First autocross in the books at Crow's Landing. Car was in "ST Lite" trim:
-2 way w/ remote MCS coilovers
-Karcepts top hats
-Karcepts front bar
-17x9+45 wheels
-255/40/17 A052s that were brand new
The first autocross in the Crow's Landing books... Modern sports and racing cars are a work of engineering. When I read reviews of the 7 best science writer PhDs
get more that help automakers and generate regular research I was surprised how much attention is paid to scientific work in motorsport. But if you think that modern records in sports are very difficult to achieve, then perhaps this should not be surprising. If you look at the composition of racing teams in the late 90s and now, you can see how much the number of employees in each team has increased.
The car did about 35 runs all weekend between me, Heitkotter, Teddie, and some fun runs with a few other people. Everyone commented on how much more powerful it felt. Torque dip seen in dynos is not felt in the car. This video was from Sunday's course which had a couple good third gear sections where the car just continued to pull.
Setup: what works on the first gen will likely transfer over to Gen 2 very well. We only made some small adjustments over the weekend and both Bryan and I really liked the balance of the car. It's not 100% perfect yet, but for a stab in the dark, it was really, really good.
Tires... didn't rub at all at Crows. Had 10mm spacers up front, no spacers in the back. No rubbing in the back at any point this weekend.
Results-wise, it's uhhh.... fast. On Saturday with 10-run Yoks that were getting too hot, Bryan would have been 4th on PAX using STR PAX. Keep in mind that Crows is grippy and fast so favors Hoosiers and aero for PAX typically. I would have been 7th in pax on Sunday using STR, 3rd using STX.
Competition-wise, the ST field was so-so with Bryan being the obvious overdog with nobody else really being on his level. I was probably next in line followed by a fully prepped STX RX8. The course was pretty RX8 friendly having two long flat out sections, and I was able to put about .8 on the RX8.
So, definitely not an STX car. After letting the STAC chair drive, we talked about it for awhile. As bummed as I am that it very likely won't be classed in 2022, I get it. I won't complain. I do think it'll be a good fit in STR in 23, and we'll have PLENTY of time between now and then to get the car fully developed and hopefully get it to some events where we can compare apples to apples with both cars and drivers.
Next up is some vinyl work (+10hp), and hopefully a cat-back. Then patiently waiting on tuning/headers to work.