saablog

My goal going into the season’s first competetion was to not come in last place. Not the loftiest goal in the world, but I’ve got to start somewhere. It turns out that I achieved that goal, but just barely. In my class (ST1), I got 6th place out of 7 entries. I wasn’t actually the fastest car around the track. The 7th place ‘94 Miata actually navigated the course more quickly, but my car’s index corrected my time to a 6th place finish. In the overall scheme of things, my time was 79th out of 115 entries. You can check it all out at http://www.wwscc.org/event_results/2006/wwscc06-2.html.  My third run, which shows as my fastest, was actually announced with one cone, which would make my 5th run the fastest. I’d still beat the 7th place Miata.

I feel like one of the biggest limiting factors was the 900’s suspension, which I haven’t done anything to since buying the car. In fast slalom-type manouvers, the back end of the car tends to get really loose, it feels very bouncy back there, and I can feel it amplifying the car’s side-to-side movements. There was a section of yesterday’s track where the back end got squirrely every time. I’ve known that new shocks are needed on the car, I’m thinking it’s time to start moving forward with the replacement of those.

In any case, please enjoy a couple of photos of the car in grid before I started driving. In front of me were two cool Porsche 944s like my Uncle Gordy used to have. Next to me was a 2006 Covette Z06, and behind me was the Subaru WRX STi which took first place in my class. Definately some nice cars out there. Remember you can click on the photo for a bit larger view. Sadly I took these pics before all of the other cars pulled in to grid. Enjoy!