Lucerne Valley, CA Endurance Rallycross 2014
Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 1:14 pm
I took my '85 900T to this event over the weekend, and had a ton of fun.
The way it ran was driver's had scheduled 30 minute windows. Flag dropped and you got 25 minutes to do as many laps as possible, with last lap flag coming in at around 24 minutes, then a 5 minute buffer to re-set gates and line up the next driver.
It made for an excellent car shakedown course, as well as a taste of what performance stage rallies are actually like with more seat time all in a row and put a lot more emphasis on vehicle prep.
It was a pretty long, pretty fast course on very hard packed dry lake bed. Hard clay surface with a ton of grip. With about 14 psi of boost if I rolled on too early coming out of a corner in 3rd I could get one front wheel spinning. If I was pointed straight it would almost hook up in 2nd. Coming down the front I was hitting about 85 mph before I had to brake for the first set of gates, one of the fastest trap times of the day.
I was running very strongly, neck and neck for 3rd fastest overall (I was running faster than 3 of the 4 Subarus at the time), then on lap 14 about 18 mins in my coolant expansion tank split and it was race time over for Drew.
The GoPro footage needs edited some, and I'll post a video link when I get a chance.
Results are here, I'm in the middle, "Price."
"Woodruff" who won overall, was running a stripped out 1st generation Mazda Miata on street tires...
There was probably 2/3rds the traction of running on concrete on this surface, you could hear tires squealing if you went in too hot. Very strange feeling driving on dirt / clay and being able to howl the tires. If I had known better I would have left my street tires on the car.
Renting the U-haul trailer was a good choice...
Prepared for battle.
On-site.
Yup, Saabs are cool. Cool swag from eEuro helps too!
Fast course. I was hitting about 85 mph coming into the start gate before the first braking zone.
Why did my windshield get all wet?
Glamour shots.
These were nearly brand new before I started. There was enough grip that I started to chunk the treadblocks off these Fireston Winterforce's.
Sport & Rally, baby.
The way it ran was driver's had scheduled 30 minute windows. Flag dropped and you got 25 minutes to do as many laps as possible, with last lap flag coming in at around 24 minutes, then a 5 minute buffer to re-set gates and line up the next driver.
It made for an excellent car shakedown course, as well as a taste of what performance stage rallies are actually like with more seat time all in a row and put a lot more emphasis on vehicle prep.
It was a pretty long, pretty fast course on very hard packed dry lake bed. Hard clay surface with a ton of grip. With about 14 psi of boost if I rolled on too early coming out of a corner in 3rd I could get one front wheel spinning. If I was pointed straight it would almost hook up in 2nd. Coming down the front I was hitting about 85 mph before I had to brake for the first set of gates, one of the fastest trap times of the day.
I was running very strongly, neck and neck for 3rd fastest overall (I was running faster than 3 of the 4 Subarus at the time), then on lap 14 about 18 mins in my coolant expansion tank split and it was race time over for Drew.
The GoPro footage needs edited some, and I'll post a video link when I get a chance.
Results are here, I'm in the middle, "Price."
"Woodruff" who won overall, was running a stripped out 1st generation Mazda Miata on street tires...
There was probably 2/3rds the traction of running on concrete on this surface, you could hear tires squealing if you went in too hot. Very strange feeling driving on dirt / clay and being able to howl the tires. If I had known better I would have left my street tires on the car.
Renting the U-haul trailer was a good choice...
Prepared for battle.
On-site.
Yup, Saabs are cool. Cool swag from eEuro helps too!
Fast course. I was hitting about 85 mph coming into the start gate before the first braking zone.
Why did my windshield get all wet?
Glamour shots.
These were nearly brand new before I started. There was enough grip that I started to chunk the treadblocks off these Fireston Winterforce's.
Sport & Rally, baby.