StlSolo’s Novice School was this pas Fourth of July weekend and was a great way to get some bang for the buck seat time – and not just for students, but instructors too. Unlike the CCSCC school where there is an advanced and novice portion, this school is for novices only. The instructors are compensated with free food and free seat time, which is hard to pass up. Not only do the students get about 20 runs for $120, they get free entry to the next Stl Solo event, which is next weekend.

Student 1:

My first student drove an ’05 Mini Cooper S, with a pulley, coilovers, and a rear sway bar. He showed a lot of improvement over the day, eventually besting my fast run in his car. His car was set up very ideally, which means very loose. Had a blast instructing him and he was able to run near 46 flat by the end of the day. The only problem we had for the car was that the gas pedal kept coming off the car, which is some sort of clip on mechanism that I think should just be superglued on there.

Student 2:

Second student was driving a ’15 GTI with APR Stage 1, and otherwise stock, down to the tires. This was his first time autoxing, and he signfiicantly improved through the course of the day. The car itself, I thought was a bit of a disappointment due to all the understeer it had, and I’ve basically lost interest in the car. By the end of the day he went from a 60 something to a 47.995, a huge improvement. Hoping to see both these guys at the next autox.

Overall what I got from the day was that I need to get the Mini a little bit looser. My concern right now is that I can’t really think of what else I can do to get the car looser besides adding more toe, something I consider a last resort. One thing I could try adding is endlinks, but I don’t know that the effect will be that significant. One thing I could do that I don’t know how to do is to take the shock apart and cut the bumpstops shorter. This will have to be a consideration.

For the time, I got about 9 runs in the Evo, 5 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon. Not only that, I also got 3 runs in Student 1’s Mini, and 1 run in Student 2’s GTI (he didn’t really want me driving it) for a total of 13 runs. I also had our region’s fastest driver take two spins in the Evo, and he posted similar times to me – encouraging that I’m in the right direction. Also happy to get some seat time in the car before running it at next weekends events. I made 3 major setup changes. The first is that I had my ACD retuned for a milder (less aggressive) tune. The car still turns in fairly nicely and I feel the rotation, but it’s not so aggressive that I couldn’t even use the more aggressive modes. The other change I made was that I set the rear sway bar to the middle setting to counter some of the less aggressiveness of the ACD. The final change was that I’ve been using the wrong PSI gauge for a long time, and I finally set the tires to the appropriate PSIs (37 all around). One person did notice that I lifted my rear inside tire a few times in the Evo, which is fine for clutch type diffs. My fastest laps were in the afternoon, running around 42-43s, but I didn’t get any good videos of those runs. Morning run posted below.

Things to work on (Evo):

• Continue getting comfortable in the car

Notes (Evo):

• Changed ACD setup to more mild setting, then put it on the middle setting
• Set RSB to middle setting.
• 37 psi all around. A little low, and didn’t have much time to adjust PSIs with either car.

2015 Run Count: 123 (+9 Evo, +4 other)