughout the course. It worked surpisingly well. :)