Looking forward to competing against everybody this weekend.
The surface reports from the practice last weekend sound encouraging.
The weather forecast as of now is a little iffy, mid 40's to mid 60's, windy
with a chance of rain on Sunday.

now about that drive up there...

 

Since I'll be codriving with Carter Thompson, his dad Jim is looking for a codrive if anyone can help him out

 

Good luck to Eric, Mark and everyone else competing... I wish I could be there, but there's the small matter of a Touring Car race in NJ! Duty calls.

 

Link to Entry List

Good luck folks. Looks like a packed house in BS.

 

and only two drivers listed in CS

 

The BS vs CS participation numbers for the Tours and Pros so far this season are revealing(exactly what I'm not sure other than BS is alive and well):

BS = 55
CS = 26

 

Morning results are up: http://www.scca.com/documents/result...reliminary.pdf

Looks like Ruggles is leading by a slight margin over Carter.

 

Provisional Day 1 results are up: http://www.scca.com/documents/result...eliminary5.pdf

Thompson, Tovsen followed by Ruggles in BS.

 

WTG, Carter, bring it on home, dood.

Looks like a fair amount of sand being carried in a number of the other classes...


Tovsen leapfrogged Carter this morning...good job, Neal! Chris (Trent) made a big move upwards and grabbed last podium, aka "first to not win tires"

 

Link to final results: http://scca.com/documents/resultfile...%205-3-092.pdf

 

A ton of pics can be found here: http://gotcone.com/pgallery/2009_aut...ro_solo___lap/

 

I heard the courses were pretty short, tight and generally notsofun...yeah, that makes sense, with about a gazillion acres of concrete to play with....

 

Wow... ProSolo is a lot of fun. Was great meeting and hanging out with folks this weekend. Made a n00b error and didn't stage in time on one run ... that was embarrassing.
The car died at the start line for Neal in the Challenge. Hope it's just a fuel pump, as I was getting some misfires on Saturday as well.

Chris Harvey gets the award for comeback king. I knew before the runs on Sunday that he'd be charging with a vengeance. Awesome.

Posted a vid on sccaforums in case anyone wants to check it out.

Can't wait for the next one!

--Ivan

 

Have you changed your plugs, plug wires and coils Ivan? If they have more than 30K miles on them, it's a good place to start.

My car died at the line twice for Shawn during last year's DC Pro. Spoke to Mazda USA/Mazda dealer over the winter and they mentioned there was a recall flash for '04-'06 RX-8's called the MSP16 (iirc). It's specifically listed to remedy a lack of power during hot ambient temps and also increases oil metering during start-up. Mazda recommended that I have the recall done and said it should take of my issue as well. My local dealer did the recall (have the service receipt in my glove box which specifically states "recall") and the problem hasn't re-occured. We havent done a pro with the car yet, but the car was triple driven on a 90+ degree day at the last DC event with no issues.

 

Plugs, wires, and coils were new for Nats last year... only few hundred miles since then. Easy enough to check anyways.
Thanks for the reminder about msp16. I did take it in for the dealer to do it last year, but they were pretty casual-acting about it, and didn't put the sticker in the engine bay... hmmm.

 

Gotcha. When checking the spark plugs, make sure they haven't backed out (sometimes they can back out a 1/2 turn or so).

I had 4 mice that lived in my engine bay all winter - yay for a family of mice! My cat took care of them this Spring, but I did have to go through the car to make sure no wires were chewed on. Might want to check that one of your plug wires weren't chewed on by an animal.

Other than that, only other thing I could suggest is "bad gas" causing the misfires.

 

So how did everyone in BS find the surface over the course of the two days? From these pics, it looks grippy!

 

Here you go Ivan:

[EMBED]<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6ujbbhv4XPM&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6ujbbhv4XPM&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/EMBED]

 

The sight is grippy, all those earlier reports are BS IMO

we fought understeer all weekend but Carter seemed to manage it better than me

Another frustrating event for me, at both Wendover and Lincoln I red-lighted better times on Saturday that I could never get back to

 

Hey guys,

Figured I would echo some of the other opinions here.... The Lincoln site really was amazing, concrete as far as the eye can see. Was good for grip, average for tire wear, and not too much penalty for going offline, and we were in the worst part of the lot (rain drains to where there course was, resulting in a lot more sand deposit).

Courses were fun, if not a bit too tight. Understeer seemed to be the norm for everyone.

First day I felt like I drove well, was sitting up front with Carter and Neal. As you all know the pedal broke during Chris's runs which I'm sure rattled him pretty good. Sunday he came out with a vengeance and kicked ***. I, on the other hand, wet the bed on Sunday. Watched videos from Sat and decided I was a bit too sloppy and imprecise, so I went in Sunday with a new gameplan....tight and tidy. Unfortunately that translated to slow and timid

All in all I had a lot of fun. I wanna take the chance to thank Chris for extending me the co-drive. Couldn't have asked for a nicer guy, and I only hope that between the pedal and Saturday runs I didn't completely burn my bridge for any future drives

See you all in DC!!

 

Ha ha - nice write-up! Looking forward to DC Jay. Good talking to you this past weekend.

 

JR - Despite the car drama, I had a great time and would gladly offer up the seat if it works out again.

Big Congrat's to Neal and Carter. Carter really set the tone for everyone on his last pair of runs Saturday. The course and surface required that you make a big commitment/risk on corner entry and I know I was stuck in "test driver" mode for the Saturday runs and the times reflected that. Neal, as he normally does, stepped up his game on the last runs and moved the bar way up. I knew going into my last run that I left several tenths on the right side course and tried to find a 1/2 tenth on the tree, but a .487 red eye put an end to any chance of catching the two fast guys.

Awesome event, great competition, can't wait for the next one.

Chris H