I ran the car at MOWOG 6&7 a few weeks after returning from Nats. Both events run at Canterbury Downs, a larger site local to MN that I've liked to run... historically. Despite feeling great at nats, the car was just terrible at Canterbury. This is probably a by-product of what we local Minnesotans have dubbed "Canterberries". Some time in the history of the lot we use it was "resurfaced", where a coat of tar was laid down and layers of small pebbles were laid down and compacted into the tar.
While this works fine to park on, running on this surface introduces annoying challenges. under any kind of load, these pebbles start to come up and it becomes akin to driving on a dirt road.. but a dirt road that gives you a vague sense of confidence before it slaps you in the face and laughs. Historically I've enjoyed the site as I'd run it in AWD cars with a clear advantage. Now, having switched to RWD that advantage is gone and I struggled everywhere to try and put power down. This was unpleasant, and I may find myself avoiding this site next year, or sourcing a co-drive. Who knows..
With that, the autocross season wrapped up. I finished the MOWOG points series in 6th place, and Second in the local Met Council series.. but only attended the minimum number of events to qualify for each in the Z, so as you have read the car was in multiple states of build over that time.. only towards the end has it started shape up as a really good car.
I decided to do one last thing with the car before packing her up, and sticking her in the garage for the long, cold winter months. The SCCA planned a PDX at DCTC, and having never really done any higher speed stuff (only that one night at RS Motors's event), I said "Screw it." and signed up.
I arrived a bit surprised. When I signed up there was a field for experience. I put down a few things i'd done, and how long i'd been autoxing, and showed up to be landed in the fastest run group. A few people I knew were administering aspects of the event, so when I inquired they assured me "Don't worry. you're plenty fast enough." The little warm tingleies from hearing that were pretty awesome, but didn't alleviate my hesitations about passing rules, etc. I opted to skip my first session, and sit in on the novice classroom session.. unfortunately, none of this was covered because novices don't get to pass. Damn.
When it came time to drive, I grabbed Ivan Austin and explained the situation. he was happy to aid in checking mirrors for other vehicles, perform points, and give me some excellent tips. The first session out I was definitely tentative.. especially when some miatas blew by me.. but I was more confident at the end about what I was doing.
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Photo Credit: "Crouse"[/caption][caption id="attachment_226" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
Photo Credit: "Crouse"[/caption]For the concurrent sessions, I remembered that I had bought a lap timer app (Trackmaster) for my phone long ago, and never really used it. I still had all the gear from solostorm in the car, so quickly set it up so i'd have some numbers to see if I was improving. By the end of the 3rd session, those miatas wern't a problem. My smoking brake pads were a problem, but not miatas. I also came to find out I was running very similar lap times to a more road course experienced driver in a similarly prepped G35. Except he had Hoosiers. All in all, I had some good fun, and it forced me to think a little differently about higher speed lines. I think there will be more of these in the future.
That evening after the PDX, I shuffled things around in the garage, put the car up on stands, and threw the wheels and tires into their little warm spot for the winter. Winter mode is officially engaged, and shopping season begins.
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Goodnight sleeping beauty.. I'll awaken you again when spring arrives.[/caption]
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