July 16th Autocross Update

[IBAUCLAPlaya]

Well the good news is, the car is all back together. After a month and two weeks, the car was off the jackstands and on the road again. For those who didn’t know my problem, back at the Peru Pro Solo, I had a problem with my axle popping out of my differential. I don’t know if it had to do with the grippy concrete mixed with the bumps, but at about 60% of the turns there, I would have to throw away the run because the axle popped out of the diff. So I would baby it back to paddock, and jack it up and shove it back in. The dealer refused to cover it under warranty because the car is lowered, which is a crock of shit. They tried to feed me that since the car is lowered, the suspension geometry has changed and the axle is being pulled due to the angle of it to the diff. Well news flash for Subaru of America: As the car is lowered, the differential is lowered along w/ the car since it is attached to the frame, therefore the geometry shouldn’t change at all.

Enough of that, this weekend was the first event for the ASCC (Akron Sports Car Club). After getting the car back on the ground Friday, I still didn’t feel comfortable racing it two days later. So I ended up driving my buddy’s MR2 that he picked up last weekend from Atlanta. It runs in E Stock, has shocks, R-comps, a bigger FSB and no catback. The car is pretty much prepared to the national level. Unfortunately I ended up finishing last out of three drivers. But the problem was I had zero clean runs. This was also my second event ever driving a RWD car, and second time ever driving ANY car with race tires. My raw time was dead on with the owner of the car, who won the class by the way, but cones suck. We also didn’t have time to talk driving because the run group was flying by, nor time to spray the tires and that hurt with having a two driver car. In the indexed times, the owner of the car came in 4th, behind one guy who almost always wins National events and almost always trophies at the National Championship in Topeka. One of the other guys was in a CSP CRX which was favored by our small tight course so that didn’t really count. If I would have had a clean run I would’ve been in the top 5 PAX for sure. But for as many excuses there are, the driver is the number one problem. I just didn’t get it done.

Next week I WILL be racing the WRX finally, which I must say suits my driving style much better. Hopefully I will have a first place STX finish along with a top 3 finish time in PAX. Also hopefully I can have some pictures for next weekend as well.