Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Autocross and Open Track A GStock Victory...At Last

WoooHooo!
It was a long time coming, but I finally took top honors in GStock. It was on a course that I had floundered at in the past; nevertheless, I pulled off a couple splendid runs out of the gate, and the competition pushed too hard trying to catch me. I had fallen into the trap last time I was there. The track is very slippery, and if you try to go fast, you end up skittering wide on the tight corners. One fellow GSer likened it to driving a pad of warm butter around.
I thought if I could give them a quickish time that would scare them into overdriving, I might pull it off. :rolleyes: It worked! I am stunned, speechless even.

Congrats, I hope to pull that off one day if no Type R or WRX's show up. :-) What kinda cars did you beat? How big was your win margin?

Same here, I'd love to know the info. Do you have any more details on the course? Tight & twisty or smooth with fast transitions? etc etc?
I've always thought that there is a course we can beat the type R's on.. I'm still looking for it though

BTW Congrats on the win and may I say.. I'M JEALOUS.

Well, I wish I could say that I trounced a Type-R or laid waste to the scoobie that schmeared all comers last time out. Regretfully, or perhaps, thankfully, neither one showed. There were 3 WRXs all told, a fast Probe, a Shadow convertible, a Grand Am and a couple others. For the most part, the WRXs were in the hands of newcomers, so I was at a bit of an advantage, though they did get within a second of me. The Probe was up there as well...1.5 seconds off the pace. I think the margin was a tick over half a second on a 30 second course.

The course was not at all what you might think of as optimal for the SVT. It was small, tight, and doubled back on itself to make the most of the the limited square footage. It was new pavement, and the recently sealed surface makes it one of the slipperiest courses to date. Let me put it this way, one of the fastest times of the day was by the HStock winner in a Honda Civic DX (circa 96), and eclipsed my time by half a second or so...that usually doesn't happen around here. My advantage was mostly experience with the surface. I tried to play catchup last time we were there, and my first time was my fastest. This was uncommon for me, and I walked away from that meet with a greater understanding of the the phrase "You have to slow down to go fast". It is just so hard to swallow that when you are looking at a 1-2 second deficit like I am used to. I gridded first, and set the bar high on my first run. A minor improvement on the second. Then I got caught up in fiddling with tire pressures, went too low and understeered my way to slower times on the final two runs. My goal, though, was to be quick out of the gate, and have everyone try to push hard to catch me. The trick was that in order to go fast, you had to be slow and smooth.

In a way, I got lucky that the top WRX in the region did not show today, as he is astoundingly fast. But I will take the trophy with no hestitation

Congrats on the win.

Chris

Thanks for the info. Now if that would only happen to me. We have a tribe (I call them a tribe) of 9 Type R's that show up. So at any given event there are usually 6-7 of them. Really sux. I'm only starting to catch the slowest of them now.

Congrats on your win, and to be honest, it's on the tight twisty stop start type courses that my times are closest to the Type R's. Strange isn't it? The smoother courses seem to increase the deficit in times. Anyone else notice something like this?

Congrats!! I'm still looking to go autocrossing once... SZ will probably be my first time racing!

Dave, it has been a while since Philly region SCCA has had a large parking lot (Camden) but I thought the last time there I was really having a hard time on the fater course. We will hopefully be at Camden in September and I will get to try again with more experience. Today we were on a smaller course and I am only 1.5 seconds behind the leading Type R and I'm on KDW's everyone in front of me in on autocross tires. I just looked at the results that posted on the website for NNNJ, WOW all those Type R's, that really sucks. Maybe I won't do a NNNJ event until I get autox tires. :-)

Aww come on out, I'd love to have you. I'd stop feeling like such an odd-ball with the only sedan in the class. WRX doesn't count as a sedan to me.

For those that have switched to autox tires from their KDW's, I'm looking to get an idea of how many seconds you feel you improved? Just looking to get a general idea on a 35-45 second course what might the improvement be .2 seconds or 3 seconds I really have no idea.