Postby KPAero » Mon Jan 14, 2013 11:38 am
As always, I had a good time driving my old 900 Turbo, that is now Marcel's car. Like Jordan said, the conditions Saturday were very slick in the morning, but the snow and ice was mostly gone for the afternoon and I had aired down the front tires and was getting some good grip from an older set of winterforces. Our windows stayed clear and luckily, we had put on some new wipers for the event which helped keep the outside clear of all the muddy water splashing around.
Marcel put down some quick times on two runs that would have put him second in class under auto-x scoring, but those were balanced out by a couple messy runs. On Saturday I ended up third in class out of the 12 that were in stock front.
Sunday the conditions were still muddy, but much faster with two really fun courses. Marcel drove more consistently and took second in class out of 9?, a result he was very happy with. I had a couple moments of not so brilliant driving, including stalling the car after braking too hard while off the throttle coming into a particularly soupy corner. Despite the rest of the morning runs feeling good, the times were all very close and that put me towards the back. Then on the final run the two allen heads that hold the throttle to the firewall loosened enough that the peddle shifted and was jammed shut by the heater valve. This happened after setting up for a long sweeper and I nearly looped it when the car wouldn't power out of the slide, limping through the rest of the course I ended up in last. But the course was great and I had a blast.
The car came away a bit bruised after one rear shock busted through the sheet metal. This occurred sometime late saturday, but we didn't investigate the clunk until it worsened when going on a coffee run Sunday morning as we first thought the exhaust was rubbing somewhere from a broken hanger.
Josh Menke's Mercedes was great to watch, and he was having a great time driving. After trailing a BMW e36 in his class all day he was able to take the lead on the last run that was run in complete darkness. I had to stop him on course when he actually caught the BMW that was running ahead of him, not an easy task on a Rallyx course.
I am intimately familiar with the locations of the roll bar tubing in that car.
