Cold-rainy day

[Phil C]

Well, in the continuing goofiness of our local weather we had an event yesterday which was down-right miserable. The morning started out pretty good. I got to the event site at 7:00 to help with tech and course setup and it was overcast and about 50 degrees. By the time we ran in the first run heat at 10:30 it was down to 40 and starting to rain. By the time we finished the third run it was down to 35 and raining hard trying to decide whether to become snow.

We only got three runs because the heavy rain caused havoc with the timers and it was causing the even to go VERY slowly. Surprising to me was that my last run was my fastest by over 2 seconds even though by that point the puddles on the course were an inch deep or more. I grabbed third in DS behind a WRX on new Kumho's and a Type R on his "street" tires, A032-R.

I found that in the cold and wet I could steer pretty well although the car had gone to severe understeer when I pushed it but I couldn't accelerate worth a darn. I just couldn't keep up with the AWD driver in this situation.

What if anything can you do to help in a situation like this? If we hadn't been in the first heat we most likely would have gone back to street tires but we didn't have the chance.

As a side note working tech is rather fun and interesting, this was my first time working tech at an event. I was truly amazed by what some people try to pawn off as stock and by what others thought was a good idea, we failed 4 cars in tech all because none of them had taken our their sub boxes which weren't bolted down to anything. I just loved the following exchange: "They put me in STS, what class should I be in?", "What mods do you have?", "None", "What about this carbon fiber hood, that cold air intake, those cross drilled brakes, those 17" wheels and that exhaust?", "Oh those are stock", "On a Civic DX???"

[autxr]

Sounds like a miserable event (weather wise). Street tiers would have been the best solution for getting the power down, or maybe 3rd gear....

Carbon fiber hood... Not even STS, try street mod!

Scott

[nxracer]

Originally posted by Phil C
I just loved the following exchange: "They put me in STS, what class should I be in?", "What mods do you have?", "None", "What about this carbon fiber hood, that cold air intake, those cross drilled brakes, those 17" wheels and that exhaust?", "Oh those are stock", "On a Civic DX???"

On a Civic? I think those things are stock hehe

We had about the same weather here in Chicago except is never teased us. It started at 42 and remained there all day PLUS there was a seemingly gale force wind blowing across the 19 acres of asphalt of Route 66 Raceway.

The Hoosiers came out of the hatch only to spectate as my free "Worker of the Year" BFGoodrich HR4's were pressed into "race tire" service. We were supposed to run four heats (3 am and 2 pm runs) but after multiple timing "glitches" caused but the rain and high winds (plus a major computer crash) we stopped the event at 3 runs.

Course conditions:
Heat 1: all stock cars except BS, CS and SS
Rain, some puddles for run 1 but most of the water BLEW away by run 2. It stopped raining when the third runs started but the course remained wet.

Heat 2: everything else + BS, CS and SS
Drying course, damp at the start of the heat, dry but still 42 degrees by the end many if the fastest cars were on "full depth" Kumho's

Results (http://www.scca-chicago.com/solo/) Index & class (currently unofficial)

note: P2 on index was not a Mini Boss but a S2000 on sticker Hoosiers (a three driver car)

For you Evolution fans P10 (index) is Jeans X husband.

I won GS but it's a rather hollow victory, Paul's Bridgestone RE930 street tires work great in the wet but my BFGoodrich HR4's loved the cold and wet.