The fastest autocross I've ever attended (video) + Evolution School Video and Eval

[DistantTea]

Me and the wife went to the evolution school on Friday. Its worth the money for no other reason than getting seat time. Between the two of us our car saw over 60 runs in one day. The course is designed to frustrate a failure and teach patience. There's a really good thread on sccaforums.com that discusses the course design for evo in depth so I'll just post the vid of me on the second half of the day getting learned up real good bout look'n ahead. I was already down with the slalom thing, but the school greatly helped me with my arch nemesis, the fast sweeper... which I goof up somewhere in the middle usually. I'm not entirely sure its worth $220 a person for a day of running, but getting seriously professional instruction on almost EVERY run, plus seeing a national pro drive your own car to the limit is a pretty good thing and makes the money worth it.

Please save as with these videos:
http://www.bicknellmotorsports.com/video/lookaheadevo.wmv

Then this sunday I got the best competition EVER... and lost horribly, a first for this season. Yep the untouchable Project Cheap @ss got its ass handed to it by Todd Meade and his beautiful Integra Type R. That car is virtually perfect. In 2002 Jeff Brown drove that car to 1st at Nationals and Todd came in 2nd...

The course sunday was amazingly fast... designed by a Mustang driver so that he could finally see the top of his 2nd gear (80mph) it had balls to the wall full throttle corners, braking zones that sucked the contact lenses from my eyes and a slalom that took the lives of hundreds of cones and one or two timing lights. It was one of those courses where a little error coming onto a straight cost you several tenths of a second before the end and if you ever lifted on any of the straights (or failed to use third in the middle straight) you weren't going fast enough. I lost to Todd by two seconds flat. My first run was three seconds behind him, I found another second on my second run and another second on my third... then overdrove the fourth and got some good cone carnage in before the day ended. Todds car was soooo much faster in the straights and he slaloms better than me too... just a mismatch to disaster for me. I also lost to a fully prepped WRX... he had so many mods I couldn't even see the legality of his engine bay... but I lost to him by a tenth or three... so no biggie.

THE SPEEEEEEEEEED
http://www.bicknellmotorsports.com/video/WORPE2T3R.wmv

 

[JeRNuT]

verry nice. I would love to do something like that with my car

 

[DistantTea]

Why don't you? Autocross is cheap and fun... all you need to do is show up.

 

[mazdaowner123]

Nice, I can't wait to see the vids with sound. I need to work on slaloms a ton, I really lost a lot of time there, got any help? The azenis kicked ass. I ran 40 Fr/ 42 Re, and it worked well. I need that awr rear bar. The GC's should be here this week. My slaloming blows, but I did really well on the skidpad (we had a 40ft skidpad in it.) Gimme j00r skillz!

~brian

 

[DistantTea]

I didn't do as good in that slalom as I should have... I started off a bit slow and I was too far from the cones. Sometimes the fastest way through the slalom dosn't look very fast... keeping close to the cones and positioning the car rather than trying for a magazine record setting top speed through them is sometimes much faster. And then sometimes you just gotta plant your foot and hold on for dear life.

Hopefully Corksport will be helping me with my power issue... then all I gotsta do is get me some camber plates... I'm heating up that outside edge too much still... and I"m at -2.4 deg of camber in the front. The temps across the tire just using my hand are just screaming for over -3 still. Yeah the falkens are nice... but when you're mainly using that outside edge still it gets frustrating when you slip earlier than you hoped.

 

[mazdaowner123]

How'd you get -2.4 out of the fronts? What other alignment specs are you running? For power, is all you're doing the corksport exhaust? I did well yesterday, but not on the results. Got 4th, but if I hadn't hit this 1 cone at the VERY end, I would have had second. What're you gonna do about street driving with camber plates? Won't that make tire wear suck? I'm probably going to go all out for stx prep as well.

~brian

 

[DistantTea]

We have a Van to get around in outside town... be careful about tire wear if the MSP is your only car. I got -2.4 with camber bolts. My alignment is something like -2.4C fronts with lots of caster and zero toe and then -1c rears with a little toe out.

But when we installed the AWR trailing arms I must have screwed up the toe on the right rear... so we're going to strip down the struts to fix some rattling issues and do some extra work on those front end links before we take it back to the alignment shop. I probably can't afford camber plates right now.

 

[mazdaowner123]

I see, sorry to get off topic, but did you specify spring rates to GC or do they have a protege specific rate? Someone asked me what spring rates I got, and I hope I didn't just buy something that's gonna blow if the guy got like 50lbs in springs...

~brian

 

[DistantTea]

Nah, I just got the standard issue protege ground control setup... its not terribly stiff but its a good... real good upgrade. I know the fronts are 250lbs for sure... its a standard Eibach part.

 

[mazdaowner123]

Alright cool. I can't wait to get these. Our car is so amazing at autocross! What's next for your car besides exhaust? I need to do the rear sway next most likely, followed by engine mounts. I was thinking MPI Tuner for management for us, it seems like the best piggyback. Man everytime I autox I love this car more and more. I really need to learn to slalom though. An evo school should help a ton. Btw, how're your tires looking after 60 runs?

~brian

 

[DistantTea]

The outside edge of the fronts from that day are worn pretty good. Still have plenty of life but they've been moved to the rear to help even things out. Its definately does a number on your tires and brakes to run that much in one day... but the average car will only see 25 to 35 runs at an evo school... and won't see the kind of heat we did (90 degrees in KY high sun).

Next up? I desperately need those camber plates but I don't have the money for them. We already have stainless steel brake lines and a ss clutch line from Corksport. On the way is a turbo-back exhaust with a highflow, a customized intake that matches STX rules and the corksport tuning computer, modified a bit to work with the unique STX situation (no boost control) with a custom map for ass kicking. Then if we can swing it maybe a few other goodies if we can swing it.

But those camber plates... daddy needs those bad to equalize some tire wear and temperatures.

 

[mazdaowner123]

The outside edge of the fronts from that day are worn pretty good. Still have plenty of life but they've been moved to the rear to help even things out. Its definately does a number on your tires and brakes to run that much in one day... but the average car will only see 25 to 35 runs at an evo school... and won't see the kind of heat we did (90 degrees in KY high sun).

Next up? I desperately need those camber plates but I don't have the money for them. We already have stainless steel brake lines and a ss clutch line from Corksport. On the way is a turbo-back exhaust with a highflow, a customized intake that matches STX rules and the corksport tuning computer, modified a bit to work with the unique STX situation (no boost control) with a custom map for ass kicking. Then if we can swing it maybe a few other goodies if we can swing it.

But those camber plates... daddy needs those bad to equalize some tire wear and temperatures.

Cool, what difference would the brake and clutch lines make? Are you going with the 2.4" from corksport? I think I'm gonna save up and try to get a 3". How're you planning on getting the intake? Custom? I'll be doing that eventually I guess. How about you just buy 2 of everything and send one set to me (lol).

~brian

 

[DistantTea]

How about you become an official sponsor of Project Cheap @ss Mazdaspeed and get me some damn camber plates?

As far as what corksport products I get... its all up in the air until the day it ships. I'm actually looking at those bronzoil bushings... I need a better way to get back into first sometimes.

I don't expect ANY difference in the clutch line... maybe some faster disengagement... what I want out of that thing is guaranteed performance after a full day of racing. If the clutch fluid gets hot and that tube gets stretchy things get icky in the drivetrain... ok that sounds weak, but its really about all day and all week performance without the clutch feel ever changing (plus some quicker disengagement for faster shifting).

Brake lines... well brake lines are all good. Faster reaction, less fade due to tube stretch'n, better heat handl'n... a cheap and very worthwhile upgrade for any car.

 

[dolphin]

I enjoyed the Evo school. I sent my daughter and son both to the school. It seems to have helped them both autocrossing and on the street. I used the Miata at the first school, and the MP3 at the second. My daughter used the MP3 and and my son used the MSP.

 

[JDuncan]

I spy Papa Johns Cardinal Stadium. I will assume you met my wife and saw my MSP then. Are you gonna drive down for the Ft. Knox event on 5-30? I think you would enjoy it.

 

[DistantTea]

Holy crap I just realized that was the same Cindy! No I didn't see her MSP. I thought she had an SVT Contour there... shod in Continental Extreme Contacts no less. Maybe that was someone elses.

I don't really come down to KY events... I have soooo many events up here in ohio within an hour drive... WOR, Cincy, OVR, CiSCC... so many events I can't go for points at all of them. The farthest south I go is KY speedway and I haven't been there yet this year.

 

[JDuncan]

You are right. She did drive the Contour out on Friday. She had the MSP out there Saturday and Sunday. Doh. I will tell you that Ft. Knox is worth the drive... 60-70 second courses with plenty of speed and technical features with everyone ususally getting 5 runs and sometimes 6.


You should come on down. I think Cindy is going to be running a friends 240 in Sparta next weekend, and I may bring the 1st gen up, as I need two events to keep it Mazdaspeed certified. I'll watch for you!

 

[Notorious_V.I.C]

Autocross is cheap and fun... all you need to do is show up.

Really? I guess the price ranges from state to state?!?

 

[low_psi]

Houston entry fee: $20 per session.
Set of tires: $500ish lasts around a season on street/autoX usage.
Helmet: Most regions have loaners but I picked up a modest open-face HJC for $70 today.
Tire Pressure Gauge: $2
Addiction: $$$


The cheapest racing you can legally do and still turn.

 

[Notorious_V.I.C]

Wait, you need to buy tires from them? Can't you use the tires that come on the MSP (even though they don't grip that well)