1989 Bridgestone ST Civic ~ Drivers: Stephen Yeoh and Mike Kazmierczak: April 2008

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Close to home - for one of us

On April 20th, we decide to run the Camarillo autocross hosted by the PCA Santa Barbara region instead of hanging out at the Long Beach GP. I love running this location because it's close to home. Unfortunately, it is a 1.5 hour drive for Jason to get here.

This event is held at the end of an active runway and we get to see planes flying over our head, coming in to land as we are racing. Kind of neat.

This PCA region usually puts on courses that are lined with lots of cones and on the narrower side with not much choice of line - there isn't much room to begin with since the course is on a rather narrow runway. We decided that this course was going to be a tight one as we walked the course.

With the arrangement of our run groups, Jason and I were split into different groups and I was driving first. After my first run, I figured out just how tight it was. Our steering wasn't fast enough and I had to cross over with my hands in order to make the turns and then immediately turn the other way in sections. On the next run, I was yelling out the window to Jason who was working on course about how tight the course was. I tried not changing my hand position and it just wasn't enough to make the car turn tightly enough so after talking with Jason, I ended up taking my gloves off to give me better grip on the wheel to turn quickly. Ouch.

It was fun in a different way. There were several regular PCA SB event folks there and they remembered us. They gave us lots of room before we started so that we wouldn't catch the vehicle in front.

In many respects, this course reminded me of the more typical East Coast course on a small postage stamp sized lot and driving the line was critical to a good time - hm, where do I remember that from? Oh yeah, just the week before. Of course, what do I do? I don't drive the line in one of the key turns - again. Jason is running faster than I am again and I'm scratching my head wondering what I'm doing wrong. The video tells the truth - it's the line again. Grrr!

The timed runs don't usually tell us in a timely fashion whether or not we hit cones during the run, so we depend on what others might say or what we think we did. Deciding on how hard to attack the course becomes guesswork too. Then there is also the risk of cones showing up on what we believe to be good runs.

At the Santa Barbara events, all non-Porsches are put into one class, so we are racing against Corvettes and S2000's that are on race tires. We have fun talking trash with the Vette drivers about beating them straight up.

At the end of the day, based on raw time, Jason is ahead of me by 4/10. We leave the event believing that this is the finishing order. However, when the results are published, there is a cone on Jason's fast run and no cone on mine. There is no good way to know how accurate the cone reports are :( In the end, both of us finish in the top 10 based on raw time. Still a good day.

It's a "Focus course"

Wow, time sure flies. It's already been two weeks since our last SCCA event. Bob Jardine was the course designer. Before the event, we heard grumbling about seeing a "Focus" friendly course. I'm not sure what that was supposed to mean, but I was afraid that it would be a very tight, tough on the car, 1st gear in multiple places type of course.

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I didn't have to worry. It turned out to be the toughest course that we've seen here in Fontana since I first started autocrossing here in 2006. This course had a combination of slower turns and some faster, off camber pucker up turns. This definitely wasn't the typical Fontana event where you were going as fast as you could through big sweepers and see who could carry more speed. Bob's course emphasized the accurate placement of the car and keeping the line. The line was so important that it you consistently were off the line by a few feet, you would go slower.

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Jason and I went out and we put in good runs, both in the 59 second range. None of our competitors managed to get into the 59's. After having seen it once, both of us thought that we would start going faster during the following runs. However, to our surprise, both of us started going slower. We were checking the car, scratching our heads and wondering what was wrong. Was it us (couldn't be, both of us were going slower and some of our competitors) or the car? We heard a comment that the temperature had changed some 20 degrees during our run - was that the reason we went slower?

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After I watched my video, I feel that it was just lousy driving (at least on my part). On the camera side, I managed to hit only one of the apexes that I was aiming for. That's terrible. Given what I saw in the video, I didn't even feel like looking at the data. I have to drive the line that we pick, not wander all over the place.

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At the end of the day, Jason wins the class by 11 thousandths. Nice close run. Of course, that's not so nice for me, but what a team effort. Nobody else in STS made it into the 59 second range. Jason also finished the event paxing in the top 10! I think that's a first. Woohee!

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Bridgestone Potenza™ Car Club Race Report
SCCA Solo National Tour Road to Topeka
March 15-16, 2008
Qualcomm Stadium – San Diego, Calif.

Bridgestone Potenza RE-01R Tire Performance Summary:
Bridgestone-shod cars once again made a strong showing at the second round of the 2008 Tire Rack SCCA Solo National Tour. Cars equipped with Bridgestone Potenza RE-01R ultra high performance tires took victories in the STS, STSL, STS2 and STS2L classes at the 2008 San Diego National Tour. Bridgestone-shod cars took a fourth-place finish in the STX category and a second-place finish and seven of the top-10 spots in the STU category.

SCCA STREET TOURING BY CLASS
STS	1. Jason Flores – Bridgestone – 123.030 (8 in the top 10 for Bridgestone)
STSL	1. Stacey Miller – Bridgestone – 131.150
STS2	1. Michael Heinitz – Bridgestone – 121.856 (3 in the top 5 for Bridgestone)
STS2L	1. Katy Nicholls – Bridgestone –128.024 (top 2 for Bridgestone)
STX	(fourth-place finish for Bridgestone)
STU	(7 in the top 10 for Bridgestone)

From Rodreich Stotsenburg, UHP Marketing & Education Support Manager, Bridgestone Firestone North American Tire, LLC: “Once again, Bridgestone Potenza RE-01R tires have proven that they are up to the demands that SCCA competition places upon them. From our on-track performance to the continued high level of service offered in the paddock, drivers are recognizing the benefits of competing on Bridgestone brand tires. We at Bridgestone Firestone North American Tire, LLC could not be more pleased with the progress we have made with our SCCA program, and we look forward to seeing more and more drivers competing on our tires as this season moves forward. This was our first event this season where we offered on-site support, and we will also be set up at Milwaukee and the Nationals to offer our unparalleled service.”

Visit the recently launched Web site, www.Potenza.com, for the latest in ultra high performance and car club news.