mwood

I forgot about the bagged one's PAX issues...never mind

You running with SFR tomorrow? Looks like it could be a wet one, I guess I'll find out how good (or not) the oem tires work in the rain.

TeamRX8

iTrader: (25)

no, I had to go out of town and the Konis are out being rebuilt

my only issue with the pax is people trying to use it like it was handed down by God on the mountain top

TeamRX8

iTrader: (25)

ULLLOSE

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Try not to beat mwood to bad, I would hate for him to have a reason to fix the car before the tour.

mwood

The only thing that may be found out is who has the best rain tires...it's coming down pretty good, now

I also don't have a co-driver tomorrow, that won't help things. Maybe I'll enlist CRX Millenium, if he's up for it...

mwood

Didn't happen, BS was .3 or so quicker than CS...but, I think Ron took me by .001 on PAX...it was really close. Of course, if Kevin had been clean, he would have been right on my time and won the PAX battle by a couple of tenths...

Thanks to CRX Millenium for co-driving, heat in the tires was a big deal, with cold temps. At least we we able to get in our first two runs on a dry course. Last run was just wet enough to make it a D1 driftfest

TeamRX8

iTrader: (25)

WRT your pre-edited comment, you won't always be running on cold asphalt so we'll see who takes a big bite from the crow pie first

not to mention that none of this has anything to do with the Dixie Tour Jim thought it would rain today, not sure if it did or not, Carter was again fastest for the day and brought home the win

rotor-te-rex

Day 2 and Final results in B Stock:
Thompson, Carter: 40.1, 37.736,43.076(3)...75.797
Hertweck: 38.491, 38.200, dnf................. 77.019
Robertson M3:39.571, 43.021(2), 38.430 77.278
Buckley: 38.727,40.961(1), 38.638.............77.851
Thompson, Jim 40.644, 41.579, 39.552...... 79.587
Graham 350Z: 40.918, 40.668, 40.030........80.189

I had an 83 flat something in 5th in STU (41.2 first run!), 3 tenths out of a 4th place trophy in a class of 10. Never heard of the winner and the nearest next trophiers were only 36th and 39th at Nationals last year.

The only reason I finished that high was a good first run on day 2. It rained half way through my 3rd run and nobody's 3rd was any good to catch me. I was 8th on day one, but the first day's course had a long "straight" with minor offsets disguising it that aided the STis. Day 2 course had slaloms from the get go so it gave me a chance to catch up. Glad I got some dry runs on day 2!

Also interesting is that Mike Cavanaugh of 350Z B Stock note got a 5th place trophy in a big BSP with no more than wheel mods!! 77.157

rotor-te-rex

It did not rain on B Stock in Heat 3. I was waiting at the start line, one car behind another RX-8 (says RX-7 in results) hoping they would start before the slight sprinkle got worse. I still thought we had a chance at a good 3rd run but the sky opened up mid-run...so much so that I put the windshield wipers on full speed.

Bummer. Odd thing was it stopped after Heat 4 and Heat 5 actually dried off pretty quickly due to the wind and short rainy spell. That was the only rain of the day (and weekend) in Heat 4, during our 3rd run. A Stock and C Stock got screwed on their 3rd runs as well.

mwood

You know, as soon as I posted, I thought "what a bad thread hijack"...sorry, Dixie Tour is the subject at hand!

btw, I'm not saying the HoHo's are "all that", just that they haven't sucked...

Congrats to Carter for taking the win. I'd love to hear his thoughts relative to comparing the '8 with the 350Z, particularly now that the new 350Z seems to be even more competitive, on paper.

rotor-te-rex

Have no idea what tires they had but obviously were using Aaron's car, I guess. They probably have the same trouble as everyone else trying to change your tire brand on SCCA.com. Mine and CJ's say Kumho and Falken. Gary Meredith says Hoosier in STX!

Course was mostly offsets and slaloms. Not sure why ES and DS were faster in PAX.....Carpenter and Danny Carroll who trophied at Nationals as a 16 year old! The kid is a phenom. G Stock was very close but all the offsets and slaloms were perfect for it. Per Shroeder did not show up in the 2007 car, though.

Lots of folks coned away good first day performances on day 2 or vice versa. Tom Austin coned all his runs on day 1. Reyenga was 3rd in a tought STS2 but screwed up on day 2. Same thing for Jesse Naughton in SM2.

Ian Stewart was awesome as usual, and the Maxcy GT3 was close but no cigar. There were several new Z06 and Ian said he had previously driven the new one and could not provoke oversteer with too much throttle, but could with drop throttle!

The turbo Solstice looked slow, even with Donna Franks driving it.

NoCones

It's my car and we were on 245 Kumho's.

Bryan

mwood

^I thought you guys were going to run the 285 Hoosier, but I guess not...any thoughts of giving them a try this season?

Also, congrats to my pal Ian Stewart...talk about putting a major smackdown on the field, it looks (on first glance) that he's going to kill PAX, as well

CRX Millennium

iTrader: (1)

Thank god that mwood answered the throw-down challenge from Great NW folks. Otherwise, we may never hear the end of it in SFR region & from ULLLOSE =)

I think my co-driver was also sandbagging, until SD Tour, to make it a bit more interesting for the local folks It was my pleasure to be a part of your plot today. Much to learn.

NoCones

Aaron ran the 285's on my car in Topeka, but we decided to go back to Kumho...now that we know how to get the 285's on, I might try those later this year.

Ian was great through the cones, but he was nothing but an ATM in our poker game Saturday night.

Bryan

PedalFaster

I wasn't there, but generically speaking, low-powered cars generally PAX better on speed maintenance courses because they don't lose as much time in acceleration zones.

How so? It gained six horses this year, but lost torque, and didn't shed lost any of the 150 lbs. it gained in 2006...

NoCones

yeah...I seem to recall speaking to an ES MR2 driver who said he didn't need the brakes until he was halfway through the course on Sunday...I had hit mine 2-3 times in the same span

mwood

I was told that it gained 20hp and that the Sport package now has larger width rim sizes. I didn't know about the weight gain, which seems to be an epidemic in the auto industry

MX-5RACER

Getting no dry third run really makes me second guess going conservative on my second run, oh well. Nice driving to Clay (CS BTW guys). I might be going to to AL event, but I am not sure right now. If so, see you all out there again.

rotor-te-rex

You didn't go into 3rd gear did you? One of the Subie guys posted elsewhere that he hit 3rd several times on course but maybe they have lower gearing in 2nd.

BTW, thanks to you and Aaron for the "frictionless rollers" thing on your sponsorship. I cringed every time I heard that announcer mention it.
I'll have to think of a good comeback for next year.

You guys were cruel to rob penniless Ian of what little money he has. Next time you will need to wager 245/35-18 Hoosiers since he seems to have a warehouse of those somewhere for Peter.

NoCones

We didn't go to 3rd...multiple rev limiter hits going into the Sunday turnaround though.

We were also using 1st gear in the turnaround...I used it on my last run Sat and all 3 on Sunday (I think Aaron only tried it on Sun run 2 and run 3...somehow he made the downshift nicely, but butchered the upshift both times)...Thompson's didn't use 1st Sat, but eventually did on Sun...including on Carter's dirty 37.0

Hey, Ian came and opened his wallet willingly...

rotor-te-rex

First gear has been my secret weapon against my son for some time now.

But I figured that the Sunday turnaround was increasing radius so was not as necessary, so tried it once, but then got rained on 3rd run so decided not to try. Plus my extra weight helps me maintain more speed on left U-turns.

I noted that Andy Hollis ran two 27.0 flats in the Cone Clinic while driving with my 200 lb son. While driving with me later on he managed only 27.5 and 27.2 due to my extra 50 lbs. Admittedly he did not seem to be driving at Ian Stewart levels of out of control intensity or hard off the line. But there still seemed a clear weight factor.

Congrats on beating Aaron. I'm surprised you got the car fixed so fast and with no alignment issues. Did they use camber bolts to fix it? Don't recall anyone ever mentioning them.

NoCones

Thanks...it's been a while since I beat that bastard.

The suspension wasn't touched in the repairs.

PedalFaster

Ah. The car was widely reported as having gained ~20 hp, but Nissan's official specifications only say 6. I wonder if some of the additional power was "lost" in a conversion to the new SAE measuring standards... just a guess.

As for the wider wheels, there are now wider wheels available... in a 19" diameter. That will be interesting once more 19" R-compound tires become available, but until then it's a wash.

John V

iTrader: (1)

Camber bolts on an RX-8?