I win the first event of the accent cup!

[187sks]

Cool. It's nice to hear how you're working through things. It helps me a lot.

I've been driving several more times also, now 5 times total. Just less than an hour ago I got my new Azenis tires mounted so I'm hoping for an improvement at the next event on the 20th.

My best time last event was a 40.783 and the top time was a 33.718 by an excellent driver in a Mod B 67 Lotus Elan. That put me at 84th of 107 entrants. Considering my all season tires I was reasonably happy, I have improved a lot since getting 134th of 138 the first time out but I have a long ways to go.

[andy]

I can definately say that people love seeing me show up in a hyundai accent and do well in it.

A lot of the scca solo classes are becoming more or less spec classes where if you don't have car (insert whatever car is fast at the time) then your not going to do well in that class. Its frustrating and boring at the same time.

I would like to see how the car does in fsp. I know dave(skierd) had fun in his in fsp but was outgunned by some better prepped cars. I'm going to try to go all out and prep the car closer to the maximum of the rules. I will still leave some areas open for cost reasons but I think the car would do alright in that class. Its light(under 2000 pounds) and i'm hoping I can fit 225/45/13s without much problem. The only downfall is going to be a suitable lsd(i'm still contemplating the phatom grip) and power(or lack of). With updating and backdating I could throw in a newer 1.6 but the aftermarket is still almost nothing compared to other cars.

I'm glad my blog is helping out. I will continue to update it on a regular basis.

tires are a wonderful thing. They should help you out drastically. If your tires aren't working well its very frustrating to only be able to push to a certain limit because of grip limitations even if your a novice.

[187sks]

People love my Accent too. It's (IMO) the craziest looking car on the course with all the body roll and getting sideways and smoking tires. I've gotten a lot of comments about it.

I'm waiting to run on the new tires to see what item I want to upgrade next to keep the most contact patch on the ground most times.

I'm still trying to decide what class to build for. To stay out of FSP I have to remove some things, but that's okay most of them didn't help much anyways. lol. I have to make that decision soon though. I figure I'll have to get a Phantom Grip too although it doesn't sound like a fun install process. You should be able to fit 215/45/13's with no problem if you get the 8" wide wheel backspacing right. I fit 215/35/18's on to my Accent at one point in time, but now they're on my friend's LC2 Accent and he ran autox last weekend and had no rubbing. I can help you work through the clearancing process if you're interested.

Here's the Accent on 18's running:
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f6...8/IMG_6602.jpg

I have gotten 99hp and 109lb/ft of torque out of my 1.6l at the wheels before the ported IM and BBTB. It makes for a pretty respectable amount of torque for the times I slow down almost enough to need to shift into first on course. It's not a huge upgrade from the 1.5l but I'm pretty happy with it.

[andy]

time to update the blog again

raced at fedex field sunday the 13th with dc region scca(i'm a member now yay!) and sucked it up pretty good. It was probably the most difficult course i've ever driven. As soon as the course map is loaded on their site i'll put it up on here.

First of all i'll explain a little about fedex field's parking lots. They are not that flat, on lots e&f that we normally race on have a gradual downslope to both lots with little to no flat portions. Lot a that we are racing on for the rest of the season has zero flat portions, in fact from the start of the course you can only see maybe half the course your going to run.

The course itself had a giant slalom followed by decreasing radius slaloms with a 45 degree pivot in between the slaloms going downhill off camber, followed by a off camber 90 degree box(lots of braking) that went uphill into a slalom into another 90 degree box(again lots of braking) that went into a series of long 180 degree turns into another giant slalom near the end with a long decreasing radius 180+ degree(more late braking) turn followed by a tight right hander at the end.

I sucked big fat ones this time around. The first time out I had a pretty quick time with some room to grow. I didn't link many turns and knew I gave up some time in other sections, my time 63.66 had me in 5th out of 12. Second run I looped it coming through the downhill slalom, killed that run 70.39+1. Third run I was still tentative coming through the downhill slalom but improved to a 62.23. Last run screwed up the first of the 90 degree box turns and destroyed my chances of improving any 62.35. So my day stunk, I didn't get the first 90 degree off camber turn right all day long which killed my momentum going uphill into the next 90 degree turn. I could have shaved at least a second off my time and I blew it. That is a frustrating part of autox. I'll never know what I could really do on that course. I ended up 9th out of 11 156 out of 236 in pax. Top time in street mod was a 55.66(WOW) in a k20 swapped eg civic running 275/35/15-225/45/15 (f/r)hoosiers, good for 15th on pax. Oh well still plenty more racing to do this season.

I have to say that this time around most if not all of the blame went to the driver. The car was predictable once I got the tire pressures set and the tires got warmed up. It was a hot morning so I started cooling the tires after the second run(especially after spinning it). Hot tire pressures were 36/28 which is where I stayed from the 2nd run on. I had quite a bit of understeer through the off camber stuff which is normal for a front wheel driver and had a ton of wheelspin thanks to the open diff and again off camber turns. I tried to cure some of the understeer with lower rear pressures which works well most of the time, it helped a little here. The car was very tail happy under braking, i'll take the blame on this one since i'm not used to trail braking this much in this car, it was controllable it just caught me off guard. The brakes work great if you can control lock up because the right front loves to lock up. Everything else was working like it should, I still have one of the coolest(loudest) sounding cars on course imho and it didn't blow up or break. I did run my small spacers (maybe 2mm spacers?) on the back and my rubbing issue is gone. My wish list is still up on on my toolbox but it looks like the suspension change and alignment might not happen till the end of the season.

Back to frederick for sunday for a cdc event. Hopefully put her in the top 20 this time out. I'm feeling good about this one. It isn't really a competition event but what fun is that? I will keep track of times anyway. I will hopefully have some pics at this one since I will actually have a friend or two coming to watch.

[187sks]

Too bad you had trouble getting it nailed down last time but I'm betting it happens to almost everyone occasionally. I got 4 runs last time I was in Bremerton Motorsports Park and only managed to make all of the gates one of the four runs if it makes you feel any better. lol.

[andy]

time for more updates
I did a test and tune with capital driving club in frederick
its always nice to be able to race 10 minutes from your house. It was extremely hot and humid the whole day. I was beat by the end of my afternoon runs.

first here are some pics of the small frederick course at harry grove stadium(baltimore orioles single A farm club team if you wanted to know).





cdc always builds the course where we overlap it 2-3 times usually ending up being a 30-40 second course. Lots of tight transitions and sweepers, my cars usually do pretty good here. It is a lot rougher then most places I run though so the crappy suspension was shining through yesterday. if your car can carry a lot of speed through sweepers and if you can come off of corners well you can do well at frederick.

My best time ended up being a 40.48 and ftd was a 37.8 by the same s2000 as the last test and tune. I was trying to hear times as they were called out but I think the fastest front wheel drive car was a 39.6 by a mini cooper s.

the car handled pretty neutral but the course didn't provide much grip all day. normally there is an autox on saturday and sunday so the course gets cleaned off on saturday but there wasn't a saturday race. If you got off line by a foot or so you were sliding. Braking was very unstable. My fastest run was definately my smoothest run. I took some wider lines to minimize wheel spin and took easy through the rougher sections so the car wouldn't bounce so damn much. Tire pressures ended up at 35/30 hot. I was pretty happy with the day, I ended up with better times than a lot of cars that should be beating me. That's always a good feeling.

Next up I should be racing at cumberland airport the 27th but i'm wearing down racing every sunday and not being able to relax on my normal thursdays off. Not being able to sleep in the last three weeks sucks but it's by choice so I shouldn't be complaining. Next race will probably be the next wdcr scca points event aug 3rd. Until then enjoy some pictures of cars from the event yesterday.

[andy]

time for another update:

I did end up racing at cumberland this past sunday
I rechecked my schedule and I didn't have another race until the 17th so I figured i'd bite the bullet and race my 4th autox in 4 weekends. However I was lazy and chose to run on my street tires instead of changing to the r-comps. This hurt me on overall time but I still had a blast and it was a learning experience since i've never autocrossed on my street tires in the x3.

First run out I over-ran it big time. I'm used to the grip of my kumhos and the hankooks didn't have it. I pretty much just slid most of the course and got a cone for good measure my time 52.96+1. I was running 38/28 tire pressures. Second run I lowered the front pressures to 36 and cleaning the tires off first run helped me out I dropped to a 51.53. I was still feeling out the course because a few parts were almost too slow for a second gear dig. Third run 51.58 tried a few things differently and they didn't work out. fourth run dropped the front pressures to 34, I had good speed around the course and ruined my run at the last corner by almost spinning still 51.77 aint far off though. 5th run I got serious since my last run would be a rerun I wouldn't have time to cool the tires down and drop my front tire psi. I laid down what would be my best time with a 50.71. The car felt good but I still gave up some time in 2 turns. Rerun time, I wasn't expecting much from this last run since my tires didn't have much time to cool and my pressures were probably a little high but I drove the wheels off of it, maybe a little too much, since I came through the last turn sideways taking out the finish light marker cone ruining my 50.12. I wound up 51st out of 76 and a dismal 61st in pax(stupid street mod pax index).

I was happy with my results since I wasn't used to the street tires and I had just as much fun, maybe a little more since the hankooks have a much higher slip angle than the r-comps which makes sliding a little easier to control. The hankooks performed great for such a small size(195/60/14) with good grip and no signs of abuse after 6 hard runs. I had trouble with transition oversteer coming out of the last slalom into the last turn every run. It was helpful in setting up the last turn but most of the time I was still sliding when I should have been gripping. My final pressures for the day wound up being 34/28 hot. I sprayed down the fronts after every run because they were scorching after most of my runs. The 100+ degree tarmac temp didn't help either. I was comparing my times during the day to some of the other street tire class competitors and I was back about 2 seconds from gimp in his 318ti and 2.7 back from a stx mini cooper s. Not too shabby for the first time on street tires.

FTD went to george bowland in his amazing bbr shark amod entry with a 37.93. If you have never seen this vehicle find some pics of it because words can't describe it. He has won numerous solo championships with it in A mod and holds quite a few hill climb records on the east coast.

results of the speed week event and all the other cumberland events can be found here: National Road Autosport website

Well I have a 2 week break until the next dc region points event. Now I can drink my ass off on saturday at my friends wedding and not have to wake up at 5:45 am to go race. Sleeping in is nice.

here is a pic of me acting like a goofball behind the car from sunday(thanks rich):

[187sks]

That seems pretty good for your first time running on street tires to me.

[andy]

time for another update:

2 weeks seemed like a month of not being able to autox. It felt great to get back behind the wheel. I was at fedex field again with wdcr-scca.

The course was a challenging one with lots of difficult offset turns, 180 degree sweepers and quite a few slaloms. Walking the course I thought it would be pretty fast but driving it was a completely different story. It had plenty of wierd braking points where if you got on the binders too late you blew the next 3 corners. You could link quite a few sections together. I was a little too fast in sections and it screwed some of my slalom entrances up at first. Last run I overdrove and slid the car way too much, I should have been in the 62s. Overall I was happy with how the day went, I left with a smile on my face knowing I didn't leave too much on the parking lot.

I ended up 7th out of 14 in street mod with a best time of 63.25 which was only a tenth out of 6th and less than 2 tenths out of 5th. We were pretty tight from 5-8th. Fastest time in class was stupid brian karwan with his stupid fast k20 civic with a 58.20. I was pushing to beat a few friends in sts and I beat the lead sts civic coupe by a hundredth of a second haha take that aj. The overall and pax overall results aren't ready yet but i'll put those results up whenever josh gets them up on the site.

On an even better note, Ian baker(3rd place in sts2 at the 07 nationals) broke out the scales and started weighing cars. His fully prepped 89 crx si sts2 car weighed in at 1975 lbs, a fully prepped 89 crx hf? sts2 weighed in at 1895 lbs, a d stock e36 325is weighed 3045 lbs, a sts2 88 mr2 was 2375 lbs, late 90s viper 3400 something I didn't actually see the weight just heard it through the grapevine.

last but not least my 99 L street mod terror was 2035 lbs with a little under a half tank of gas, rest of the car was in autox trim. This is very promising for next year when I run in fsp. With a 1/4 tank of gas i'd be close to 2000 lbs even. I can still drop some weight in the car and hopfully get somewhere down around 1950 lbs when i'm done. God I hope I can get everything done this winter. If anyone wants to contribute to ANDY'S FSP ACCENT FUND you can send some money to my paypal anytime . In the mean time I should start cutting weight myself because once my fat ass is in the car I lose some of my lightweight advantage.

Next week i'm racing at fedex again with autocrossers incorporated. Should be fun, its my first time racing with this organization but I already know plenty of the people. I will update again next week. later

[187sks]

Sounds like a good time and like ou did pretty well to place that well in street mod.