SCCA Solo2 Nationals Write Up
09-20-2002, 03:17 PM
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SCCA Solo2 Nationals Write Up
The planning, trip and the event were much more exhausting for us this year than last.
About T-minus 3 weeks before the event (what, isn't this advance enough planning?), we repacked the rear diff. We'd been having problems with it all year loosening up, after all, it'd been in the car for over a year without rebuild, so it was due (overdue) for a rebuild.
We had a test-n-tune autocross at Atwater scheduled for 2 weeks before nationals to be able to test out how the diff now would handle. We also wanted to experiment with some other spring and spring perch configurations. The good news is that the diff was great, it was packed much tighter than it ever was and made a noticeable improvement. Unfortunately, the car was otherwise handling a little awkwardly. Lots of body roll, more pushing than we expected. We fiddled with springs, ride heights, sway bars. Other people at the event were even commenting on how the car didn't look as good as it had been at prior events. We fiddled some more. Finally a friend pinpointed it to the drivers front corner. There was way too much shock travel there; we'd blown out the shock. 2 weeks before nationals. Ugh. Now, we use a inversely mounted Koni 3012 series shock that had been valved for us back in the days of Vortrag. Fortunately for us, at the time we got these shocks, Vortrag had done another set for testing on Paul Lambert's A4 touring car. Paul's shocks have certainly evolved since then, so these were not currently being used. And for whatever reason, Corey actually had the presence of mind to bring them to the event. A bit more time under the car in the hot central California sun, and we were back to testing. By the end of the weekend, we were reasonably happy with the car, it did some things better than it ever had, but was a little slower in the slaloms. The test-n-tune course had tons of long sweepers, which aren't good for the Audi, but we were within a couple tenths of the fastest M3's (two of which we consider serious contendors for Nat's).
When we got back from the test-n-tune event, we knew we'd want to send our shocks back into Koni for revalving. And, heck, if you're going to redo them, why not do it with different valving? We were running at the top of the range for rebound and near the top on compression, so there were definite improvements to be made. But, could we get a new set in by nationals? And if we could, would we be able to actually tune them to be useful to us? It took a dozen of events to dial the shocks in when we first got them. We talked to Paul about what we wanted in the shock and brainstormed some ideas. Paul then sent them off to Koni's racing group and talked with some folks over there. Koni decided that in order to get the valving that we were looking for, they may have to design a new internal part. We were crossing our fingers that they'd come back in time.
While the shocks were sent off, we took the car back up to Design It Prototype in Rohnert Park because the AWE exhaust headers had come in! We were obviously pretty damn excited by this, and heck, if we're going to be redoing the suspension at the last minute, why the hell not add a bunch more hp and torque too! So, out came the engine. Larry at Design It fabricated some new spring perches (which turned out very nice!), and new rear brake caliper brackets, not to mention helped us off and on with the header install. We'd also talked to GIAC who said that they would send us the new 100 octane race program for the K04s. Lastly, we were planning on finally yanking the UUC VM2 exhaust from the car! We had some plans for a couple different exhausts, one being simply straight pipes from the turbo back. We chose to use AWE's downpipes into a 2-into-1 merge collector to feed into a single 3.5" pipe all the way back, no mufflers. While we had the car apart, we also managed to find about 35lbs in misc weight reduction here and there.
It was going to be a whole new car. We were really amped for the new changes, but at the same time a little concerned that we were changing so much on the car at 11th hour.
We planned to leave Tuesday night after labor day. We finally got the car running (still without the newly valved shocks and with no exhaust) the day before labor day. We took it out for a quick late night test drive, hoping not to attract any attention with the loud, yellow car with stickers all over it. I took it out first ... it was OMIGOD fast. There were some mild curves in an industrial area, then a bit of a straight. When I got to the straight, I swear I saw the boost gauge nearly pegged (ours tops out at 30psi). That can't be. I pull a U-turn and head back to the shop, this time making a point of watching the boost gauge. Sure enough I see 28psi! Corey took it out next and confirmed the boost gauge reading, but when he brought the car back, we could smell clutch. He said the clutch slipped in 3rd a bit. Not sure if that was a driver induced, or are we really making that much power. The clutch is reasonably fresh (RS4 clutch and pressure plate, mated to AWE's lightweight flywheel). That made us a little nervous, given that we have dozens of drag launches coming up, but we crossed our fingers and packed the car into the trailer. On the Tuesday after labor day, the car got its new exhaust (we wouldn't drive or hear it until we got to Topeka) and we received our shocks from Koni, we'd have to do the install in Topeka. Our work wasn't done yet.
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We bring a lot of things with us to events, and for nationals, even more. We had 2 fresh sets of Hoosiers mounted on the FM/10s and a set of worn Kuhmo EcSTA street tires on the FM/5s in case of rain. We had the second set of shocks, 2 sets of rear springs at different rates, probably a couple pairs of fronts with different rates and lengths, misc helper springs and tender springs. Spare sway bar, misc brake parts, wheel spacers, spare GIAC software (street gas) and another spare ECU. Enough brake, engine, diff, tranny fluid to drain a fill several cars. We were concerned with hoses due to the high psi we're now running, so we placed a panic call to ACHTUN!NG and they overnighted us some spare Samcos just in case. And fuel; lots of Sunoco 104.
Unlike last year, after about 1900 miles, we arrived in Topeka without incident Thursday night, 9/5. Also unlike last year, we arrived in Topeka with very little seat time in the car this year. At this point last year, we had attended 30 autox's, this year only 5! We planned to get up early Friday to set ourselves up in the paddock, do the shock swap and a pre-event once over, not to mention needing a full alignment. Practice starts for the ProSolo would begin at 2:00. The swap took a little longer than we anticipated, as we re-thought some of our spring options (plus stopping and saying hello to people as they arrived while the temps and humidity were getting pretty high). Once the car was back off jackstands, around 4:30pm, Corey sat in it to re-align the shifter (which had been disconnected to drop the engine, but we didn't have time to align it perfectly before we left home).
We go up to take our practice starts. Corey goes first. He does 3 runs, OK reaction times, 60' times in the 1.7-1.8 range and 200' times around 4.8+ range. His shifts to 2nd are slow and he missed it on his third launch. He coasted the car back to grid, and couldn't get it into 1st or 2nd gear. Big uh oh. Finally, Corey gets it into first, and heads back to the paddock to make some adjustments to the shifter. It seemed to take him a while to do this, he couldn't get it to his liking. Finally, mostly satisfied, he takes it for a spin around the paddock to make sure it's OK. He's gone for a while, stopping to readjust it a couple times. Finally he comes back with a serious look on his face and says something's not right, and he thinks its the tranny. At a stop, the car doesn't want to be shifted into 1st and will go into 2nd with some effort. Once the car is moving, it gets into 2nd easier, but I wouldn't call it smooth. Other gears seem more normal. We're not happy and Corey leaves me with the car to do my starts while he gets on the phone to see what are our options to get a tranny as a backup.
I hop in the car for my starts and decide that this is simply going to be mind over matter. My first start is a little awkward, just getting used to the car's feel and sound now, and the shift to 2nd is rough. I take 3 or 4 more runs and I'm getting faster and it seems to be getting into 2nd a little easier. I'm doing consistent .5xx reactions and 1.7 60' times and nail a couple 4.5xx 200' times. The announcer says that I've got the fastest times of any vehicle with fenders! This boosts my confidence in the car and I head back to our paddock spot to find Corey.
While I was practicing, Corey called the local Audi dealer (yes, there's an Audi dealer in Topeka, KS!), but it was well after 5:00 on a Friday, service was closed. The dealer's GM sounded willing to help, but didn't have a tranny. We thought we may be able to use them if we got parts (rather than a whole tranny). We called Bryon, who said he thought Sonnen had a new tranny and also located a used one for us at a junk yard, also in California. These could be shipped Saturday, for Monday delivery, if required. We also called our friend Tim at Champion who said they didn't have a whole tranny, but probably had parts for 1st and 2nd and could help walk us through a rebuild if needed. We decided we'd run the Saturday morning heat at the Pro and then decide if we wanted to have equipment shipped to us. We had Monday off, so we knew we could work then to try to get the car up before the Solo2 nationals which began on Tuesday.
As we left the site Friday, we see another Imola S4 roll in and contemplate scavenging his tranny when he's not watching. It turns out this car belongs to Kinch Reindl(?) from Colorado who is competing in D-Stock.
Going into the ProSolo Finale, Corey is tied with 2 others for first place: Dennis Grant in an Eagle Talon and Fejda Jeleskovic in another Talon. While not in the running for the top spot, but still worrisome, are Vic Sias in a 96 M3 and Mark Daddio in a turbocharged Dodge Neon, both national champions last year in other classes . We normally have an advantage in the ProSolo due to the drag race start, but we knew that we'd now go up against these Talons from the east which should be able to hang with us off the line (in fact, Dennis is an experienced drag racer and even had a launch control system in his car).
We have 2 heats on Saturday, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Our morning runs went pretty smoothly. I laid down some quick times, but all dirty; this lets me know I'm in the running, though I appeared low in the results after the first set. Corey has quicker runs, but dirty on the right side course, so he's sitting in second place with Vic in first. The tranny is not getting any better, but it's not really getting any worse. In fact, on Saturday, Corey nailed a 1.6xx 60' time which stood as the fastest 60' time for the event! The clutch is holding out just fine with the repeated 5000-5500rpm launches; no hints of slipping.
On Saturday afternoon, the field generally improves. I had some good runs and nailed .5xx reaction times on all my runs and even had a 1.70 60' time, the only faster one all weekend was Corey's. I cleaned up my left side which moved me up to 5th place, Corey is sitting in 2nd only thousands back due to more cones (his scratch time would have had him clearly in the lead), but Vic moved to 3rd and Dennis was now in the top spot (Fedja was in 4th).
On Sunday, both Corey and I had to concentrate on improving our times on the right side course. Corey had a 26.8 on the left, I had a 26.9, but both our right side times were in the 27.xxx range, lots of room to improve. Corey's first run on Sunday was on the right, and he came back with a sloppy 27.1xx on cold tires. He then moved over to the left side and hit a 26.513! That 3/10th improvement puts him into the lead. He has one more pair of runs against Dennis to go. Corey hits a cone on his last left side run which would have been a 26.3xx, but gains no improvement overall. Corey's lead is small, so he needs to get a solid, clean run on the right while we hope that Dennis's time doesn't improve. Corey lines up against Dennis for one last shot, but just as the last yellow light is illuminating, Corey jumps and the red light comes on! He continues on for a decent run, but he knows it won't count and we're crossing our fingers that when Dennis comes back he doesn't see an improvement. Unfortunately, Dennis hit a 26.4 on the left side, putting him just 27 THOUSANDTHS ahead of Corey for the win! We were disappointed for sure (in hindsight Corey said that he launched on the 2nd yellow light, rather than the 3rd, simple brainfart :-( ), I tried to clear my head before taking my runs.
My last runs were solo due to a mechanical problem with the neon I was supposed to run against. My first pair of runs would have been mild improvements, but I hit cones on both. I was trying to concentrate on how I'd take the right side course, so when I started on my last left side run I was probably more relaxed about it and came back with a 26.522, faster than all but Corey and Dennis! OK, now all I needed was a decent right side time, and a clean one. It wasn't going to happen, though, because whatever curse Corey had on the right side hit me and I jumped the start on what would have been a 4/10ths improvement! I ended up sitting on a slow right side time, because all my others included cones. Ugh. Fortunately, my good left side time was enough to bump me up to 4th place, probably our only silver lining for the day.
<img src="http://www.imolaracing.com/images/Nats2002/99226804.jpg">
Due to the small margin of victory Dennis had, both he and Corey advanced to the Open Challenge. This is a single elimination run off, where the top drivers in each class run against each other based on their class's dial-in. Corey made it 2 rounds before hitting a cone and being eliminated.
Honda sponsors a similar event for the "street" classes (the top drivers from STS, STX, and SM). Corey eliminated his first competitor and lined up against a STX WRX for his second round. Corey started on the right side, while the WRX left first due to its slower dial in and he beat Corey back. We were confident Corey could advance, since he'd now move to the left side, where we drove better and faster. As the tree came down, the WRX jumped his start and lit the red light -- and automatic loss! At least that's what the announcer first said; then they announced a timing error and said the last runs would be re-run?!? But, the rules say a red light is an automatic DNF. According to the officials, the dial-ins were not properly set, so that Corey's lights would have been off. The officials called for an immediate rerun without time to cool or readjust tire pressures. On the rerun, Corey was eliminated :-( We went to discuss the call with the officials afterwards, to point out that the WRX started normally and red lit -- an automatic DNF -- and that the timing error didn't impact him. If there was a bad timing input it would have only affected Corey's run .... but obviously nothing could be done after the fact (though they did finally concede that we had a point). <sigh> Not our happiest day racing :-(
<a href="http://www.scca.org/amateur/solo2/prosolo/2002/finale/results.html">SCCA ProSolo Finale Results</a>
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On Monday, 9/10, was our "down" day. We didn't race until Tuesday, so we could do whatever prep work was needed to the car (including a bath at the local coin op car wash). We'd had dinner the night before with some friends, one of whom, Annie Gill, was looking to find a last minute ride for the Solo2 nationals. She normally competes in a Type R in D-Stock Ladies, but was frustrated with the car and her performance at the ProSolo Finale, and she was hoping to run another class for fun. We told her that she might be able to hop in the yellow car and run Street Mod Ladies (as I run in open) if we take the car out for a check on Monday and all seemed well. The surface at the site was not harsh on tires, so we had lots of tread to go and plenty of fuel. Our concern, of course, was with the tranny.
We walked the courses on Monday. The South course (<a href="http://www.pbase.com/image/4927875">South Course Map</a>) looked to be harder for us at first glance. Almost a drag race start went into a tight slalom then into a sweeper, then it seemed like you were just doing fast short section + 180 over and over with an awkward curving slalom in the middle. The North course (<a href="http://www.pbase.com/image/4927874">North Course Map</a>) was much more open and full of slaloms; we would even need 3rd gear which is pretty rare at a national event. We thought the North course would be much more to our liking and were looking forward to running on it.
Given the 3rd gear shift, we took Annie out in the car Monday to let her drive, see how the car felt. Apart from 1st gear and a little roughness into 2nd, all seemed well, even up to 120mph :-) . Annie is no stranger to the S4, she had one up till a few months ago (which was sold to buy a tow vehicle.... seems to be a common occurrence these days :-). One advantage to Annie driving was that she would run 2 heats before us and we could see how the car looked and responded to the course and get Annie's feedback.
Annie's first run was a little loose, what with cold tires (and running first thing in the morning) and harder, later boost onset than she's used to , but she adapted to the car quickly and after the first day of competition was sitting very comfortably in 2nd place barely 1/10th of a second out of 1st place (which was occupied by last year's winner, Karen Rafferty in a Supra).
<a href="http://www.scca.org/amateur/solo2/nationals/2002/results/sml.html">Street Mod Ladies Results</a>
<img src="http://www.imolaracing.com/images/Nats2002/99227223.jpg">
We got one more chance to walk the course before we ran and we walked with Annie so that we could get her feedback on where the car pushed, where it gripped, etc. There were 43 cars signed up for Street Mod, so the grid seemed huge; lots of BMWs (E30, E36 and E46 M3s), Civics, a Cobb-tuned WRX sporting 285 tires, a couple high hp Supras, not a lot of pony-cars and only 2 neons (though the one driven by Mark Daddio had been picked to win). We knew that our main competition was going to come from Jeff Reitmeir, a NorCal local with 7 national championships under his belt. He and co-driver, Gary Richardson, had started down the path with a SM-tuned TT, but decided that they would have to do a lot of development work on that car to make it competitive and opted to go with a supercharged 95 M3 only a couple months before nationals.
I was pretty nervous my first go at the course; I kept running through the course in my mind, making sure I had it "straight" in my head. My goal was to get into the trophies (top 12). I ran a decent, if a bit conservative time. Corey's first run was much faster, well over a second ahead of me. We figured the leaders would be into the 47.xxx range, I knew I needed to get to the 48s at least. Jeff Reitmeir's first run put him into the lead, just a couple tenths ahead of Corey. On my second run, I charged the start a bit more; not quite a ProSolo launch, but maybe side stepping at around 3000rpm. This helped propel me ahead as I dropped a half second, but I was still above the 49.0 mark. Corey's second time was a smoking 47.7, but he hit a cone, leaving the door open for Jeff, and Jeff's second run was a high 47.9, stretching his lead just a bit. I had a decent final run, finally getting into the 48s with a 48.8. Jeff went out for his final run and improved just a few hundredths. We knew Corey needed a fast, clean final run (yeah, what else is new) to have a shot at first. But, we had to place a lot of emphasis on clean. He pulled off the run, cleanly and reasonably fast: a 47.8. This put Corey into the lead -- barely -- by 0.013 seconds! My last run left me in 10th place overall. I knew I'd left a lot of time out there, so I was optimistic that I could maybe inch up some spots on day 2.
<img src="http://www.imolaracing.com/images/Nats2002/995L0800.jpg">
Looking at the North course, we thought it would favor the Audi with long fast sections and slaloms. The Audi is usually geared so that 2nd is all we needed, but looking at the area marked "Dire Straights" on the map, we knew we'd definitely need 3rd. Unfortunately, as much as the North course looked to benefit us, we knew it'd benefit any larger, higher hp cars like the M3s and Supras.
We walked the course again on Wednesday morning with Annie. The temps were cooler than they'd been over the weekend, so she had the benefit of the power, but again her first run would have pretty cold tires. Annie ran before Karen Rafferty and threw down a fast time on her first run out there, more than a second ahead of the 3rd place car. Unfortunately, Karen came out and ran a time of about that margin faster than Annie. This course was definitely to Karen and her Supra's liking. Annie and Karen went back and forth for their next pair: Annie would inch ahead, then Karen would take the lead. On Annie's last run, she improved a couple more tenths, however, it wasn't enough to get past Karen's 2nd run. But, Annie would still take home the 2nd place trophy after driving a car she'd only first driven a couple days before!
We walked the North course one last time and I tried to absorb it. The course had some obvious fast features, but had only subtle clues as to how to really get down to the low times. We also had to be wary of the bumpiness. We thought about making compression adjustments in anticipation of the slaloms, but decided against that due to the surface conditions. The South course was bumpy, but the North course was worse.
I had a mediocre first run. It felt fast for an autocross, because the course was fast, but
there was a ton more time out there. I'd made some small mistakes, a little too far off some significant cones, but those small mistakes were much more costly on this course than they had been on the South course. Corey's first run started out looking very fast, but at the far turnaround (just before a long slalom), he entered too fast to properly set up the exit and consequently shot past a couple cones, DNFing his run. Meanwhile, Jeff Reitmeir had set down a very fast first run of 49.4. I concentrated on my entrances to the fast sections on my second run and entered the fast 6 cone slalom faster, but started to get behind and ended up checking up midway through and nailing a cone, then hitting another in the slalom before the finish. My scratch time was a half second improvement, but would do me no good with 2 cones. Corey's second run would be a little faster than Jeff's first run, but Jeff went out and hit a 7/10ths improvement on his second run!
I was determined to nail a fast run my last time out. The first half of the run I was doing well and it felt fast. I started to get behind again in the long slalom, but held onto it into the sweeper before the very fast 3rd gear section. I exited the sweeper, lined up the car and (it felt like this happened in slo-mo) moved the gearshift **** out of 2nd, over an up for 3rd, but it wouldn't go into 3rd! I tried not to panic and get it back to second, but it was resistant! I could feel the car loosing momentum and I just shoved it hard into second in the braking zone! I couldn't believe this just happened. I probably lost a half second coasting in the fastest part of the course while searching for a gear! I made it through the finish with no improvement over my first time. I was so disappointed.
Jeff improved another 2/10ths on his last run, so Corey's final run was a going to be an all-or-nothing run. He had quite a bit of time to make up to catch Jeff and now with the worry about the tranny again, but had almost completely secured 2nd place. His start was really fast and he looked good up until the entrance to the long slalom, as he got past the 2nd cone, it went flying! You could hear the crowd collectively go "Oh!" Corey knew he'd hit it, and decided to have fun with what was left and entered the sweeper before the fast section hot, foot to the floor, 4-wheel power-sliding it around the left-hander. Unfortunately on the straight the car wouldn't give him 3rd gear either and he jammed it back into 2nd, getting the car a little tail happy through the finish, nailing 3 more cones along the way.
<img src="http://www.imolaracing.com/images/Nats2002/995L0951.jpg">
In the end I regressed 8 spots into 18th place overall. Had my middle run been clean, I would have garnered one of the last trophies <sigh>. Corey's second place finish was no small conquest given the competition. Street Mod as a class is still young, and this year the competition was much stiffer than last year and we expect it will be even more so for next year.
<a href="http://www.scca.org/amateur/solo2/nationals/2002/results/sm.html">Street Mod Final Results</a>
<img src="http://www.imolaracing.com/images/Nats2002/995L0948.jpg">
About T-minus 3 weeks before the event (what, isn't this advance enough planning?), we repacked the rear diff. We'd been having problems with it all year loosening up, after all, it'd been in the car for over a year without rebuild, so it was due (overdue) for a rebuild.
We had a test-n-tune autocross at Atwater scheduled for 2 weeks before nationals to be able to test out how the diff now would handle. We also wanted to experiment with some other spring and spring perch configurations. The good news is that the diff was great, it was packed much tighter than it ever was and made a noticeable improvement. Unfortunately, the car was otherwise handling a little awkwardly. Lots of body roll, more pushing than we expected. We fiddled with springs, ride heights, sway bars. Other people at the event were even commenting on how the car didn't look as good as it had been at prior events. We fiddled some more. Finally a friend pinpointed it to the drivers front corner. There was way too much shock travel there; we'd blown out the shock. 2 weeks before nationals. Ugh. Now, we use a inversely mounted Koni 3012 series shock that had been valved for us back in the days of Vortrag. Fortunately for us, at the time we got these shocks, Vortrag had done another set for testing on Paul Lambert's A4 touring car. Paul's shocks have certainly evolved since then, so these were not currently being used. And for whatever reason, Corey actually had the presence of mind to bring them to the event. A bit more time under the car in the hot central California sun, and we were back to testing. By the end of the weekend, we were reasonably happy with the car, it did some things better than it ever had, but was a little slower in the slaloms. The test-n-tune course had tons of long sweepers, which aren't good for the Audi, but we were within a couple tenths of the fastest M3's (two of which we consider serious contendors for Nat's).
When we got back from the test-n-tune event, we knew we'd want to send our shocks back into Koni for revalving. And, heck, if you're going to redo them, why not do it with different valving? We were running at the top of the range for rebound and near the top on compression, so there were definite improvements to be made. But, could we get a new set in by nationals? And if we could, would we be able to actually tune them to be useful to us? It took a dozen of events to dial the shocks in when we first got them. We talked to Paul about what we wanted in the shock and brainstormed some ideas. Paul then sent them off to Koni's racing group and talked with some folks over there. Koni decided that in order to get the valving that we were looking for, they may have to design a new internal part. We were crossing our fingers that they'd come back in time.
While the shocks were sent off, we took the car back up to Design It Prototype in Rohnert Park because the AWE exhaust headers had come in! We were obviously pretty damn excited by this, and heck, if we're going to be redoing the suspension at the last minute, why the hell not add a bunch more hp and torque too! So, out came the engine. Larry at Design It fabricated some new spring perches (which turned out very nice!), and new rear brake caliper brackets, not to mention helped us off and on with the header install. We'd also talked to GIAC who said that they would send us the new 100 octane race program for the K04s. Lastly, we were planning on finally yanking the UUC VM2 exhaust from the car! We had some plans for a couple different exhausts, one being simply straight pipes from the turbo back. We chose to use AWE's downpipes into a 2-into-1 merge collector to feed into a single 3.5" pipe all the way back, no mufflers. While we had the car apart, we also managed to find about 35lbs in misc weight reduction here and there.
It was going to be a whole new car. We were really amped for the new changes, but at the same time a little concerned that we were changing so much on the car at 11th hour.
We planned to leave Tuesday night after labor day. We finally got the car running (still without the newly valved shocks and with no exhaust) the day before labor day. We took it out for a quick late night test drive, hoping not to attract any attention with the loud, yellow car with stickers all over it. I took it out first ... it was OMIGOD fast. There were some mild curves in an industrial area, then a bit of a straight. When I got to the straight, I swear I saw the boost gauge nearly pegged (ours tops out at 30psi). That can't be. I pull a U-turn and head back to the shop, this time making a point of watching the boost gauge. Sure enough I see 28psi! Corey took it out next and confirmed the boost gauge reading, but when he brought the car back, we could smell clutch. He said the clutch slipped in 3rd a bit. Not sure if that was a driver induced, or are we really making that much power. The clutch is reasonably fresh (RS4 clutch and pressure plate, mated to AWE's lightweight flywheel). That made us a little nervous, given that we have dozens of drag launches coming up, but we crossed our fingers and packed the car into the trailer. On the Tuesday after labor day, the car got its new exhaust (we wouldn't drive or hear it until we got to Topeka) and we received our shocks from Koni, we'd have to do the install in Topeka. Our work wasn't done yet.
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We bring a lot of things with us to events, and for nationals, even more. We had 2 fresh sets of Hoosiers mounted on the FM/10s and a set of worn Kuhmo EcSTA street tires on the FM/5s in case of rain. We had the second set of shocks, 2 sets of rear springs at different rates, probably a couple pairs of fronts with different rates and lengths, misc helper springs and tender springs. Spare sway bar, misc brake parts, wheel spacers, spare GIAC software (street gas) and another spare ECU. Enough brake, engine, diff, tranny fluid to drain a fill several cars. We were concerned with hoses due to the high psi we're now running, so we placed a panic call to ACHTUN!NG and they overnighted us some spare Samcos just in case. And fuel; lots of Sunoco 104.
Unlike last year, after about 1900 miles, we arrived in Topeka without incident Thursday night, 9/5. Also unlike last year, we arrived in Topeka with very little seat time in the car this year. At this point last year, we had attended 30 autox's, this year only 5! We planned to get up early Friday to set ourselves up in the paddock, do the shock swap and a pre-event once over, not to mention needing a full alignment. Practice starts for the ProSolo would begin at 2:00. The swap took a little longer than we anticipated, as we re-thought some of our spring options (plus stopping and saying hello to people as they arrived while the temps and humidity were getting pretty high). Once the car was back off jackstands, around 4:30pm, Corey sat in it to re-align the shifter (which had been disconnected to drop the engine, but we didn't have time to align it perfectly before we left home).
We go up to take our practice starts. Corey goes first. He does 3 runs, OK reaction times, 60' times in the 1.7-1.8 range and 200' times around 4.8+ range. His shifts to 2nd are slow and he missed it on his third launch. He coasted the car back to grid, and couldn't get it into 1st or 2nd gear. Big uh oh. Finally, Corey gets it into first, and heads back to the paddock to make some adjustments to the shifter. It seemed to take him a while to do this, he couldn't get it to his liking. Finally, mostly satisfied, he takes it for a spin around the paddock to make sure it's OK. He's gone for a while, stopping to readjust it a couple times. Finally he comes back with a serious look on his face and says something's not right, and he thinks its the tranny. At a stop, the car doesn't want to be shifted into 1st and will go into 2nd with some effort. Once the car is moving, it gets into 2nd easier, but I wouldn't call it smooth. Other gears seem more normal. We're not happy and Corey leaves me with the car to do my starts while he gets on the phone to see what are our options to get a tranny as a backup.
I hop in the car for my starts and decide that this is simply going to be mind over matter. My first start is a little awkward, just getting used to the car's feel and sound now, and the shift to 2nd is rough. I take 3 or 4 more runs and I'm getting faster and it seems to be getting into 2nd a little easier. I'm doing consistent .5xx reactions and 1.7 60' times and nail a couple 4.5xx 200' times. The announcer says that I've got the fastest times of any vehicle with fenders! This boosts my confidence in the car and I head back to our paddock spot to find Corey.
While I was practicing, Corey called the local Audi dealer (yes, there's an Audi dealer in Topeka, KS!), but it was well after 5:00 on a Friday, service was closed. The dealer's GM sounded willing to help, but didn't have a tranny. We thought we may be able to use them if we got parts (rather than a whole tranny). We called Bryon, who said he thought Sonnen had a new tranny and also located a used one for us at a junk yard, also in California. These could be shipped Saturday, for Monday delivery, if required. We also called our friend Tim at Champion who said they didn't have a whole tranny, but probably had parts for 1st and 2nd and could help walk us through a rebuild if needed. We decided we'd run the Saturday morning heat at the Pro and then decide if we wanted to have equipment shipped to us. We had Monday off, so we knew we could work then to try to get the car up before the Solo2 nationals which began on Tuesday.
As we left the site Friday, we see another Imola S4 roll in and contemplate scavenging his tranny when he's not watching. It turns out this car belongs to Kinch Reindl(?) from Colorado who is competing in D-Stock.
Going into the ProSolo Finale, Corey is tied with 2 others for first place: Dennis Grant in an Eagle Talon and Fejda Jeleskovic in another Talon. While not in the running for the top spot, but still worrisome, are Vic Sias in a 96 M3 and Mark Daddio in a turbocharged Dodge Neon, both national champions last year in other classes . We normally have an advantage in the ProSolo due to the drag race start, but we knew that we'd now go up against these Talons from the east which should be able to hang with us off the line (in fact, Dennis is an experienced drag racer and even had a launch control system in his car).
We have 2 heats on Saturday, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Our morning runs went pretty smoothly. I laid down some quick times, but all dirty; this lets me know I'm in the running, though I appeared low in the results after the first set. Corey has quicker runs, but dirty on the right side course, so he's sitting in second place with Vic in first. The tranny is not getting any better, but it's not really getting any worse. In fact, on Saturday, Corey nailed a 1.6xx 60' time which stood as the fastest 60' time for the event! The clutch is holding out just fine with the repeated 5000-5500rpm launches; no hints of slipping.
On Saturday afternoon, the field generally improves. I had some good runs and nailed .5xx reaction times on all my runs and even had a 1.70 60' time, the only faster one all weekend was Corey's. I cleaned up my left side which moved me up to 5th place, Corey is sitting in 2nd only thousands back due to more cones (his scratch time would have had him clearly in the lead), but Vic moved to 3rd and Dennis was now in the top spot (Fedja was in 4th).
On Sunday, both Corey and I had to concentrate on improving our times on the right side course. Corey had a 26.8 on the left, I had a 26.9, but both our right side times were in the 27.xxx range, lots of room to improve. Corey's first run on Sunday was on the right, and he came back with a sloppy 27.1xx on cold tires. He then moved over to the left side and hit a 26.513! That 3/10th improvement puts him into the lead. He has one more pair of runs against Dennis to go. Corey hits a cone on his last left side run which would have been a 26.3xx, but gains no improvement overall. Corey's lead is small, so he needs to get a solid, clean run on the right while we hope that Dennis's time doesn't improve. Corey lines up against Dennis for one last shot, but just as the last yellow light is illuminating, Corey jumps and the red light comes on! He continues on for a decent run, but he knows it won't count and we're crossing our fingers that when Dennis comes back he doesn't see an improvement. Unfortunately, Dennis hit a 26.4 on the left side, putting him just 27 THOUSANDTHS ahead of Corey for the win! We were disappointed for sure (in hindsight Corey said that he launched on the 2nd yellow light, rather than the 3rd, simple brainfart :-( ), I tried to clear my head before taking my runs.
My last runs were solo due to a mechanical problem with the neon I was supposed to run against. My first pair of runs would have been mild improvements, but I hit cones on both. I was trying to concentrate on how I'd take the right side course, so when I started on my last left side run I was probably more relaxed about it and came back with a 26.522, faster than all but Corey and Dennis! OK, now all I needed was a decent right side time, and a clean one. It wasn't going to happen, though, because whatever curse Corey had on the right side hit me and I jumped the start on what would have been a 4/10ths improvement! I ended up sitting on a slow right side time, because all my others included cones. Ugh. Fortunately, my good left side time was enough to bump me up to 4th place, probably our only silver lining for the day.
<img src="http://www.imolaracing.com/images/Nats2002/99226804.jpg">
Due to the small margin of victory Dennis had, both he and Corey advanced to the Open Challenge. This is a single elimination run off, where the top drivers in each class run against each other based on their class's dial-in. Corey made it 2 rounds before hitting a cone and being eliminated.
Honda sponsors a similar event for the "street" classes (the top drivers from STS, STX, and SM). Corey eliminated his first competitor and lined up against a STX WRX for his second round. Corey started on the right side, while the WRX left first due to its slower dial in and he beat Corey back. We were confident Corey could advance, since he'd now move to the left side, where we drove better and faster. As the tree came down, the WRX jumped his start and lit the red light -- and automatic loss! At least that's what the announcer first said; then they announced a timing error and said the last runs would be re-run?!? But, the rules say a red light is an automatic DNF. According to the officials, the dial-ins were not properly set, so that Corey's lights would have been off. The officials called for an immediate rerun without time to cool or readjust tire pressures. On the rerun, Corey was eliminated :-( We went to discuss the call with the officials afterwards, to point out that the WRX started normally and red lit -- an automatic DNF -- and that the timing error didn't impact him. If there was a bad timing input it would have only affected Corey's run .... but obviously nothing could be done after the fact (though they did finally concede that we had a point). <sigh> Not our happiest day racing :-(
<a href="http://www.scca.org/amateur/solo2/prosolo/2002/finale/results.html">SCCA ProSolo Finale Results</a>
//////////////////////
On Monday, 9/10, was our "down" day. We didn't race until Tuesday, so we could do whatever prep work was needed to the car (including a bath at the local coin op car wash). We'd had dinner the night before with some friends, one of whom, Annie Gill, was looking to find a last minute ride for the Solo2 nationals. She normally competes in a Type R in D-Stock Ladies, but was frustrated with the car and her performance at the ProSolo Finale, and she was hoping to run another class for fun. We told her that she might be able to hop in the yellow car and run Street Mod Ladies (as I run in open) if we take the car out for a check on Monday and all seemed well. The surface at the site was not harsh on tires, so we had lots of tread to go and plenty of fuel. Our concern, of course, was with the tranny.
We walked the courses on Monday. The South course (<a href="http://www.pbase.com/image/4927875">South Course Map</a>) looked to be harder for us at first glance. Almost a drag race start went into a tight slalom then into a sweeper, then it seemed like you were just doing fast short section + 180 over and over with an awkward curving slalom in the middle. The North course (<a href="http://www.pbase.com/image/4927874">North Course Map</a>) was much more open and full of slaloms; we would even need 3rd gear which is pretty rare at a national event. We thought the North course would be much more to our liking and were looking forward to running on it.
Given the 3rd gear shift, we took Annie out in the car Monday to let her drive, see how the car felt. Apart from 1st gear and a little roughness into 2nd, all seemed well, even up to 120mph :-) . Annie is no stranger to the S4, she had one up till a few months ago (which was sold to buy a tow vehicle.... seems to be a common occurrence these days :-). One advantage to Annie driving was that she would run 2 heats before us and we could see how the car looked and responded to the course and get Annie's feedback.
Annie's first run was a little loose, what with cold tires (and running first thing in the morning) and harder, later boost onset than she's used to , but she adapted to the car quickly and after the first day of competition was sitting very comfortably in 2nd place barely 1/10th of a second out of 1st place (which was occupied by last year's winner, Karen Rafferty in a Supra).
<a href="http://www.scca.org/amateur/solo2/nationals/2002/results/sml.html">Street Mod Ladies Results</a>
<img src="http://www.imolaracing.com/images/Nats2002/99227223.jpg">
We got one more chance to walk the course before we ran and we walked with Annie so that we could get her feedback on where the car pushed, where it gripped, etc. There were 43 cars signed up for Street Mod, so the grid seemed huge; lots of BMWs (E30, E36 and E46 M3s), Civics, a Cobb-tuned WRX sporting 285 tires, a couple high hp Supras, not a lot of pony-cars and only 2 neons (though the one driven by Mark Daddio had been picked to win). We knew that our main competition was going to come from Jeff Reitmeir, a NorCal local with 7 national championships under his belt. He and co-driver, Gary Richardson, had started down the path with a SM-tuned TT, but decided that they would have to do a lot of development work on that car to make it competitive and opted to go with a supercharged 95 M3 only a couple months before nationals.
I was pretty nervous my first go at the course; I kept running through the course in my mind, making sure I had it "straight" in my head. My goal was to get into the trophies (top 12). I ran a decent, if a bit conservative time. Corey's first run was much faster, well over a second ahead of me. We figured the leaders would be into the 47.xxx range, I knew I needed to get to the 48s at least. Jeff Reitmeir's first run put him into the lead, just a couple tenths ahead of Corey. On my second run, I charged the start a bit more; not quite a ProSolo launch, but maybe side stepping at around 3000rpm. This helped propel me ahead as I dropped a half second, but I was still above the 49.0 mark. Corey's second time was a smoking 47.7, but he hit a cone, leaving the door open for Jeff, and Jeff's second run was a high 47.9, stretching his lead just a bit. I had a decent final run, finally getting into the 48s with a 48.8. Jeff went out for his final run and improved just a few hundredths. We knew Corey needed a fast, clean final run (yeah, what else is new) to have a shot at first. But, we had to place a lot of emphasis on clean. He pulled off the run, cleanly and reasonably fast: a 47.8. This put Corey into the lead -- barely -- by 0.013 seconds! My last run left me in 10th place overall. I knew I'd left a lot of time out there, so I was optimistic that I could maybe inch up some spots on day 2.
<img src="http://www.imolaracing.com/images/Nats2002/995L0800.jpg">
Looking at the North course, we thought it would favor the Audi with long fast sections and slaloms. The Audi is usually geared so that 2nd is all we needed, but looking at the area marked "Dire Straights" on the map, we knew we'd definitely need 3rd. Unfortunately, as much as the North course looked to benefit us, we knew it'd benefit any larger, higher hp cars like the M3s and Supras.
We walked the course again on Wednesday morning with Annie. The temps were cooler than they'd been over the weekend, so she had the benefit of the power, but again her first run would have pretty cold tires. Annie ran before Karen Rafferty and threw down a fast time on her first run out there, more than a second ahead of the 3rd place car. Unfortunately, Karen came out and ran a time of about that margin faster than Annie. This course was definitely to Karen and her Supra's liking. Annie and Karen went back and forth for their next pair: Annie would inch ahead, then Karen would take the lead. On Annie's last run, she improved a couple more tenths, however, it wasn't enough to get past Karen's 2nd run. But, Annie would still take home the 2nd place trophy after driving a car she'd only first driven a couple days before!
We walked the North course one last time and I tried to absorb it. The course had some obvious fast features, but had only subtle clues as to how to really get down to the low times. We also had to be wary of the bumpiness. We thought about making compression adjustments in anticipation of the slaloms, but decided against that due to the surface conditions. The South course was bumpy, but the North course was worse.
I had a mediocre first run. It felt fast for an autocross, because the course was fast, but
there was a ton more time out there. I'd made some small mistakes, a little too far off some significant cones, but those small mistakes were much more costly on this course than they had been on the South course. Corey's first run started out looking very fast, but at the far turnaround (just before a long slalom), he entered too fast to properly set up the exit and consequently shot past a couple cones, DNFing his run. Meanwhile, Jeff Reitmeir had set down a very fast first run of 49.4. I concentrated on my entrances to the fast sections on my second run and entered the fast 6 cone slalom faster, but started to get behind and ended up checking up midway through and nailing a cone, then hitting another in the slalom before the finish. My scratch time was a half second improvement, but would do me no good with 2 cones. Corey's second run would be a little faster than Jeff's first run, but Jeff went out and hit a 7/10ths improvement on his second run!
I was determined to nail a fast run my last time out. The first half of the run I was doing well and it felt fast. I started to get behind again in the long slalom, but held onto it into the sweeper before the very fast 3rd gear section. I exited the sweeper, lined up the car and (it felt like this happened in slo-mo) moved the gearshift **** out of 2nd, over an up for 3rd, but it wouldn't go into 3rd! I tried not to panic and get it back to second, but it was resistant! I could feel the car loosing momentum and I just shoved it hard into second in the braking zone! I couldn't believe this just happened. I probably lost a half second coasting in the fastest part of the course while searching for a gear! I made it through the finish with no improvement over my first time. I was so disappointed.
Jeff improved another 2/10ths on his last run, so Corey's final run was a going to be an all-or-nothing run. He had quite a bit of time to make up to catch Jeff and now with the worry about the tranny again, but had almost completely secured 2nd place. His start was really fast and he looked good up until the entrance to the long slalom, as he got past the 2nd cone, it went flying! You could hear the crowd collectively go "Oh!" Corey knew he'd hit it, and decided to have fun with what was left and entered the sweeper before the fast section hot, foot to the floor, 4-wheel power-sliding it around the left-hander. Unfortunately on the straight the car wouldn't give him 3rd gear either and he jammed it back into 2nd, getting the car a little tail happy through the finish, nailing 3 more cones along the way.
<img src="http://www.imolaracing.com/images/Nats2002/995L0951.jpg">
In the end I regressed 8 spots into 18th place overall. Had my middle run been clean, I would have garnered one of the last trophies <sigh>. Corey's second place finish was no small conquest given the competition. Street Mod as a class is still young, and this year the competition was much stiffer than last year and we expect it will be even more so for next year.
<a href="http://www.scca.org/amateur/solo2/nationals/2002/results/sm.html">Street Mod Final Results</a>
<img src="http://www.imolaracing.com/images/Nats2002/995L0948.jpg">
09-20-2002, 04:24 PM
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Here it is, but you get only one pic
<center><img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/757/sharon3.jpg"></center><p>Make lots of changes to car at last minute, drive from Calif to Kansas to race at nationals, the tranny starts to go, don't drive as well as we'd hoped, but generally OK, Corey 2nd & Sharon 4th in ProSolo Finale; Corey 2nd & Sharon 18th in Solo2 Championships; Annie borrows car for SML and gets 2nd; trailer breaks down on way home. The end.
