Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Autocross and Open Track Fun at the Detroit region Season Opener

Despite the foggy morning, it was a great day! This was my first time out with the 3L and Quaife, and only my second autocross. When I managed to calm down a bit and drive more smoothly, I got my times down and didn't drag a slalom cone out of the course. :rolleyes:
My fastest time was a 32.870s run, my 4th.
I was unfortunately preoccupied with working whenever another Contour ran, so I'm not sure how my times compare to anyone else's.
For that matter, I don't know if I even tagged cones on some of my runs - I DNF'd my first run and I'f not sure if my slalom hit counts as a cone or DNF, and I don't remember feeling a cone hit the other two, but I have no confirmation.
Hopefully the official results will be posted soon.

Hey Steve,

Good job at the event. 32.8 is a good time. That is a pretty difficult course. The two decreasing radius turn caught a lot of people out. I never did get both of them right on the same run. That vid is great, thanks for posting it That course was hell on my right front tire... nothing but left turns
EDIT: Where was your camera mounted. I gridded you up every time, and don't remember it being in your cabin... almost looks like it is a bumper cam...

The other 'tours I saw run were around 33 to 34, I think. I won G Stock with a time of 31.9, but only because there was a 'Pro' category this year, where they play for money Steve Couture trophies at Nationals, and drives a GStock neon... His time was 29.8. *screams* A full 2 seconds under my time. I don't know where the heck to find two seconds on a 30 second course.

Glad you went out and had fun. Hope to see you at another event sometime.

Edit:
Official Results are posted here:
Season Opener Results

Thanks, and congrats on the GStock win.

The camera is indeed in my grille, just above the bumper.
I had a camcorder in the glovebox to record with.
I've got a few more pics (including one of you) in this thread:
http://www.contour.org/forums/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=40;t=002004
I need to work on driving a good line and not just squealing all over the place - more practice at the Spring Zing event!

Congrats the Mark and A2Steve. What is GS-T? Is that street tire class, novice guys, or the pro class? OK, I found Couture in the pro class but it does not even look like the apply the pax index! That's not fair, Neons compete against Miatas and go-carts head to head.

Cole,

Yeah, the GS-T is the street tire class. So, yeah, looks bad, huh. I got beat by neons on street tires. *sigh* It is going to be a long year at the Divisionals.

The Pro stuff was PAXed, though I don't know if that was reflected on those times. Couture took second in the pro, behind the FSP car of Guy St. John. Miata was 3 & 4, iirc.

Sincerely,
Mark

The Mark, I looked for Detroit drivers at last year's nationals and found the following:
SS: 6th and 13th
BS: 7th and 8th
DS: 6th, 11th, 16th, 18th
ES: 20th
FS: 16th, 26th
GS: 2nd

And I did not even look outside stock class! Needless to say, Detroit region is EXTREMELY competitive at the national level. Now compare that to Dixie region where I ran earlier in the month. The PAX winner there went to the Ft Myers National Tour event and finished 14th in STS. He's a very good driver but his car is not nationally competitive in STS. Through interpolation/guestimation of my times vs. him and the local Z06 national competitor I quickly realized I would have finished second to last in G Stock as well even with race tires.

Don't feel bad that you lost by only 2 seconds to the guy who finished 2nd in PAX in a highly competitive region. That's why I am coming to SZ. I want to see how I do against other Contours, not other local cars.

Holy Crap. I forgot to mention the best part about this weekend. There was an autocross school the day before this event at the same site. I happened to know the event coordinators, and knew they would do me right. One of the guys is Couture, who is damn good on the national level, so I thought I would be a shoe-in for his tutelage. Well, I got there and was introduced to this guy I have never seen before at any of the events... Pearson somebody. *shrug* The first couple things out of this guy's mouth were great info. I started scratching my head. I run a few laps in the wet (it rained the day before this event) and was right on the ragged edge. He kept saying, be smooth, brake later/harder. Third run, I let him behind the wheel. He took 3 seconds out of my time. It was un-frikin'-real. He was so smooth it made me wince. He was full throttle through places I had to let off, simply because smooth inputs allowed him to straighten the course. Don't get me wrong, the guy was totally at the limit. I knew he was going to loop it any second, but he never did. I was stunned. 3 seconds. So I saunter over to Larry, and ask what's the deal with this guy... He said, "Oh, that is Dave Pearson, he is a former national champion in HS... yeah... in a Saturn! Yeah, they said it couldn't be done..." I fainted at this point. When I came to, I was a sponge. I soaked up every word this guy had to say. I felt very priveledged to be able to pick this guy's brain. I *think I learned a lot. As I mentioned earlier, I got spanked on raceday, so there is lots left to learn, but that was by far the highlight of my AutoX career to date.

I wish I could make it to S-Zing, but there is no way to make that happen.

In 98, he finished 4th in E Stock in a 91 Saturn SC? Not sure when he won. Is he a Saturn engineer? How long was the course? If he was faster by 3 seconds on a 30 second course, that means your car may have the potential to beat the Neon ACR et all? The rain might have been part of it. It is amazing to see a National competitor in action!! Reminds me of my time I paid a guy to co-drive a RX-7 twin turbo, beat him by a second for FTD, only to have Rene Eady. multi-time National woman's champ, beat me on her 6th run in her stock 86 Civic Si!!!!!! Sorry, you can't make SZ.

Found this interesting article that included Pearson and his Saturn, a Miata, and a Neon ACR. Make sure to click on the "table" links at the top left and right by the article title to see before and after performance. Most of the lateral G inprovement is due to sticky autocross tires.

http://neon.atsweb.net/c&dautox.html