I put a deposit down on a new car today (BRZ)

[Eikon]

I attended my first SCCA autocross (Solo) event today.

I knew my car wasn't going to be competitive against the serious folks in STX class, but I wasn't looking for a first place either. My goal was simply to get out and drive on a little bigger/faster course than we had at Carlisle. I had a great time!

We had four runs.. my goal for the day was simply to improve on each run.

First run was pretty slow.. 1:01.
Second run I had a little better idea of where to go on the course.. 57 sec.
Third run started to feel out the tire limits a little better. 56 sec.
Fourth run started to put together better lines.. 54.9 sec.

With zero power mods (intake, exhaust, etc) I still managed to get 7th out of 10 in that class.. I was faster than a couple of (non-stock) RX8's.

The problem with today is that there were so many people.. and most of the cars had two drivers.. So the waiting was horrible.. I was there for like 6 hours and got 4 minutes on the track.. We were out on cone duty for like 2 hours..

[elwesso]

The problem with today is that there were so many people.. and most of the cars had two drivers.. So the waiting was horrible.. I was there for like 6 hours and got 4 minutes on the track.. We were out on cone duty for like 2 hours..

I was supposed to do an autocross today, but decided this morning I had too much "golfing fluid" yesterday on the course...

What were the top people in your class running? That's a nice improvement over 4 runs though.

Waiting does stink, but that's the name of the game in auto-x

[Eikon]

Here's another BRZ on the same course from today. I'm actually working cones.. orange shirt at 1:00 in. lol.

He was about a second and a half faster than me.. quicker through the slaloms and a hair faster in that very last section.. but otherwise pretty close.. very similar line.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRPh-GwD ... r_embedded[/youtube]

[WDRacing]

Looks wicked fun dude. How much $$ for those 4 minutes?

[Eikon]

It was $35 plus a $15 SCCA weekend membership.
If I want to run more often I can pay for the full year SCCA membership and get that $15 credited toward it.. I think it would be like $80 for the yearly SCCA and the local dues. Then $35 each weekend.

It's not terribly expensive, but when you combine the costs with the time required.. that's what will keep me from being a regular. I was there at 8 AM and left at 2 PM.. so 6 hours.. basically chewed up most of my Sunday.. and I was tired from being out in the sun.. got a good sunburn..

So, I'll do it again.. but I certainly won't be a regular there every week.

[WDRacing]

2hrs a wack at cone duty sucks. The money isn't bad though.

[flohtingPoint]

It was $35 plus a $15 SCCA weekend membership.
If I want to run more often I can pay for the full year SCCA membership and get that $15 credited toward it.. I think it would be like $80 for the yearly SCCA and the local dues. Then $35 each weekend.

It's not terribly expensive, but when you combine the costs with the time required.. that's what will keep me from being a regular. I was there at 8 AM and left at 2 PM.. so 6 hours.. basically chewed up most of my Sunday.. and I was tired from being out in the sun.. got a good sunburn..

So, I'll do it again.. but I certainly won't be a regular there every week.

First off, congrats on going to your first SCCA event. It's a good kickstart to learning to drive and hopefully you'll stick around.

Second, dont do the math on time on course vs time spent, you cant think of it this way. Case in point, I'm driving half way across the country to Lincoln, NE (from Washington DC) this week, spending four days of PTO and a couple hundred dollars in fuel, bringing brand new A6's (1,500'ish bucks) and a set of scrubbed A6's all for Spring Nationals (two SCCA events in the same weekend). You cannot do the math on dollars to runs or time per runs, it will make your head hurt. This is all for testing purposes to get the car dialed in for Solo National Championship in Sept. National Tours are only 3 runs per day instead of 4, so it's even less time, and I travel all over the country for such. When you're not running or working, you need to be watching or talking about the course with someone, and I see two names on this list that you definitely should talk to (two time Solo National Champion in F125 Jeremiah McClintock, aka JT, and Mike McClintock, tell them Jim Newman says 'hi', I know them well from my days driving shifter karts). SCCA events are more than just running the right time and getting runs, they're about understanding how to drive and making friends too.

http://detroit-scca.org/e107/e107_files ... r_pax_.pdf

http://detroit-scca.org/e107/e107_files ... r_fin_.pdf

You didn't do too bad for your first SCCA event (better than I did on my first time out). I'm not familiar with a lot of the names on here but I recognize some of them from the National circuit (the aforementioned folk, Greg/Brian Anthony, James Wong and a few other names). An easy way to see how you did is to take the top index time and divide it by your index time. So on the index chart, the top index (PAX) time is 41.097 and your index time is 45.480, so 41.097/45.480 = .903 (and some other numbers). I use this scale to determine how much percentage in pax I am off the top time, so you were 90.3% or a "903" which is not bad at all for a beginner. I usually consider a "950" a decent day for me (this also depends on who top pax is, as if it's someone good it will be harder to grab a 950+).

I would highly consider keeping up with the hobby, it's a great motorsport and it gives you something to work to in terms of car development (there is nothing wrong with taking it seriously). Hopefully you keep with it and I will see you out there Nationally =)

[Eikon]

Jim, Thanks for chiming in. I appreciate the comments and tips.

It was fun.. a nice little adrenaline boost as well. Again, I certainly plan to do it again.. but due to cost and time it's not something I could do every weekend.

I'd like to do some more power adds to the car (intake, exhaust, hi-flow cat, etc..) to see how those would affect my competitiveness.

I will say this.. I'm not ready to be a full-on SCCA regular.. the type that builds a car specifically for the event and goes every week and travels across the country, etc.. But, having done it, I can say that I'll keep class restrictions in mind when doing future mods. That should prove that I'm interested in keeping up with it in the future.

One other thing I really like.. you get a new respect for your car. Something about driving home from an event knowing that you just pushed your car closer to it's limits than 99% of the other vehicles on the road.. that's neat!

[elwesso]

In my opinion, you're probably most competitive on a mostly stock car in autocross, especially a car like the BRZ. IT wouldn't take a whole lot for you to move to a different class where you'd be running with some pretty intense cars.

[Eikon]

I agree Wes.. if I was serious about SCCA I would probably be best to put back my stock suspension and wheels and get some R-Comp tires and run in c-stock.

But I'm not that serious about it.. I'd rather enjoy my car 100% of the time and be less competitive in a few autox's throughout the year. I'm certainly not going to take parts on and off for an event on a regular basis.

[Bubba1]

Have you thought about taking the BRZ to an HPDE?

[flohtingPoint]

Jim, Thanks for chiming in. I appreciate the comments and tips.

It was fun.. a nice little adrenaline boost as well. Again, I certainly plan to do it again.. but due to cost and time it's not something I could do every weekend.

I'd like to do some more power adds to the car (intake, exhaust, hi-flow cat, etc..) to see how those would affect my competitiveness.

I will say this.. I'm not ready to be a full-on SCCA regular.. the type that builds a car specifically for the event and goes every week and travels across the country, etc.. But, having done it, I can say that I'll keep class restrictions in mind when doing future mods. That should prove that I'm interested in keeping up with it in the future.

One other thing I really like.. you get a new respect for your car. Something about driving home from an event knowing that you just pushed your car closer to it's limits than 99% of the other vehicles on the road.. that's neat!

I would highly suggest giving Sam a call or a pm on FB (Stranoparts). He is already doing dev on STX frs/brz (he's running his at Spring Nats this weekend) and he is one of the best setup people in the game. He did all the dev and setup advice/parts on my FRC. His pricing is very fair and he will always talk to you straight up. He won't try to sell you on anything that he thinks you won't need or won't make you faster.

Running events definitely gives you a new appreciation for your car for sure. You begin to see why you poured money into it and can quantify the parts into production.

I agree Wes.. if I was serious about SCCA I would probably be best to put back my stock suspension and wheels and get some R-Comp tires and run in c-stock.

But I'm not that serious about it.. I'd rather enjoy my car 100% of the time and be less competitive in a few autox's throughout the year. I'm certainly not going to take parts on and off for an event on a regular basis.

I disagree quite a bit. While your car would be "faster" than it is now, I do not believe the FRS/BRZ is a good C Stock car. How good a car is determines on classification and there are a lot better cars in CS and Stock is getting the axe anyway so there is no real solid ground in the class structure (theyre redoing appendix a right now). I think the car makes a pretty good STX car though, and a build for such won't break the bank. Seriously give Sam a call and at least talk things over with him, no harm can come from chatting and he can give you an idea of the cost of a decent STX setup on the car.

I highly suggest also competing in the Toledo Pro Solo this year. It is the highest grip lot in the SCCA and it will give you a taste of the big show =)

Feel free to pm me or hit me up on fb if you have any questions. If anything, I'm an open book.

[elwesso]

That's good info Jim. Not to thread jack, but since I got my BMW I'm really wanting to get into track days a lot more.. At this point I'm more interested in doing driving schools than actually timed racing, and fortunately my BMWCCA chapter has a really good driving school coming up.

You're right about the stock classes, for me in the A stock, there's no way I could compete with a Lotus Elise.

[Bubba1]

That's good info Jim. Not to thread jack, but since I got my BMW I'm really wanting to get into track days a lot more.. At this point I'm more interested in doing driving schools than actually timed racing, and fortunately my BMWCCA chapter has a really good driving school coming up.

You're right about the stock classes, for me in the A stock, there's no way I could compete with a Lotus Elise.

Wes, you should also check out the Audi club (ACNA). They don't care what car you drive. I've been doing their schools for 15 years in a Nissan. Just like BMWCCA, it's hours of track time per day instead of minutes per day at an autocross.

www.audicarclubna.org