Good luck Damon. Will you take some pics of the cars and facility? I'm just curious what the difference is between yours and the one here at home.

 

Me too. LOL I'm guessing it's very similar in structure to ours but I doubt there is the turn out like ours. There's a couple Lotus' that run I know about. Also, our day isn't broke up into 2 groups, am/pm. We just show up around 9am and then it's business as usual. The races are held at a place called Millington Airport. I've got pro-solos and Nationals coming near me at the end of May and beginning of June at Blythesville just across the muddy river.

 

Well it sure sounds great, especially that its held at an airport. Maybe that means airstrip action! And look at the bright side, there may not be enough people to run 2 groups, but at least you don't have to show up at 7 AM!

 

Awesome Damon... post pics!

 

Practice day tomorrow has had some cancellations so there are 5 spots open if anyone wants in.

http://forums.solo2.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2070

-Joel

 

I would love to, but it cost too much on tires

I hear there might be a little rain for ya on the practice.... thats fun!

I still think you should come out to the race on Sunday as well!

 

I agree!!!

 

Well, ran my first Memphis autoX today and it was fun. Due to bad weather and the Memphis music festival 0nly 10-15 cars showed versus the normally 40-60. We did 20 laps in the rain and mud and had a blast. Normally we get about 12 laps on a full car day. One thing I can say for sure is that you guys would be first in your classes here. Instead of being dead last I was near the middle-top and wasn't even trying very hard. My last lap I began to push it, blew one corner and was only 3 seconds off of the day's fastest lap. Nationals will be here at the end of May and Pro-Solo will be here at the begining of June. Can't Wait!!! I'll post a couple pics soon. Not many though since there were only 2 run groups and you were either racing or working. I even got mud on the inside of my car from the windows being down. It was more like RallyCross in the conditions.

As far as the platform it is SCCA sanctioned and exactly what we have in Socal. Just smaller of course.
Damon

Almost forgot.. I killed a boat load of cones

 

As promised... Couple nice turbo miata's. The red one to the left of me and the grey one on the right( factory mazdaspeed turbo miata) Fastest of the day was an evo 8 rs with cam and gt35r. Wicked evo!

 

Sorry Damon I have not answered your calls. I have been really business. Well today the car performed awsome. I scored a 59.788 and Tom Berry drove my car today. Woot woot. He scored a 57.101 and still had more to go. He said the car would do a 55-56 sec. At lease I know what the car is capable of.
Thanks Robert

 

^Very cool!

 

Damon, glad to hear the race news.... funny, I just sent you a PM asking how it went... guess I shoulds looked here first huh?


I did not do so well.... video will be uploaded soon. :-(
I think the tires on the super miata are just shot. gettin hard.... also we have corded the two fronts. I think we are rubbin the fender. :-( $200 a piece, that sucks!

 

A video lap from the practice day. Thanks to Robert for the camera mount...

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/277947...7_autocross_1/

Yo Nemisis, what do you think of the flagman's comments?

My best of 16 laps was a 62.8 on street tires and never really had a clean run. Spent a good chunk of time playing with swaybars too so I probably could have had even more had I been intentional about it. I'm getting better at powerslides though. Next practice day is June 13th.

 

That pre-lap conversation is hilarious!!!LOL Good to see you out Joel.

 

Funny guy!!!!

 

nice video!...

I will get mine up soon.

 

I love the commentary!

 

mine are up

 

Good to see that folks out there competing have better ability to poke fun at themselves than most of this board.

For the record and despite the fact it's fun to give Robert hell, I actually like rotaries. I just bought my car with the intent to try something different. A fast car is a fast car and there are multiple ways to skin a cat. Whatever floats your boat...

Anyone else going to try for the next practice day? I think I'm going to stick to those for a while as I learn to drive this thing. The seat time was perfect for me.

 

Must've been crazy keeping all that power on a leash! Looks like you had alot of fun Joel!

 

To bad the V8 motor throws you into Emod. Seems like a tough class.

 

^^^ to say teh least!

 

No leashes involved. I just got sideways a lot. Actually there were at least 5-6 spots where I could go flat out for a moment or two and have some semblance of control doing it. When I was sideways I mostly caught it on the first recovery but it still snaps back to straight quicker than I'd like (I'm lifting too much throttle.) I had a couple slides where I did it perfect and a couple where it got away and fishtailed on me more than once. Still I just love the fact you can drive 10/10ths at whatever your skill with minimum risk. I never felt that was true out on a big track. If you take an off sideways at speed in that setting it's pretty easy to flip and total a car.

Maybe someday I'll get into the competition side of things but for now I just don't care. I didn't build the car to compete I built it because it puts a stupid grin on my face and gets great reactions from folks. Yeah, I get tempted by the widebodies and super sticky Hoosiers out there but as long as I'm the weak link there's no point. For the moment I'm just out to learn and get as much seat time as I can (hence the focus on practice days). I tend to spend too much time wrenching on the car and not enough driving it as it is...

Here's one more lap for y'all. Bob Endicott is riding shotgun and has some nice things to say at the end...

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/278000..._bob_endicott/

-Joel

 

Woot, my car is ready for the next auto-x!

 

Both Robert and I are doing the volunteer for FSAE on June 20th, get a practice day for free on the 21st. (See a sticky on the events pages of the solo2 forum for more).

I'm also trying for the practice day on June 13th but it's pretty booked up.