El Toro ProSolo - Day 2

The weather starts out cool, but it's a nice day and it is warming up quickly. Even though we started running an hour earlier, it's already warmer when we run than it was yesterday afternoon.



The morning is very exciting as everybody seems to be going faster and the lead is changing almost every other run. The announcer is adding fuel to the fire announcing what could be as well. It's very easy to get caught up in the moment.

Jason starts out first and is able to go faster on the left side. He has really good times on both sides. Now its a question of how fast the other drivers go.

I'm lined up for my first right side run. The grip is there and I go faster, but I'm dirty again. I go out and make the left side run and come back with a 20 second run. The announcer confirms that I'll be getting a re-run. I stay paired up with my 'buddy' and go back to make my 2nd right side run. This is my last chance to get a right side time and I need to keep it clean. I post a 46.2 clean, which takes me from the middle up into the trophies. I make my 2nd left side run and red light. I continue to run it at speed to try and get a feel for the course.



In the mean time, Jon and Will have upped the ante significantly and they are running away from the field. I doubt that anybody will catch them.

I go back to the staging area to wait to be called up for my re-run. I sit and get ready. When I'm called up, I'm paired against a race-tired Corvette. Jason and the others are yelling at me to take him. I focus on the lights and get off to a good start, making sure not to red light. It's very satisfying to see that I exit the 60ft chute before the Corvette. I wish I had a camera facing him. Oh well. The rest of the run is a joke and to add insult to injury, at the end of my run, the announcer tells me that I have taken too many runs.

We head off to impound and have no idea what the results look like. The others have been doing the math and tell me that it's close. Jason and I will most likely be very close in the trophy spots. Just like yesterday, we spend an eternity waiting for results. I'm not sure what caused the results to take so long and I hope they are able to speed it up in future events.



The results are finally brought out and the final standings show me in third and Jason in fourth. We have a good showing for Bridgestone again. I'm very excited for Jason to see him driving so well.



Dale gets wrapped up in something in his head and ends up going slower this morning and giving up his 5th place spot as everybody started to go faster.

All of us put our names in the infamous 'hat' for a chance to run again. Jason is drawn and gets to play again in the bonus challenge. He advances until he is drawn against George Schilling and loses by 0.022 seconds.



It's still a great weekend for all. Thank you to the local ST family for showing Dale a great time and some SoCal hospitality!

San Diego Solo National Tour - Day 2

Sunday rolls around and it's a nice day. It looks like we will have consistent weather condition for everybody during our heat. That's nice as it hasn't always been that way.

Last night, we talked about how the car was handling and what we could do to change things. I wanted the rear to be more stable to allow us to attack. Based on our available choices, we decided to try something that we hadn't tried at Qualcomm before - we put the full tread RE-11's that we had on the 7" rims on the rear to see if that would have been better than the partial tread tires on 7.5" rims.



However, with the undiagnosed and irritating high rpm stutter, we would need to continue to shift into third when the rpm went up. Where that shift point was going to be was an unknown at this point in time.



This is a tricky course with several locations where it almost feels a little like a WRC event where you had to commit to the turn and a certain amount of throttle upon entry without being able to see the exit of the turn. It would have been really nice to actually try to attack the course with a car that is 100%.

There seems to be a pattern emerging for me as I'm dirty on the first run again (that makes 4 dirty runs in a row). Jason is able to stay clean and puts a good run in the books. Now he can start chipping away at the time. However, we do find the spot where the car stutters and we have to shift to 3rd. It's not a good spot. It's half way up the hill. That leaves us trying to climb the rest of the hill and all the way across the hill in 3rd. Not much we can do about it. We just have to deal with it.

Jason goes faster in his second run and so do I. Amazingly, this is my first clean run the entire weekend - it's fast enough to put me into the trophies in 6th spot.




Nothing is guaranteed in ST. I have a choice to make. Do I put a safe run in the books to stay in the trophies or do I go for it? I decide to go for it. Guess what, I'm dirty again and others are able to go faster. I end up falling out of the trophies. Oh well.

Jason was able to go faster too with his last run being his best. Unfortunately, there is too big a gap to be made up and neither one of us are able to finish in the trophies.

We'll go home, try to figure out what's wrong with the car and come back to race another day.

San Diego Solo National Tour - Day 1

The forecast is nice and everybody is excited to come play at the first National event in California. It feels like attendance is down - at least on Friday night it did. There was no problem with food running out. As usual, I was out on my course walk and by the time I came back, all the food was gone. It gave me an excuse to actually go out and eat on Friday evening.



Saturday morning rolls around and we put on our nice shiny new 949 Racing 6UL wheels. We have pretty close to full tread on the front and some slightly more worn tires for the rear. Not having tested this combination here before, we weren't sure what was going to happen. As it turns out, worn rear tires on the back was not a good choice. We had a loose rear end and while it was manageable, it did prevent us from being as aggressive as we would have liked in attacking this course.

Jeff Kiesel put together a course that looked pretty simple, but would prove to be difficult to drive. It was a speed maintenance course which was unusual in the speed that we had to maintain. It was higher than the usual autocross course and objects would magically appear in front of us a lot faster. You had to be on your game to get the timing down and stay clean - something that I wasn't very successful at.




This is the kind of course that I wish I had a different car setup and a lot more attempts at it to try and get it right. Wait till you see the big downhill left hand sweeper at 43 seconds on both of our videos. We had a high RPM stutter in second that would cause us to lose power and I ended up shifting into third to avoid the stutter. Not optimal, but much better than staying in second.



The difficulty of this course was illustrated by the wide range of finishing times that competitors had. With the largest class of the event (21 competitors) and no clean runs, I was still 9th and Jason was in the trophies at 7th.

Coulda woulda shoulda. Since I didn't do well, it's easy for me to do a little bench racing. My raw time would have been good enough for the 4th place spot for Saturday. It was my plan to stay clean for my last run to be able to race on Sunday, but as you can see from the results, that clearly didn't go the way I planned ;-)

Jason had a good drive and was definitely feeling the heat of the moment as well. I'm glad to see Jason enjoying himself.

Friday bloody friday

The forecast is not getting any better. It looks like we will have changing conditions today. It's best to go out and get a safe run in the bank before trying anything. Well, my 'safe' run turned out to be a disaster and I hit a cone. Now I'm sweating bullets watching the weather, wondering if I'll have a second chance to get a dry run in.

It is starting to drizzle and I'm at the end of the run group for 2nd runs. Now I'm just waiting until they come around for me to take my second run. Then I'm in the car and waiting, and waiting, and waiting - then there is a stoppage for some reason. The course continues to get wetter. I finally get to take my 2nd run. It's already slippery and I'm sliding around a little bit. It's a decent run, not fast, but clean. The announcer does not announce where I'm placed. I have no idea.

The weather continues to come in and now just as Dale finishes his 3rd run, the rain comes in. The cameras come off the car. It's wet enough now that it's not even worth mounting the full tread tires. I opt to finish my last run on the shaved tires and see how much sliding around I can do. I was right, my last run was several seconds slower.

All this time, I don't hear the announcer. I have no idea where I am. Did I move up (or more likely fall out of the trophies) or move down? Either way, it was out of my hands. Fortunately, I only dropped one spot and stayed in the trophies.

Until next year. BTW, if you have never been, this site is awesome. You MUST make a trip out here. Thank you to all the sponsors who have stood by us and provided us with incredible support all year.


I'll let you imagine what Dale is trying to say

Extreme Autofest sponsored by Bridgestone

It was all sun on a beautiful Sunday morning as we arrived to Qualcomm Stadium at our usual time. Usually we are at this very lot prepping that car for a race. But today we traded in out jacks and torque wrenches for tire shine and car polish. It was a very special day since Bridgestone was on of the main sponsors of the event they brought their full rig out to support. The booth featured a Austin Martin, a BMW Z4 racecar, Jenn's Allstar RX-8 and our very own Bridgestone AutoX Civic! Overall the weekend was a great opportunity to shake some hands of attendees and explain to them exactly what we do and that in this very lot they could come back in two weeks and race their own cars. We always enjoy the opportunity to get out and talk about our sport as well and network with our sponsors since so much of time is spent racing we like to go as many promotional events to spend quality time with them.

Special thanks to Bridgestone, The International Allstars Marketing Team, and Extreme Autofest for giving us the chance to give back to our sponsors and the community.

It's time - for Nationals

It's the last day to give the car a shakedown before it is loaded on the transporter to Nationals. I'm up at 4 AM to go pick up the Civic from Jason. The drive is quick - not much traffic on the highway at this time.

We go together to El Toro with the Civic and an Evo X courtesy of Rally Innovations. The plan is to do a final shakedown of the Civic, load it on the transporter and finish the day with the Evo giving taxi rides.

A big thanks to the OCR PCA event staff for helping us with the schedule to get us to the transporter on time.

We finish the shakedown and pack the car, head on over to Ciro Design to wait for the transporter. A very very big THANK YOU to Jason for all the hard work prepping the car. You have truly become a master at setup.





Here are some pictures of the car on the transporter.





A big thank to Rick Jung for arranging the transporter to Nationals. One more week - tick tock, tick tock. The journey has begun...

May GRA event at Auto Club Speedway

With the rotation of the run groups, we are now the first run group of the day. This means that we have to be there early to walk the course, register and do everything else.

It gets light earlier now and I still end up leaving at O dark 30, before the sun rises. This gets me in to the Speedway by 6:30AM. It's already light and some folks are busy setting up. Jason hasn't arrived yet, so I have a few minutes to socialize.

Once Jason arrives, we unload the Civic and go for our course walk. The car had already been teched from the Saturday practice. Interesting course. Three slow turns and the rest are sweepers of some sort. All the left hand sweepers are fairly large with a decreasing radius exit on all of them.

Jason has had his fair share of mechanical problems with the car this week and a lot has been done to the car in the last two weeks to repair an aging car. It is very unusual for Jason to still be working on the car on Friday - usually everything is done and the car is loaded and ready to go. (Thanks Jason!) Jason and Jon have also been experimenting with some fine tuning on the car and both of them are very excited about the changes.

Jason ran the car in practice and did a little more tuning. There should not be anything dramatic about the changes and I'm looking forward to driving the car. Their excitement is rubbing off on me.

Keep in mind that this is the first time that we have raced in Fontana since the beginning of the year and I've never driven the car on RE-11's at Fontana. Based on Jason's experience yesterday, the car feels good and should allow us to put power down earlier in the turn and should feel good in the sweepers.



While waiting to take our first runs, Jason is in the car and I'm expecting this car to feel VERY nice. Jason goes out and takes his first run with one cone near the start. I didn't see any drama and from what I could see, the run looked uneventful.

My turn. I'm strapping in and thinking about what Jason has said. I get to the first fast right hand off camber sweeper going up the hill. Instead of grip and maybe a little understeer, the car starts 4 wheel drifting. The comes a tight, slow left hand turn. One wheel locks up and the car starts rotating - ok, I've been here before, I get on the gas to stop the car from spinning. No spin, but not much front grip either. Now comes a really fast right hand bumpy sweeper. Jason was able to feed in the power and go to the floor. I go through the turn with quite a bit of throttle modulation and end up washing out to the left side and it feels like I just missed the cones. Now for a slower left hand turn. With the speed that we have been carrying, I start lifting as I enter the turn and the tail starts rotating before I get on the brakes. No problem, I'll just get back on the gas. But there was a problem - there was no front grip. Once I started accelerating again, the car was washing out and would not turn anyway and I end up DNF'ing the run. The next big left hand sweeper finds the tail rotating a little again. I make it through this turn uneventfully. The slow right hand turn is one that I bounce my way through the turn and there isn't much grip either. Now we build up some speed to come in to a decreasing radius sweeper. The car starts rotating on corner entry again, making for a hairy decreasing radius turn. With all the sliding and pushing, my time ends up being in the 62 second range.

The rest of the runs for both of us are relatively uneventful. The spectators are entertained because the lead appears to be changing with each driver that completes a run. Now that I know what to expect, the tail never rotates quite as much anymore in the turn. The push never goes away and I end up in the 59.4xx, but am not able to go any faster.

At the end of the day, we finish 4th and 5th respectively. I'm frustrated with my inability to find speed today. I guess I need more seat time. It is nice to have lots of competition though.



A very big thanks goes out to Moe of Hyper16Valve for coming through with critical spare parts for us in a very short amount of time so that we didn't have to miss this event. If you need an EF mechanic, I highly recommend Moe.


Fun Pic of the day...
Caption (Bridgestone or NOTHING!!)

2009 El Toro ProSolo Sunday

Both of us arrive early to walk the course one last time, then off to get ready as we run 1st heat again. It's a cold morning, somewhere around 50 degrees and overcast. It doesn't look like the sun will come out in time to help warm up the ground or the tires.




I'm up first and I'm lined up against Marco in a Subaru 2.5RS. With the cold temps and me not launching properly, I watch Marco open up at least one car length on me before we reach the split where we go off on our own. Grrr! The same thing happens on the right side and I'm going for everything now. I come back and hear the crowd cheering as the announcer says that I've moved up into 2nd place. It's not over yet, so I'm lining up again and this time I'm paying a lot more attention to a correct launch. It looks like this time, I'm no more than 1/2 a car length behind Marco by the time we split - I'm happy about that. I go faster on my last left side run and I'm happy about that, but looking at the posted results, I have 2 mystery cones on my time that I didn't hear announced when I returned from my run. Grr, deja vu. The same thing happened to my Saturday morning left side run. My second right side run is wasted as we have too little fuel and I experience fuel starvation while on course.



We add some fuel and Jason gets to make his Sunday runs. He posts a good left side that puts him in the 44's, but there is a late cone call. There is no improvement on the right side, but he does improve the left side for his fastest left side of the weekend.

Things are moving much faster now and before we know it, Julie is up to make her runs. With some encouragement, she is now pushing harder and ends up moving into the last trophy spot in L1. Congratulations Julie.



The best compliment I heard all weekend was how Julie loved how the car handled the way Jason has built it. She wants what we have! We also know they will continue to stay on Bridgestone tires.

By the end of the event, Julie has finished in 6th, Jason has finished in 8th (on the result sheet, that would give him 8 88) and I beat Kyle to 2nd place by a very small margin of 0.005 seconds over two days of competition.




The tire wars in ST are going strong with the leader board made up of Toyo, Bridgestone, Kumho and Dunlop tires.

2009 El Toro ProSolo Saturday

We arrive nice and early, get teched and walk the course one last time. This is a great course that combined all the elements - technical without being visually difficult to see, fast in sections and slow in other sections. You had to get it all right in order to do well.

Just as we are finishing our walk, we receive a phone call to see if we'd be open to Julie Avard driving our car so that all the ladies can be in single driver cars. Julie is currently on Bridgestone tires at home, so this should be a good fit.



With the lower car number, Jason starts off as first driver in the morning. He has good times on both sides and ends the morning session the faster of the two of us. With the combination of starts and a few minor delays, the morning session doesn't end until around 1:30pm. It seems to be the trend for me so far at these events. I end up dirty or red lighting on one side so I'll only have decent times for one side. For this event, it was the left side that was giving me grief. I'm in 4th place by the end of the morning.



In the afternoon session, the faster driver goes first, so Jason goes out and takes his runs. He improves on the left side, but not on the right side. With the runs being back to back, the time goes by very quickly. The RE-11 tires are holding up to the heat of back to back runs very well, getting up to operating temperature and staying there without the need for cooling. My afternoon runs come up and my focus is to get a clean left side so that I'd have a decent time at least. My first left side run is an alien run that would have put me within 1/10 of Ken on the left side, but I cone it away and end up standing on a clean 2nd left side run. The right side dips into the 43's for a decent time.

Julie takes her runs and it's getting late. I have a feeling that they will not be able to finish all their runs before it gets dark. Everybody is hurrying to try and get all the runs done before it gets dark. Julie has not driven in a while. She's not pushing the car, so we encourage her to push harder. The tires are not getting up to 150 degrees, but staying in the 120 degree range.



When the Saturday results are posted, I'm in 3rd place and Jason is 6th. Both of us are still within striking distance of trophies.

I'm very tired. There seems to be very little down time at a ProSolo. The course will be the same for tomorrow, so we pack up and go grab dinner. We can walk again in the morning.

"Slalom of the Pacific" ~ PSCC Practice & Champ Event ~ El Toro, CA

What a glorious day for the first day in March and this is our first day out to race with the new Bridgestone RE-11 tires. In case you haven't been paying attention, the RE-11 replaces the old RE-01R from 2008 and is now officially available.



Given that we were scheduled to run in the afternoon and with the delays that had taken place, both of us spent a lot of time just standing around, like this:


The fifth run group didn't start running until around 3:45PM. Rather late for normal running with a sixth group still to go before the sun sets.



Today, we drove the 205/50/15. It was a good course for this tire. Many fast sections, some transitions and only 3 slow turnarounds. If you run a Civic like ours, you will notice that the car works harder coming out of the low speed turnarounds - not really any different than the Toyo drivers that may choose to run the 225.

205 vs 195 RE-11

On this grippy asphalt surface, this tire feels like it has almost R compound levels of grip - something that I know I'm not used to being in a street tire class and I will have to make a conscious effort to recalibrate my butt - and my nerve for higher corner entry speeds.

The Civic has been suffering from some braking problems lately (we seized a caliper last week and it sent me on a little loop de loo). However, the tire squeels louder than the RE-01R did (another area to recalibrate), but it does slow down better than the old tire. It just sounds like it doesn't.

The course had a big right handed sweeper that was wide and I'd slow down to turn in and find out that I had slowed down too much. I'm beginning to think that I should have just attacked the turn without hitting the brakes. If I had just tried it... Being familiar with this site, both of us agree that there is no way we would have been able to take this turn at the same speed on the RE-01R.

Being in a two driver car, we were concerned about heat (today was in the mid-70's and sunny). The RE-01R heated up and started to get greasy very quickly. This new tire is so much better in this aspect. It will heat up during the run, but it will also have cooled off significantly by the time the next driver was up to drive. This is a huge improvement from the RE-01R. We didn't start watering until the end of the 2nd runs for both drivers.




The tire is also showing signs of comparable durability to the RE-01R. Time will tell just how good these tires are as we get more seat time on these tires. Given what we have just seen, my expectation is very high and this tire is definitely better than the outgoing tire.

As for us, we need to work on going faster.