Good event today with CIR. Went from the north end at Rantoul – course flowed decently, but had a few really painful pinches. The course was definitely not very Evo friendly – i.e., I consider a course Mini friendly when it has a lot of slaloms, transitions, is fast (so I can maintan speed) and…
Further testing the brake issues I was having, decided to autox the Evo this event. Could more or less rule out that the master cylinder is okay, it’s just a really sucky pad. Spent most of the day TNT’ing the new set up – clicks on the dampers & how the new FSB felt. The…
First time at the track this year, decided to run with NASA at the 7/9-10 HPDE. Was a really awesome event overall – much more formal than anything I’ve done with SCCA, with classes after every session, exercises to practice etc. First day in particular was really awesome. Autobahn South is a very technical track…
Had a great day in Champaign yesterday for the CCSCC event. Decided to start codriving with my old mentor from 2014 for both our benefit. He has a codriver he is taking to nationals, and I am in need of Mini competition/experience. From a raw time standpoint, things are very close between us, which is…
Got a few runs in at the novice school in the Mini and a few other cars @ the novice school. Had a rewarding time as usual, despite the 100+ degree weather. Started off teaching two students in the ’06 Mini Cooper S – the car was similar to other MCS’s I’ve driven, so I was…
Went to Spring Nats again – first time since 2014. In 2014, I was the only one in HS, as the two other HS cars opted to run in STF. I wasn’t interested then, so as the lone entry in HS I took home the prize. This year, the competition consisted of 4 Fiesta STs, 1…
Had my first Chicago event of 2016 – haven’t been out here since mid 2014 so I was eager to see how I would do. There were a few targets I couldn’t catch back then – mainly, a turbo diesel VW – the driver of that car had switched to a Fiesta ST, staying in…
Got a brief glimpse of improvement at CCSCC today – definitely some Mini favorable elements, but one of the runs felt really good – unfortunately, I drained my camera and wasn’t able to record my fast run. The only time I recorded was my 5th run, which was about a second slower than my fastest,…
Without the Civic there, an easy win for the Mini in HS. With that, I just need 4 more wins to win the class, out of the next 7. Not sure if it’ll be doable, we’ll see soon. Frustratingly, was unable to beat my 1st run today, by a pretty wide margin. I had difficult…
Mini: 2nd Event in the books. Cutting right to the chase, I lost to the Civic Si by 0.516s. I was chasing him most of the event, and at one point he figured something out and dropped ~0.7s and from there on out it was game over. I pushed as hard as I could, tried…
QL Motorsport & Car Journal 