Motorsports North-East Season Opener

[Billy10mm]

Just finished the season opener with Motorsports North-East today. While it was a successful day, there is much improvement to be had.

Watching the weather, there was supposed to be rain all night through 10AM, and temps were going to be in the high 30s. So yesterday I decided to leave my all-season tires on (what I use for winter months) instead of switching over to the F1 G2 summers. I had no idea how many runs I'd get in as this is my first event with Motorsports NE, and wasn't sure I'd be able to get any heat into the G2s. Poor decision on my part. Everyone else came on autocross/track tires. They were slow for the first run or two, many of them spinning, but by their third runs most of them were now hard-charging. I'm already registered for next weekend and unless the forecast says temps will be in the teens or that there will be snow on the ground, I'll be switching to the G2s.

I can't blame my poor times on tires alone though; I left the part of me that could drive, at home. Still kicking myself for how hard I over drove the car. Pushing into every corner far too fast scrubbing speed with tire friction, oversteer out of every corner, and I do mean every. Even in the 2 straights, the tires would break loose around 3K RPM in 2nd gear. I'd be sideways under braking, sideways or plowing through each corner, then sideways on the way out. It may have looked cool to the corner workers, but it surely wasn't what anyone would call "quick". The highlight of this was the third run, which was the first run where I thought to myself, "I think I know where I'm supposed to go now.".

I wish I had a Go-Pro and a video of my hands/steering wheel during this run. Watching it would make the viewer sweat. If I had had two wooden sticks instead of a steering wheel in my hand, in the time it took me to complete the run I could have generated a fire to one-up the Hindenburg disaster. The female instructor that happened to be in my car during that run couldn't even speak for most of it, she just held on for dear life for the first half of the run, laughed hysterically for the second half, then quipped, "Nice car control." as I came through the finish gates, sideways, to read yet another abysmal time. The fact that I made all the gates and hit no cones proves that life isn't fair, as many actually-skilled drivers today weren't so lucky.

Thankfully, it hit me how hard I was over-driving during that run, and started slowing myself down, which improved my times. By the 5th and 6th runs, I ACTUALLY had an idea of where I needed to go next. By 7 and 8 I was looking through the turns to find the exit and was actually starting to connect the corners. On 9, the final run, I put all the pieces together and pulled out my best time of the day, a solid 1.7 seconds faster than lap 8 (the previous fastest), and a jump from 11th place to 6th in class.

Of the 100+ people that were registered, only 64 showed up because of the temps (it was 38 degrees and overcast the entire day - we froze our asses off). So next week there will be more competition. We'll see how it goes.

Results: https://axwaresystems.com/axorm/file...sults_live.htm

I'm in class "D" (the only GM vehicle in attendance). The "off" on lap one was me missing a gate, a fate that I was thankfully not alone on.