saablog

Sunday was the date of the Western Washington Sports Car Council’s Sports Car Spectacular, the 5^th event in the WWSCC Championship Series. As I skipped the first event of the series, it was my fourth event of the year. I’m really pleased with my performance… I aimed for “not last place” and came in 8^th of 14 in my class, a surprisingly good result.

  Ready to rumble!! 

My friend Jim was in town with his family, and he served as my pit crew. On Saturday evening we put on the race tires, washed the car, and took it around the block to ensure everything was in working order, since the car had been sitting for a week while Ani and I were in
Portland. All was in good order.  

Registration opened in Everett on Sunday at 7:30 AM, but Jim and I didn’t leave home until about 7:40. It didn’t matter. When we arrived to the course, I headed over to registration while Jim pulled all of the loose junk out of the car. I got registered, got my work assignment, and headed back to inflate the tires while Jim re-torqued the wheel lug bolts. I tend to run about 48 PSI in the fronts and 45 in the rears during competitions. This gives the tires the necessary sidewall rigidity without making them so hard that they can’t get any traction.  

When we finished that, I took the car through tech (the technical inspection required for each car before it can compete) and then we set out to walk the course.  There are usually course maps that can be used to help make the course walk easier, but this time there were none. Walking the course was complicated even more by the fact that it had been set up to run in the opposite direction for the previous day’s practice session (which I missed), so when I started my first walk most of the pointer cones were laying down pointing in the direction of oncoming cars, rather than pointing the way forward. These were eventually fixed before the event started.  

I got in two course walks, accompanied by Jim, before the Drivers Meeting was called. I was in the second run group, so after the meeting Jim and I went to my work station, which was Station 2. The work station had a great view of the first half (or so) of the course, so I got to watch the first run group make five runs through the course, which helped me become familiar with its layout. Fortunately, few cars were hitting cones in our area, so I only had to chase two cones the entire day. Jim chased none. Cars were more likely to miss gates entirely than to hit cones in our section.  

As we worked, we watched various cars go through the course, and decided that I should make a goal time in the 60-second range, based on what “similar” cars in the first run group were able to do. Finally, the first run group finished and it was time for my run group to drive. Check out how sporty the car looks in grid! This year the WWSCC series has a no-passenger rule, so I couldn’t take Jim for a ride. He’ll have to come up for a practice I guess. 

  Motoring up to the start 

On my first run, I was pretty excited to run a clean 61.011. The tires felt good and sticky, and I was remembering a lot of the pointers I’d picked up at the previous event when I took a course walk for  novice drivers.  I figured that I had taken the first run a little bit conservatively, so I should be able to knock off at least one second over the course of my next four runs. 

Turns out that was easier said than done. On each of my next two runs, I hit a cone. Some were a little faster than my first run, but pointless because they weren’t clean. I learned (and was really able to feel) that when I go into a corner with too much speed, I just end up spinning/pushing the front tires, causing them to heat up and lose traction. Each of the three cones I hit were at the exit of a corner, and each was hit with the front tires spinning in crazy understeer, fighting for traction and ultimately wasting grip by heating the tires.

  Can you say “understeer”? Click on the photo to make it bigger.  I was able to look at the standings after three runs. I was ahead of the Porsche Boxtster S, both Honda S2000s, and the Focus SVT, in 9^th place of 14. I was thrilled that I was so high in the standings.  During the next two rounds, I listened for finishing times of the cars in my class to see whether they were improving or not, knowing that if they didn’t improve, I’d finish in at least 9^th place.  

On my final run, I knew that I had to brake smartly before both of the corners where I had hit those exit cones. I needed to carry sufficient speed into and through the corners to travel quickly without losing too much traction. And it worked! My last run was clean, and was my fastest of the day at 60.059; I felt like I did reach my goal time of 60.xxx. The official results can be found here.

   I love me some body roll. Click for bigger images. Photos courtesy of Jim. 

The class I run in is an Indexed class, called Street Tire, denoted as ST1 in the results shown on line. Each car competing in ST1 has an index (like a handicap in golf, evidently) that is applied to the car’s run time. The index classes are SS (super stock), and xAS-xHS, with SS being the category of fast cars like Corvette, AS being the category for cars like Honda S2000, and HS the category for slower, poorer-handling cars like the 1992 Saab 900. Only me and an ’89 Honda Civic ran as xHS cars, as you can see from the results. That Civic (both the driver and the car) is good, he’s leading the series championship at this point as you can see here.  The Boxster did manage to improve his time on his final run, putting him ahead of me in the standings, though until his last run I was beating him. It’s all good though. I finished 8^th out of 14 cars! I’m far from last place. I’m really excited!  Thanks to Jim for being pit crew and photographer, and to Larry for helping me change the tires back to everyday tires on Sunday evening so I could drive the 900 to the airport on Monday, where it now sits next to somebody else’s 9-3 in the parking garage.    I’m excited for my next race, which isn’t until 27 August, since I’m skipping the one at the end of July to go to Lopez Island with Ani and some friends. Check back for updates., and remember to leave me comments that help me feel validated as a blogger!