St. Louis Region Autocross Event 1 April 13th
Check out the event writeup from our first local event of the year!
It is finally here, the local autocross season has started! Yesterday was Event 1 for the St. Louis Region SCCA Autocross season, held at Family Arena out in St. Charles, Missouri.
I arrived early after spending Saturday afternoon prepping the FR-S for the event (wash and wheel/tire change). I was excited because it was also the first time that my daughter was going to be coming to an event to ride along with me, she’ll be getting hear learners permit later this year, so I am hoping to drag her along to events this year to see if I can’t stoke her interest in the sport and get her excited about driving this year.
It was nice catching up with folks who I may or may not have seen recently as my autocross attendance has been sporadic the past few years. I was scheduled to run third heat, work second heat, so that allowed me to take some photos of Heat #1, you can find 288 photos posted on Facebook
By the time third heat came around the day was really starting the heat up, with the temperature in the car showing 83 degrees most of the afternoon, at one point I event say 87 on the display. After my work assignment I collected my daugther from paddock (she arrived while I was working) and we got ready for the third heat of the day.
We had 4 runs for the day, with 160+ people registered, the event organizers weren’t keen on having 5 or 6 runs as typical, which was the safe bet for the first event. There were a few delays here and there, and no live timing for the day, but overall things ran smoothly and 4 runs was the right choice to make.
I went out on my first run, with cold tires, and just about plowed through a cone on the first slalom, scrubbing some time I was able to apply the brakes and get back around the cone before taking it out. The first run was decent, but not where I needed to be time wise for the event. Run #2 I went out and knocked off over a second, though I picked up my first official cone for the season on this run. At least I assume I did, I heard it, but haven’t seen official results to show me that just yet.
I started the day with tire pressures at 32/31, after run 2 I decided to switch down to 31/30.
Third run was a little slower than Run 2!
For Run 4 I jumped back up to 32/31 pressures, I was able to lay down my fastest run, 42.732. This was I believe good enough for 6th on index for the event. Once results are officially out I hope to get a little more insight into how I actually performed.
Here’s the video from the top of the car, Run 4.
So how did my daughter like it? “Eh”, but that’s the typical teenager response we get from her on just about any question these days!
Solo Spec Coupe Autocross Settings setup page:
- Front Swaybar: Soft setting
- Rear Swaybar: Stiff Setting
- Front Konis: 0.5 turn from soft
- Rear Konis: .75 turns from soft (remaining runs)
- Front Tire Pressure: 32 psi
- Rear Tire Pressure: 31 psi
- Gas level: 1/2 Tank
- Total Runs on Tires: 12.5 (2 events)
