1985 BMW 318 Stage Rally Build - 1988 Porsche 924S Street Build - Sequoia Build

So this isn't so much about the car as it's "new" (aka formerly my wife's) tow rig. I got her a late-model CX-9 that she really likes, so the Sequoia is all mine now. So time to have some fun...

Ok, so this is not my idea, but unless you follow Chris Nonack's RX-7 rally thread you likely didn't see what he did for a super-budget whole-roof cargo rack on The Chief. So I did the same thing, except with more customization. I'm sure we're not the first to do this, but figured might as well do a little write-up anyhow.

Anyhow, was looking for a good full-roof rack and/or basket to mount things like lights, carry tires, etc on the tow rig Sequoia. There are basically three options:

1. Off-the shelf or manufactured racks, which run from about $150 (for smaller aluminum baskets) to about $1500 for the nice ones (Bajarack, etc).

2. Buy materials, weld them together, make rack. I priced out various types of tubing (square and round) locally and was looking at about $200+ for materials (nothing is cheap in this area).

3. What Nonack (and I) did:

On ebay, there is a seller called discount ramps. They sell trailer ramps, pickup truck ramps, etc. In particular we're looking at the "triple-folding steel ATV ramps - long"

They're 72" and as the name suggests, they are hinged so as to fold up. When laid flat they look like this - though I'm not sure how you walk up them or ride your ATV wearing stiletto heels....

and this

The good part is that on ebay, you can pick these up for $99 SHIPPED (not bad for 50lbs of steel). Yeah, it's made in China stuff, but it's good enough for our purposes here. Also they arrived in 2 days, which is pretty good for free shipping from Wisconsin to Virginia...

When Chris made his, he just folded them out flat and seam-welded opposite of the hinges to make a rigid rack, and used U-bolts to attach it to his Suburban's stock roof rails.

The Sequoia's roof rail spread is a bit narrower (by about 3-4"), and I didn't really want any overhang on the sides. I wanted the side rails of the rack to sit directly on the OEM roof rails (I may make bolt-in feet eventually, but this is good for now).

So I cut the three sections apart, and removed two of the longitudinal rails (which you can see in Chris's picture above), and basically welded everything back together in my usual less-than-beautiful style. This has the added benefit of knocking 8-10lbs off of the weight of the rack without really sacrificing any strength

I didn't take any "in progress" photos, but here's the end result. Alignment of the ladders is a bit off since originaly everything was pre-tensioned. This is as close as I could get everything using some ratchet straps and clamps.

Did some cleaning up of welds, smoothing out the cut-off hinges, and added a piece of angle iron to the front to seal up the open fronts of the tubes other than a small hole for future wiring. Then with the 6-7 cans of dark red spraypaint that Pat Henry gave me a couple months ago for rally car work, I just blasted the whole thing with several coats.

And mounted it to the OEM rails. Now the OEM rails have some front-to-rear curve to them (and the rack is perfectly flat) so I mounted the center of the rack down to the OEM rails, and then made some spacers for the front and rear to get the 3/4" or so I needed filled. These spacers are $1.99 for a pack of four at Home Depot....they are the rubber things that you put over the bottom of chair feet so they don't slide. Heavy duty rubber, just cut them shorter and drilled a hole..

Also copying Chris, I used China and ebay some more by getting an 8-pack of 18w LED worklights (and two slightly nicer front flood/spot LEDs), all of it for about $60. Gotta love cheap stuff. But we've been using this same "brand" in a larger lightbar on the rally car for a couple years and it hasn't leaked and provides serious light output. So I think these will hold up well.

You can see one of our rally car ebay light bars at the top of this pic, actually.

The ATV rack conveniently had hook arms on one end to latch over a pickup truck bed. I bent them straight and they're great mounts for the rear lights. I also left the rear end of the rack tubing open so I can run my wiring through it to the front.

Front lights were mounted to the upside-down angle iron I installed, which covers up/protects the bolt threads and hides them.

And yes, my tilt-up Sunroof still clears by an inch or so :)

So anyhow, here's the finished product (other than wiring all the lights, which I'll do next week). Not the fanciest thing around, but it's pretty much exactly what I wanted - cheap, fairly lightweight (40lbs or so), strong enough for my purposes (ramps are rated to 1000lbs supposedly), and low-profile unlike a lot of the roof baskets out there.

Again, credit to Chris Nonack here on GRM for the original idea. All told, total cost was under $200 including lights, wiring, paint and some stainless hardware I bought to mount it with. (ok, I did get some nice switches to fit into my stock switch blanks in the dash, so that puts it over $200, but it could have been done with normal radio shack toggle switches or whatever.

Also, because Virginia has silly laws about automotive lighting, needed to figure out some kind of covers for these things. So after thinking for about 10 seconds on that issue, and looking at the $5/each covers on ebay....I came up with the "almost free and not too cheap looking" solution:

A scrap piece of coroplast leftover from another project....cut to fit the lenses (which have ridges around them, conveniently). Then, add one of the dozens of cheap harbor freight mini-bungees sitting around the garage...and, voila: removable covers that don't look too terrible. And now we're legal....and just remove them once I get across the border, lol...

added bonus: people will think I have some kind of weird radar equipment all over my black SUV and that I'm in the CIA or NSA

Did you find that roll cage padding you were looking for? I have the stuff for around my head, but I am also looking for some for where the door bars are, so I don't bash my elbow.

We've been using the low-density foam and it works fine, but it just gets torn up kind of fast from getting in and out. The stuff I was looking for apparently is only sold in Europe, and for more than it's worth paying.

Nice Rack

So with constant rain, our scheduled 2-day rallycross was postponed, so I've had a couple days to do stuff.

It's a shame, too, since our new Maxsport mud tires just came in from the UK, along with a new set of DMacks which we will use at STPR in 3 weeks.

Also a set in here for Josh Sennett

Yeah, meaty!

Also in the mail, new plates for the tow rig. My wife wanted her customized plates back for her new vehicle, lol

With it raining, had to add some shelter to do some work to all three of my cars...

Then got down to finishing the wiring and stuff on the Sequoia for the lights

Lots of wire (btw, great ebay seller sent me this quality wire (400 feet of it) for like 25 bucks....and it's really good wire with excellent insulation)

Also a bunch of connectors and switches and stuff off Amazon.

Then ran a bunch of wire (the rear lights wiring went through the rack rails, and I ran it all down the A-pillar under the weatherstripping, and made a panel for the switches

You might notice that I put the "big" ebay bar (from the rally car) up on the truck rather than the smaller lights I had gotten and put there initially...

So, there's a lot of light now...and this is just the roof lights.

And the rear floods

That all taken care of, I moved the new smaller LED bars to the rally car top bar.

So that's it for the moment. Tomorrow we plan to change out the transmission, which has had a crunchy 2nd gear syncro on downshift that has been annoying for a while. Will swap in one of my spare G240s and see if it's better....

My new mud tires make those Maxsports look like slicks.

See you at Eastern States.

Knurled wrote: My new mud tires make those Maxsports look like slicks. See you at Eastern States.

I've been at the Rally Farm in July. I hope you have special "dusty, packed, and dry" tires lol.

I'm not the DC local you have to worry about this year....grass isn't my forte and never has been (Great Lakes '15 notwithstanding). There are about 5 other local guys who will probably be faster than me at most events this season, (to say nothing of John England). You guys will like this venue - the surface is a lot like your old place by the drag strip.

all this assuming the car is actually intact/functional after STPR

EDIT: wait, so you're not gonna run the Volvo in Stock Front?

The Volvo hasn't been Stock legal since I bought it. It's just barely Prepared legal.

To be honest, I'd rather run my PR car at out of region events, but keeping it PR legal is going to be tough/expensive. I did mount my mud tires on wheels that are dual bolt pattern, though, so they will fit EVERY car that I own. All contingencies must be covered

Knurled wrote: The Volvo hasn't been Stock legal since I bought it. It's just barely Prepared legal. To be honest, I'd rather run my PR car at out of region events, but keeping it PR legal is going to be tough/expensive. I did mount my mud tires on wheels that are dual bolt pattern, though, so they will fit EVERY car that I own. All contingencies must be covered

Hah, nice. I somehow have four cars with four different BPs, which makes for a lot of wheels and tires sitting around. The RX7 is the PR car, or do you have something else now?

irish44j wrote: The RX7 is the PR car, or do you have something else now?

The RX-7 you are familiar with is the MR car.

At Frostburg last year, Charles Wright gave me compelling argument for liberating his Championship-winning PR car from him. So I did.

Today we went out to the super-secret Pitchblack Garage (aka a corporate fleet garage that we borrowed) to do some work and swap out the transmission and its crunchy 2nd gear syncro with one of my spares G240 units, as well as a new clutch.

It's nice working on a lift! The car on the right is Amanda's rallycross e30 that she was doing a bit of work on as well.

dropping some dirt

hard at work with Jim

Everything came apart fine other than the shift carrier "bitch clip" being a total bitch, and getting to one of the starter bolts (my arms scraped to hell trying to get in there)

Transmission out:

And old and "new"

Nick and Josh stopped by too..

Interestingly, I put the old clutch in there 6 years ago and it was used at the time. But still looks like it has a TON of life left on it....guess dirt isn't too hard, especially with a low-power engine....

Anyhow, put new clutch in and everything back together. Smooth as butter.

Two things we did find: First, the guibo needed to be replaced, so I just ordered a new one. Looks like it was damaged last year when the driveshaft bolts came loose (if you recall) during an event.

Also one of the c-clips for the shift linkage was missing so the rod wasn't secure in the bottom of the shifter....happy that didn't fall out!

So that stuff will be replaced soon. All is well that ends well, right?

So some quick updates as we are now only a few days from leaving for Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally (STPR)!!

First....we finally had a DC rallycross last weekend after 2 months of weather delays. It was great weather, and a great turnout. Mod RWD was strong as always, and PR 3-time champion Shawn Roberts joined our class for the day as well since he had to safety steward the opposite run group with a bunch of people off at the Ohio Forest Rally.

Andy Thomas set up an awesome course (very 2WD-oriented) with Adam Kimmett at SOFR. Adam tends to like more wide-open courses and Andy likes more technical detail, as do it.

Anyhow, long and short of it is that it was a shootout all day between half the class. In the end, Stephen Nichols pulled off the win in his 325i - beat me by 0.7 seconds....all attributed to an ill-advised 1st gear downshift on one of my late runs that threw the car out of sorts and picked up a cone. Figures....I was trying to pick up time and I lost time on that.

I actually beat Shawn by less than a second as well, which is pretty rare. Shawn picked up 8 or 9 cones all day (I had 1 or 2 and Steven had 2 or 3)....so that tells you how fast he is in the Miata that he almost won despite hitting a lot of cones.

Anyhow, car felt good and ready to go to STPR I think :)

Except for a few things....so let's review those real quick:

First, spray-bombed some weaves before mounting up the new DMacks for STPR

Then, did a bunch of work on the WRX that it was sorely in need of. I forgot how little fun it is to work on this car (because the e30 is so easy)

Then took my fire extinguishers to get re-certed (required annually for rally)

Then had my driveway taken up for two days while some guys put a new roof on my house....

Then Jeff Geier rode his motorcycle down from Maryland to give me a spare e30 battery cable.....

....which I needed to extend my stock setup to finish up the kill switch. I woudl have liked to use compression crimp fittings, but time didn't allow it so just used a distro block splice instead. After, it is wrapped with adhesive industrial-thickness shrink wrap as well as plastic wire protectors....it's not going anywhere, hopefully..

had to do a lot of wire routing. Not much fun with this heavy 00 gauge stuff!

Also a few other little things that I didn't take photos of: Added some fuel pump protection under the car (more specifically, the line itself which is the lowest part), cleaned out the interior, made a few little changes to the trunk/gear setup, re-labeled some of the dash switches, removed our SCCA banner and numers in prep for ARA/STPR stuff, and a few other little things.

Almost packed up, early, which is nice..

Finally, put the new wheels/tires on the car. And now time to clean up...

We competed in the Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally (STPR) last weekend. We weren't terribly fast, but we completed every stage, did no serious damage to the car, and had a great time seeing our "rally family." I'll do a complete recap in a few days when I get a chance, but in the meantime here are a few pics to tide you all over (more interesting than my babbling anyhow!)

Matt Stryker photo

Tim McBride photos

Evan Sanders photo

Up against Dan Downey in the Super Special Stage friday evening

That yump photo is epic. Needs to be signed and framed. You don't get that kind of air being gentle.

I wish that were true, but honestly that was pretty weak compared to what a lot of other people were doing. Take a look at Dan Downey going flatout over the jump. It was seriously impressive and makes ours look wimpy lol..

Ok. Yeah. Wow.

Every time a new photo comes up or I look at it again. I am perplexed about how high off the ground we are.....

Those trunk spoilers must be really effective based on how level both those cars are flying! Great pictures.

Adam

In reply to adam525i:

Hold the gas flat over the jump wheels act as gyros to level car.

I'll remember that next time I'm unintentionally airborne :)

I should've tagged my last post with a /s

Adam

irish44j, I seriously have to apologize for having not read a single page of this thread, but when I checked your profile the signature is true 'IRISH scoundrel'. I will now go to the beginning and see what shenanigans I've been missing.

Spent this evening helping Josh Sennett get his car ready for tomorrow's double rallycross (Sat/Sun). Also ordered some different front springs and got some OEM IX rear springs from Josh which I want to try out tomorrow. I like the feel of the M3 springs in the back, but want to experiment a bit based on some conversations I had with Dan. More on all this later, as well as an actual wrap-up of STPR and this weekend's rallycross. Never enough hours in the day!

Ok, guess I'll do some updating.

Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally (STPR). Our first multi-day rally, and one of the major ARA national events with all the top drivers and teams there (Higgins, Pastrana, etc).

We drove up and spent all day Thursday (~10 hours) driving the stages at 25mph in Steve's 4Runner. A long, boring day and about halfway through everything started looking like we had seen it 10 times already. STPR's stages have some cool features but for the most part are very similar to each other other than the first two Waste Management stages (rough and twisty) and the last one Mine Hole (very fast, 24 miles long, and flowing).

Our start position for the rally was 33rd, right behind the very quick 318ti that Adam Noyes and Kelsey Stone drive. The rally started on the WM stages, whcih we've run at the Winter Rally twice so we know it a bit. But this time it was mostly dry, faster, and extremely rough. We actually put up some decent times here (compared to other cars that beat us badly on the higher-speed stages), once again proving that my driving and car are better suited to tight/technical stuff more than high-speed stuff. No surprise there.

After the WM stages was the spectator stages, the Super Special, at the fairgrounds. There are basically a pair of head-to-head rallycrosses. On the first day they let us pick "grudge match" opponents so we and Dan Downey (in his 325i) matched up. As the start was in a deep grassy area, we switched to our Maxsport mud/grass tires on the rear to offset Dan's power advantage. As expected they hooked up well and both runs we beat Dan off the start line. I drove very aggressively and on one run we beat Dan and Kevin handily and on the other run it was a lot closer. So, a bit of bragging rights in front of the crowd - but not really, as you'll see later.

Finished Day 1 with no damage at all other than some dents in the rear exhaust pipe from the big rocks on WM stages. Day 2 was a much longer day, with about 12 total stages. These stages moved to mostly smooth, high-speed logging roads that almost all had a wall of rocks on one side and a sheer drop 100' down into rivers on the other side. Also full of "no cut" turns and trees right on the edges of the road. Basically no room for error, and I took it pretty easy - intending to finish the event rather than push it too hard and make a big mistake at our first STPR. As the day went on we chugged along with no major mistakes, not setting any records but we were basically faster than cars we were seeded ahead of (for the most part) and slower than cars seeded ahead of us. So we ran about as everyone expected to. Again no damage to the car, though we saw a number of other cars badly damaged, and Noyes/Stone blew a hole in their M42 engine which was sad to see (they had won the first regional rally). There was another super special that evening, and in the dark we got matched up against Percy Lopez in his STi. His codriver bet Jim money on the result, which made me laugh (300hp AWD vs. 140hp RWD). But what the hell, we had finished the rally so I went full-out on the super special, throwing the car against berms and ruts harder than I've ever done before. And somehow....we beat them. And by a decent margin no less. So that was a fun way to finish a successful event.

We had a great time seeing a lot of the "rally family" out there, went out for drinks 3 out of the 4 nights at the local watering holes, and met a lot of new people. While Black River last year was a laid-back event in a small town, STPR is really quite the motorsports "festival" of sorts, with thousands of fans out watching, the national teams there (Subaru with their huge tow rigs and giant pit setups). Our crew (Stephen Nichols, Amanda Pemberton, Mike Seitz, and Justin Roth) did a great job - and assisted Downey and Kevin as well, who didn't ahve a crew with them for this event.

STPR is two separate regional rallies. For the first (Sherwood Forest Rally) we finished in 23rd place out of 31 regional-level cars that started. Dan Downey and Kevin Brolin drove their e30 to a Production 2WD class win (13th overall) - very impressive - and also went huge over the spectator jump.

For the second rally (Finger Lakes Rally) we finished 14th out of 27 regional-level cars that actually ran it (many cars that had wrecked or broken the first day didn't start the 2nd rally). Soemthing to be said for not crashing or breaking. Downy once again cleaned up with an 11th place performance and winnning his class again. e30 power! Also a shout out to our friends Adam Kimmet and Adam Moore (winning the NA Open 4WD class both days), Jon Kramer and Jason Smith right behind them, and Paul Ferreira and Ozgur Simsek winning the Open 4WD regional on Day 2, among others. Also, if You'd like to watch vids of any of this (super special or full stages) here is our team video page!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFiYgc2-iLj_mGuWerCRLa0URgC7ISD-_

Last weekend, we had a 2-day rallycross locally (two separate events). Day 1 I switched fromt he M3 rear springs to soem stock IX springs in order to do some testing. The car was sloppy early as I learned the softer rear end and I lost a bit of time and couldn't quite catch up, finishing 3rd in a 12-car class just over a second out of first. Decent showing, as DC Mod RWD class is getting super-competitive with any of about 8 drivers able to win any given event.

Second day I was the first car on course, and disaster - missed a gate near the beginning as the pointer cones could not be seen in the tall grass and I missed the gate entirely. Dammit. Down 12 seconds after one run. Previous event winner Stephen Nichols did the same thing at the same gate the next run. So for the rest of the day he and I drove all-out trying to play catch up. By the end of the day both of use had clawed back from the bottom (11th/12th) to 4th and 5th position. But knowing that this would be a "drop" event for me and not wanting to get "slop points" that would bump my start position up for future events, on my last run I crossed the start line, stopped, watied 20 seconds, and then drove the course (intentionally). This bumped me down to 8th place and lowered my total season points, meaning the next event I'll start 5th in class rather than 1st or 2nd. This is important, especialy when there is tall grass on course and/or the water truck is used to reduce dust. We'll see how this strategty works out. So....that's about it for that. Haven't done much to the car other than some suspension changes (will talk about those next week), and the East Coast Championships is coming up in 3-4 weeks, hosted here , so taht will be fun.

I'll fill this post back in with more pics when I get a chance!

So I guess I'm over due for an update here. Two weeks ago was the SCCA East Coast Championships, run by the national office. I won this event last year by mere tenths of a second over John England in his Miata, at our old gravel venue in Frostburg. Also there, I will note, was Vaughn Micchie, a relative newcomer to rallycross in a stripped-down Porsche 924S, who finished 7th or 8th, as I recall.

Fast forward to this year. DC once again hosted the event, but this time at our new venue, the Rally Farm. Rally Farm is not gravel. It has a surface, as you might expect, of a farm field. So far this year it has proven to be a difficult locale for me, as I think higher-powered cars benefit a bit more here vs. frostburg, where the gravel negated traction. Indeed, I haven't won a DC regional event YET this season after winning 5 last year. Not sure if that's the surface, me getting slower, or the other guys just getting faster (most likely).

(faye chilcote photo)

Anyhow, this event had over 70 entries - including the aforementioned England and Micchie, as well as the large and fast local crew, mostly in e30s, who have been dogging me all season. England, after last year's loss, added a supercharger to his Miata and went on to win the SCCA national championship in 2016. Vaughn continued to develp his car, stripping it of all but the rallycross necessities and getting a ton of practice in up north at Team O'Neill rally school and other venues. Vaughn showed up with his car probably the most-prepped-to-mod-RWD-class car I've ever seen. Bare shell, all glass replaced with lexan (except windshield). No interior, one seat, no bumper, no lights, gutted hood and doors, no accessories, some remote-reservoir dampers, a couple good sets of tires, etc. I'd guesstimate his car is pretty near 2000lbs now, still with the 165hp 944 engine, and a weight distribution that is probably about 52-54% REAR biased. He's really built the truly ultimate rwd rallycross car (no offence to the miata guys).

Vaughn

So anyhow, our class had 14 cars (largest class there) and it was sure to be a shootout. And it was. We ran first in the morning, in wet grass and some mud and Vaughn put that weight distro and drive wheel traction to good use, jumping out to a several-second lead after the first couple runs. England, meanwhile, was fast but picked up 5 cones on his first run (and would pick up 5 more through the rest of the event). The rest of us spun some tires, slid in some mud, but were low-cone-count and not super fast. By lunch on the first day I was sitting in 6th or 7th behind those two guys and a bunch of e30s....so, the usual for me :/

As the day dried out, England and I clawed our way back up - both of us with early deficits and nothing to lose. At the end of the day, Vaughn's lead was down to 3 or 4 seconds, and I was in 2nd, a few tenths ahead of England with a couple local e30s right on my tail.

England

Chris Nonack in his stage XRatty, killing cones everywhere with boooooost...

Josh Sennett, in the hunt

I will mention about course design: The first day's course was designed by a former national champion from the midwest. I personally didn't think it flowed well and it had a couple "gotcha" parts that did "get" some people. I don't think many people were a huge fan of it, to be honest. Not that I can say if it made me slower or faster - it just wasn't much fun.

e30 croo

Jeremy doing something on his e36

Day 2 course was designed by local FWD hotshoe and autocrosser Andy Thomas. Andy is all about flow and linking turns, and true to form the Sunday course was a lot of fun and really allowed everyone to get their rhythms on course. We helped Andy a bit with the night setup (ok, we drank beer and hooned around in Eisele's car in a field - not at the same time!)

Andy testing the course

So we battled. I don't have the times on-hand at the moment, but my recollection was that England put down THE fastest times in the class, but kept picking up cones. With it dried out, Vaughn's advantage was less and we were slowly catching him, albeit by tenths of a second at a time. In the end, not enough runs left and Vaughn won it, with England a couple seconds back and me a second behind England. Local Eric Eisele in his 325i was right behind me, and several more e30s right behind him battling it out to the last run.

So that's that....great weather, a good time and I enjoyed seeing everyone out there and competitive. MR class on this half of the country is truly, in my opinion, the deepest field in terms of class parity. And that was without former national champ Evan Arthur and Pete Remner there, as they decided not to trek out from Ohio as they had the previous year.

-- Spent the next day thinking about little mistakes that cost a few seconds and the win for me - though I'm sure everyone else has siimilar thoughts. Then decided what the hell, let's tow up to Harrisburg for the Susquehanna Region Northeast Divisional event. Never been there before, so why not. Plus, Vaughn stayed local and was signed up before heading back up north home, so another chance against him.

To make it more fun, Shawn Roberts (miata) and Jeremy (e36 328i) from DC came up (having gone 1-2 at Easterns in PR class) and decided to run MR class. Add in Bee and Theresa Thao in a supercharged Miata, Katie Orgler co-driving with Shawn, and two guys in a beat-up BMW 2002 and it looked to be a fun field.

Another stage car :)

So the Harrisburg Farm Show field is fairly hilly. And it's not all that big. So the course started on a wet/grassy uphill and the course was ridiculously tight. I mean....tighter than the smallest autocross parking lot I've ever been to. No place to get any real speed. Even the small cars spent a lot of time wildly spinning the steering wheels to lock to make tight turns, with not enough speed to trail brake/rotate many cars. Must have been hell for the Subaru guys there.

But such is life, and we run nonetheless. At least the weather was perfect and hung out with cool people, as usual.

MR class

From the first run, it was clear Vaughn had it. On the uphill wet start and other uphills, he absolutely annihilated all of the other MR cars, and by lunch break he had a 14 SECOND lead over Shawn, who I generally consider to be one of the best rallycross drivers I know. I think I was in 3rd at the time. After lunch, though, I think we all knew it was a lost cause tryin to catch Vaughn (though he did lose his exhaust on one run), so the rest of the class just started swapping cars on every run since none of us were going for divisional points (Vaughn was).

So, I got to drive Jeremy's e36 (working A/C, pretty heavy, awesome traction on new Hoosier Rally Tires, and amazing torque that was never lacking at any speed). And I finally got to drive a Miata on a rallycross course. Shawn and Katie's "unicorn car." First time I'd ever driven a Miata anywhere, ever. And I immediately put down a time pretty much the same as in my own car the run before. Well, that's discouraging. The Miata slides so predictably, and answers every wheel movement. All I had to do was throttle steer half the time. If Shawn actually ahd some decent belts in that car (aluminum seat with stock seatbelt so I was banging around int he car over every bumpy area) I coudl probably have knocked a couple more seconds off....

My last run back in my car I pushed and got back 3 second, so I can still drive it faster I guess.....

The unicorn

Shawn and Jeremy trying out Bee's supercharged Miata

Other random cars there

So......that covers that. No more rallycross until September, after we get back from Black River Stages. The car held up well to the last two events with no issues, so I'll be tinkering a it but probobaly mostly working on the Porsche and continuing to fix annoying E36 M3 that keeps going bad on my 150k WRX.......

I need to spend less time with the girlfriend and more time racing, STPR looks like a RIOT!