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mike v. mike (autocross battle #1)

towerymt

the real Towery
Joined
Sep 18, 2002
Location
VA, USA
Today at Carlisle, there was an autocross held by the Appalachian Sports Car Club (backed by SCCA), and we co-drove my '87 244 on street tires. It was cool but sunny, not a bad day for driving fast. The course was technical and the car generally lacked rear grip in relation to front grip. Rarely was understeer a problem. On my out-lap (pace lap with flying start over the start/finish), I managed to set the car sideways in the first corner without really trying at all. The format was 3 "runs", each of 3 timed laps. Total of 9 timed laps.

Best times:
MikeT:24.5xx
MikeP: 24.6xx
FTD: low 22's

Perhaps news to Mike...but after he left, Greg told me I did a 24.5 on my 2nd to last run in that 3rd set of laps. My final run was a 24.650, but apparently not my fastest. So I think I did beat you...

Pics of Mike driving:
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Round 2 is scheduled for June 11th on a larger/faster course with r-comps. It should be close again.

Greg ragging on the T5:
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At first glance, it is short. Yes, there are very few cones. But it was a very good course. Challenging.
Plus, it's like a mini road course, and you get a 3/4 warmup lap, then 3 flying timed laps of about 25 seconds each, for about a minute and a half. You do that 3 times, for a total of 9 times on the clock.
There were uphill and downhill elements, angle and surface changes, and VERY close fencing. Even the chicane boxes were way different, one being after a short uphill run, and the box was banked, the other being close after a tight hairpin, and off-camber (just prior to start/finish). After start, you bust over a drop (where I locked them up in the pretty picture) and brake hard, then do a downhill 180 then back up. This is where I ate 3 cones in a drift and knocked the letters sideways, at the end of the 180. The hairpin at the top of the hill wat tighter, but had better angle and stick. Then the surface change and angles made it all sketchy again. I loved it. I think Patches will love it, too.

I think my best time was the 3rd lap of my first heat, the first time in the car and at the course. I went kind of easy, then way hot and sloppy, then clean and quick. The rest were just having a bunch of fun, and trying lots of different lines and approaches. I have plenty to think about for a while.

Towery, will they post results on a website? Just curious. Oh, and they were confused about the 2-driver thing at first, they kept telling me I was done when I was in line the second time.
Thanks for letting me drive your car. It was well balanced, if tire-limited. Like I said, it made it more challenging, and probably safer for my first time there. Hoosiers would have made the upper fence all that much more magnetic, I think.
 
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I had fun till I lost all my boost.:-P It was fun to watch the mikes battle then see the older more experienced driver get beat!:badboy: :lol:

Just a clarification on the times, when Towery was on his last set of runs, the guy runing the time clock was on the intercom saying that Mike had 3 laps to try to beat his best time of 24.5xx and your best lap of that run was 24.65 IIRC. He then said "oh....so close".
 
gdogg16 said:
It was fun to watch the mikes battle then see the older more experienced driver get beat!:badboy: :lol:
It was more of a fair fight than I had initially expected, because of the tires. The combination of mis-matched street tires with adapters on the rear made for a combination I'd never driven hard before. I'm not used to squeezing the throttle open as much as was required on that course, either. I also never got closer than about 2-3ft from the cones at the showcase hairpin, so I think I could have driven in deeper, apexed up the hill later, and gotten on the gas earlier. On my last set of runs, I was really trying to get back on the gas while still coming out of the corner, instead of finishing the corner right at the edge of the road and THEN getting on the gas. Since I had the hard time with modulation, I knew if I got on the gas early and drifted a little, I'd run out of road. A couple times I had to slowly squeeze the throttle open when I COULD have gone foot to the floor, simply because the MS accel enrichment issue wouldn't always let me open the throttle quickly.

I regret not setting up the off camber chicane better so I could hook the drift early out onto the straight and go full opposite lock across the start/finish line, but be in the middle of the road so I could carry it out to the edge, then go the other way and thus scare the flagman AND the starter all in one motion.

On the flat chicane headed up hill, I hit the cone at the exit of the chicane (where there was no cone when we walked it). I had thought about dropping 2 off where that cone would have stood on my final run, but decided they may call me OC or for the cone again, as I clearly would have hit it if it were standing. Something I should have tried on the first set of runs.

Email Mike Louie and ask for results, as he'll probably know who to contact. I don't recall them being posted online, but I did put in a request to someone last time and got an excel attachment or something like that.
 
towerymt said:
I regret not setting up the off camber chicane better so I could hook the drift early out onto the straight and go full opposite lock across the start/finish line, but be in the middle of the road so I could carry it out to the edge, then go the other way and thus scare the flagman AND the starter all in one motion.
I tried that, but the drift was so severe in the box that on exiting the box, I could only drift the opposite way to about the middle of the track at start/finish.
 
disclaimer

It a bunch if both drivers are used to the track and the car. And if both drivers took every lap of at least one session seriously.
But it sure was fun, and that's why I went.
 
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