WWSCC Event 9- and Series wrap-up
Sunday morning dawned overcast, a cool day with a threat of showers. With showers holding off, it was a perfect day for the last race of the WWSCC season. Ani, Luisa, and Larry (Ani’s dad) were to come up later in the morning to watch me drive.
I ended up arriving about 8:00, which allowed plenty of time to register, get through tech, and get a few course walks in. I was in the first work group / second drive group. The first drive group took FOREVER to complete. Their first round saw seemingly half of the competitors getting very lost on course. Working at station 1, we had tons of cones to chase. At least I was working with some interesting people, Keith and Ivan from my ST1 class, and Pete, whose car Zane co-drove in the event.
I saw Ani and Luisa arrive in the R about 10:00, followed immediately by Larry in his XC90. Larry backed the XC up to the fence so that they could have a tailgate party while watching the cars. The split tailgate of the XC also meant that Luisa was somewhat contained, and she had a fun time playing in the back of the car. It was great to have Ani and Luisa there to watch me, for the second week in a row. It feels like a fun family activity when they’re there watching. They both wore their Black Saab- Orange Stripe shirts to show support. Very cool. Click on the photos to make them bigger
Here are Ani, Luisa, Katie, Erik and I modeling our team shirts. Cool! Props to Ani for designing the BLACK SAAB ORANGE STRIPE logo!
Unfortunately, it was 11:00 before the first run group completed their runs and we came in to get started. By that time, Luisa was getting hungry and I was getting… tired? Certainly tired of standing around.
My first run was clean, but I thought it was slow. My second run was better, still clean and I shaved about ½ second off of my time. After the 2nd run, the family left so that Luisa could have some lunch. Without my fans/family there to observe, I got worse. Too much wheel spin through a tight corner slowed me down and netted me a cone on my third run. On my fourth run I carried too much speed into the “wall” near station 1, taking out four cones and coming to a dead stop in the process. Not a good way to finish up. That netted me a 10th place finish out of 14 cars, check out the reults here. The 1993 Honda Accord driven by Chris Kmetz, which has been my benchmark competitor through the last 2/3 of the season, beat me handily, with a 6th place finish based on a time about 1.5 seconds faster than my best time. Chris was one place out of trophy position.
I stuck around for the trophy presentation; and was dismayed to discover that the ’89 Plymouth Acclaim that I scoffed at during WWSCC Event 7 took the 4th place trophy. I never got a trophy, but that stupid Acclaim did. I can find solace knowing that my best time was more than two seconds faster than his, that he trophied because he was in a slower class. But damn it, I want a trophy. Guess I’ll just have to drive faster.
Driving faster is reliant on making some upgrades to the 900. I need to replace the shocks, and I think I also need to replace the springs. I posed the question about suspension upgrades on Saab Central, and was reminded that changing the springs to a non-stock spring will put me in a different class for autocross. I don’t want that. So perhaps I’ll replace with OE springs and better shocks/bushings.
The WWSCC season ended with me in 5th place in ST1. That’s out of a total five drivers eligible for the championship (due to the requirement of driving in at least 7 events). So as you look at the results here, you can see that I’m 5th of 31 drivers. Awesome. Only when you look at the requirements for championship do you see that the top 7 scores are taken for championship eligibility. So I finished about 3.5 points out of fourth place. Those points are easily made up next season with a better suspension setup. So the next several months will be spent trying to keep the car running, and at the same time improve its handling.
Keep visiting the Saablog for updates. And leave me comments to let me know you were here. Thanks for your support and comments this season!
