How I (almost) Won a National Championship In My Daily Driver (FR-S):

[Arsenal Autosport]

This post is LONG overdue. I have not been active on the forums lately, but I will try to change that. This story took place in September of last year.

I am taking the car to the first Time Trial event of 2013 this weekend at Roebling Road in an effort to qualify for the national championships again this year. I'll start a new thread about the event this weekend for those who want to follow the progress.

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How I (almost) Won a National Championship In My Daily Driver:

Who decides to run their brand new daily driver against the best in the country to compete for a Time Trial National Championship? I do.

I should mention that driving cars quickly is my job. I coach drivers at all levels and race in the Grand Am Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge and Rolex Series. In September, I was at the NASA Nationals at Mid-Ohio with sponsorship to run in another class. I decided one week prior to leaving that I would take my Scion FR-S, my daily driver, and see what it could do in Time Trial competition. The car is relatively close to stock: it has single adjustable, BC Racing coilovers (ASTs for the 2013 season), Hawk brake pads with Motul 600 brake fluid, a Visconti tune and Hoosier A6 tires that I swapped on to my Enkei RP-F1 wheels when I arrived at the track.

My second ever trip to Mid-Ohio and first in 5 years, it was also my first time driving the FR-S with a true race tire and I was thrilled with how it felt. The steering remained light and precise, the chassis dynamics only got better with more grip. People have asked me if it loses that “tossability” – the ability to achieve a slightly irresponsible slip angle at any given moment– when you fit wider tires. Their concern seems to be that once you bolt up a stickier tire, or stiffer suspension, or both, that you are trying to outsmart the recipe concocted by the engineers who put all of the pieces together to begin with. This speaks volumes about what people think of the car as it comes out of the showroom. This fear is that somehow you would be punished with a numb, under-steering car with an unbalanced power to grip ratio.

Not so. The Scion FR-S is like a hot chick who can kick your ass. It has great lines, gets more fun as you get comfortable pushing it to the edge and it punches far above it’s weight. It also responds really well to bolt-ons… Either way, the car was designed to be thrashed on the racetrack, and the more time I spend doing that, the more I understand just how good the boffins made this car. The package that rolls off of the dealership floor is brilliant, but they knew that some wouldn’t leave well enough alone. Instead of ignoring the tuners and racers, the engineers embraced and planned for it.

After a few installation laps, I wanted to make some changes. The car was a little too “darty” when changing directions, so we made a shock adjustment. The tire pressures started didn’t come up fast enough. Easy changes that netted improvements immediately. At the end of the day, we ran a 1:42.5 and I felt that should put us somewhere near the front of our class.

After checking the times, I wasn’t feeling so confident in our chances. We were not near the top of the sheets; I had slightly underestimated the competition. If I was going to land on the podium, I needed to find over a second and if I was going to be in contention for the win, it was going to take a full two seconds of improvement. Two seconds is an eternity! The Saturday morning session was next up, I knew that if there was any hope of improving it would happen then when the track was clean and the air was cool.

Saturday morning came and so did the rain. With the session washed out, we retreated to the trailer and went back to the drawing board. We reviewed data, looked at video and made another shock change and a further air pressure adjustment. To our surprise, the track did dry out for the next session – and to our further surprise we went faster! 1:41.5, a full second faster and within spitting distance of the podium! But the competition went faster yet. Bill in his Protégé dropped another few tenths of a second, flirting with his own track record. With Saturday done, there were only two session left on Sunday – and rain was threatening again.

On the final morning of competition, we were greeted at the drivers meeting with crisp, cool, dry weather. This was it; this session was happy hour. I drove the car a little bit deeper into the corners, braking a few feet later than I had ever before. I released the brake sooner and carried more entry speed everywhere that allowed for it. I was focused, hitting my marks, lap after lap. On the last lap, I peeked down at my lap timer as I crossed the line and let out a whimper. It read: “Fastest Lap: 1:41.3.”

Only two tenths faster!? To add insult to injury, my time wouldn't count. I was using a battery-powered transponder for the weekend and I had charged it the previous night. However, I had forgotten to take it off the charger and put it back on the car that morning! Deflated and embarrassed, I returned to the trailer to review the in-car video and data we had recorded with the AIM Solo DL that the AIM support guys had graciously lent us. With only one session left, I made the only adjustment I could think of to help the car record a faster time: I attached the transponder.

Determined to improve, by any margin, I rolled onto the track one final time. By the end of the first lap I was catching the TTD class Mazda RX-8. The Hoosiers were coming up to temperature, the little Scion felt the best it had all weekend. On the second lap I was all over the back of the Mazda, which is not a good thing in a Time Trial session. He was slowing me down! I made a pass into the brake zone at the end of the main straight and now I had clear track. The lap-timer was showing I had run a 1:40.1 – while losing some time behind the RX-8! The next lap: 1:39.7. I pushed a little harder, but made a slight mistake and had to lift at the exit of turn 9: 1:39.6! On the final lap of 4 days of competition, as the checkered flag waved, the lap-timer read:

“Fastest Lap: 1:39.385”

On the cool-down lap, my heart was racing. That was good for the win, I was sure of it. A new track record and faster than anyone in my class had gone all weekend. I parked the car in the tech area and began congratulating my fellow competitors on a great event. Mark Domo in the Mazda RX-8 came over to shake my hand.

“Congrats, man you deserve it! Incredible that you took your street car up against our racecars and managed to take 2nd place at Nationals!”

Second place?! After exchanging pleasantries, I asked if he was sure about where I had finished. His crew radioed updates to him during the session; we had all set our fastest times. Bill had set a new track record, a 1:38.997, just over .3 faster than me.

So we didn’t leave with the victory. The competitor in me is always a little disappointed to walk away with anything less than a win. However we showed that with a little prep and a lot of enthusiasm, the Scion FR-S platform very nearly won the first national championship it has competed for. With another year to prepare and learn, you’d better believe we’re going to be aiming for the top step in 2013.

Photos:



My friend who printed decals for me thought this was better than "Miller." Long story, but those of you who have seen The Birdcage should get the joke...





My awesome/terrible beard was in full effect.



And a good testing shot from Roebling Road, hopefully this weekend we'll come away with a win and I can do some victory slides!

[GTM_Challenge]

Great work out there. I was in the Red S2k in TTC that almost beat out Emilio. I'll be taking our FR-S out to Miller this year for some TTD action! Hope you can join us!

[ft86Fan]

Good job!

[Arsenal Autosport]

GTM -

Thanks - TTC was a hell of a fight! Dan and Chi are buddies of mine too, so I was watching that fight. Will you be running the FRS in TTD? I'm hoping to make it to Miller for Nationals again if timing works out with other races around that time. Would love to have a deeper field of FR-Ses out there!

[Mr.Jay]

good read! I want to get more track time in after reading this

[GTM_Challenge]

Jon, That's the plan. I need to work on my mental prep a bit more. I had a 1:36.93 in TTC with a missed shift on the back straight - next lap I had a 1:36.4 going according to the traqmate. Went into madness a little too hot cause I got greedy, and went 4 off, thus DQing my session.

Right now, it's looking like I'll run the FRS in TTD. I need to figure out transport back to Chicago. ITR Expo is two days following Nationals - back at Mid-Ohio. I'll have to ship the car back to Chicago and fly over to OH that night to make it all work.

We're going to test the car some this year and see what sort of setup we can settle on, then decide. I'll be registering here soon to at least save me some coin, then go from there. Never driven Miller, I doubt my chances at a championship are lower than that of someone like yourself or Robispec, but hopefully we're going to at least try!

[Arsenal Autosport]

Ah, that's right. Dan told me about that... bummer! I almost got a little too greedy on my last (fastest) session too, but thankfully only made a minor misjudgment. Frustrating to lose it that way, but I think it's a good rule.

I'm not sure how much I'll get to run the car in TTD honestly. I was at Mid Ohio with sponsorship to run the Spec Miata race, but we were in a car that was a really quick regional race winning car... up against the big boys and the local crew with the setup knowledge. I came home 15th in a field of almost 50, and honestly not sure I could have done any better. Great experience though, and I'm glad I did decide to run the Scion as well.

Hopefully if this event at Roebling goes well I can make Sebring in a few weeks too. I'm still on the BCs and not very impressed with them, honestly. The ASTs are on their way, which I'm pretty excited about. I probably won't do much else to the car, it's too much fun just the way it sits!

[Dezoris]

The plaque for second place is in the ladies room!!
Where is the video for this heralding story?

[Chewie4299]

Well written. I enjoyed reading that thoroughly.

I've never been on a racetrack before but have begun researching and planning for it. I can't wait to experience what this car feels like where it belongs.

[phastafrican]

This is a good read, thanks for sharing. I look forward to seeing you at Roebling... I run race control for NASA-SE and might go out in a few sessions with my FRS if I find the time. I'll keep an eye out for you, or say hello at the morning meeting, I'll be doing the worker meeting.

[orthojoe]

Originally Posted by Arsenal Autosport

People have asked me if it loses that “tossability” – the ability to achieve a slightly irresponsible slip angle at any given moment– when you fit wider tires. Their concern seems to be that once you bolt up a stickier tire, or stiffer suspension, or both, that you are trying to outsmart the recipe concocted by the engineers who put all of the pieces together to begin with. This speaks volumes about what people think of the car as it comes out of the showroom. This fear is that somehow you would be punished with a numb, under-steering car with an unbalanced power to grip ratio.

Not so. The Scion FR-S is like a hot chick who can kick your ass. It has great lines, gets more fun as you get comfortable pushing it to the edge and it punches far above it’s weight. It also responds really well to bolt-ons… Either way, the car was designed to be thrashed on the racetrack, and the more time I spend doing that, the more I understand just how good the boffins made this car. The package that rolls off of the dealership floor is brilliant, but they knew that some wouldn’t leave well enough alone. Instead of ignoring the tuners and racers, the engineers embraced and planned for it.

This is great to know. Thank you very much for this.

[Arsenal Autosport]

Originally Posted by Dezoris

The plaque for second place is in the ladies room!!
Where is the video for this heralding story?

Touché.

My camera was in the Spec Miata I was racing that weekend and so I tossed a spare Go Pro in the Scion for a few sessions but the video didn't come out very well. I'm pretty bummed about that too. I will have video from this weekend at Roebling to share, don't you worry!

[Arsenal Autosport]

Originally Posted by phastafrican

This is a good read, thanks for sharing. I look forward to seeing you at Roebling... I run race control for NASA-SE and might go out in a few sessions with my FRS if I find the time. I'll keep an eye out for you, or say hello at the morning meeting, I'll be doing the worker meeting.

Awesome! I look forward to meeting you this weekend. I'll be the one unloading a large trailer's worth of gear from the back of my car. My girlfriend is tagging along for this one and she helped load the car last night... I think she regrets her decision already.



You should enter TTD... We could use the extra competition (for the Hoosier contingency to kick in!)

[BadCompany235]

about time you posted again Jon. kinda suprised you're not in daytona with Matt and the Flatout crowd the next few days tho. are you gonna be able to update your site with a schedule or anything?

did you end up getting a gt or gts ride? i know you were in that Porsche a few weeks ago.