saablog

Last month the WWSCC's Autocross schedule dates were all tentative, and this month the calendar shows no WWSCC autocross events.

I checked with Zane (who helped me get started in Autocross) and he said that Boeing isn't offering their lot for events this year, so without a venue the season is off. Two other organizations are offering events, but those events are run in Bremerton and Packwood, both of which are a long way from here.

In any case, this means I've got no season to run. Suddenly I find myself at a crossroads. The whole reason I bought the 900 was for autocross. Now that I've got it, and have been driving it regularly, I can't imagine selling it. But at the same time, I don't need a third car, even though it's a great commuter that gets better fuel economy on regular gas than my Volvo does on Premium.

For now, I'm making no decisions.

I did have a fun drive through downtown Seattle the other day... going down Columbia, I bottomed out the front lower frame member when coming across a cross-street going at least the speed limit. It was hilarious.

You probably won't believe it. For the first time all year, I went to an Autocross practice on Saturday.

 On Friday evening, Ani and Luisa helped me put the cob-webbed Azenis competetion tires on the 900. Luisa practiced using the wrench on the rear quarterpanel of the 900. "Don't bang the wrench against the car, sweetie!" At least it wasn't the R.

On Saturday morning, I headed off to practice. The 900 did great. The new shocks really helped the car handle a lot better. There were no scary chassis oscillations during the 2 slaloms like I used to get last year on the worn out OEM shocks.

I set the front tires at 42 PSI, and the rears at 40. I was pulling numbers equivalent to an '04-'05 Honda Civic SI hatch, and equivalent a modified '06 Mustang (the cars I was able to consistently see run that were not AWD turbos), so I felt pretty good. For the first 3 runs I dropped time each time.

The limiting factor was definately traction. I just kept spinning my tires on accelleration and through turns, which I guess I was taking too fast.  I thought that perhaps I had too much air in the tires, and that they were too hard to get traction. So for the 4th run I lowered the pressure to 40 PSI all around. That didn't help. It only decreased my traction, causing me to add time on my 4th run.

On my 5th run, I followed a suggestion to enter a slalom on the left instead of the right. That wasn't helpful, and my final run had the worst time of the day, compounded by seemingly the worst traction of the day.

I had a great time. I need more practice so that I can learn what tire pressures work best. I also think that I'll be needing to do brakes sooner rather than later. Trying to slow down in a big hurry, the 900's brakes don't inspire confidence.