Grassroots Motorsports: The Hardcore Sports Car Magazine

This mean-looking man is actually the very friendly Larry Taylor, our salesman on both the 2005 and our incoming 2007.

We traded in our 2005 MINI Cooper last night to Downtown MINI in Orlando. The dealership gave us a good enough trade value (MINI = high resale!) that, when combined with the trade-in tax credit, came very close to what we were asking. The kicker is that we got to keep our multiple sets of Rota wheels, sticky tires and even the exhaust system. The latter will be good trade bait when we start prepping our newest project…

A 2007 MINI Cooper S

Our MINI Cooper wrapped up the 2006 points season in Central Florida region with another win in H Stock. Kim won the class handily over 4 other racers. Per spent the day cheering on the sidelines and being a nuisance as Kim ran. Per did take a couple of fun runs at the end with one hand in a cast and Kim doing the shifting–but a downed cone kept the bragging rights clearly in Kim’s corner.

CFR Results

We’ve just placed an ad for the car in our local autotrader. If anyone is interested in a very clean and very fast Cooper, we are asking $17,500, which includes an extra set of rims and race tires. You can email per@grassrootsmotorsports.com for more info.

With Nationals now just a fleeting memory, we’re looking at our options for next year. If someone was interested in purchasing a well-prepared, immaculate 2005 MINI for a reasonable price, they should email Per@grassrootsmotorsports.com for more information.

It’s SCCA Solo Nationals time! The first day results for H Stock are up on the SCCA’s Web site, it looks like tech editor Per Schroeder is in ninth place, about a quarter of a second out of the trophies. He improved his time on every run, and the competition in the 22-car field is close, with the seven trophy spots covered by a half a second. Per’s wife, Kim, is currently in 18th spot; this is her first Solo Nationals, and it looks like she found a ton of speed on her third and final run of the day.

Per said that the new-for-2006 asphalt surface was much more slick, and that the morning classes in particular were dealing with chilly temperatures and hard tires.

Congrats on the great job so far and good luck tomorrow, Schroeders!

Just two short weeks until we head to Topeka, Kansas for the Solo National Championships. We found at Autocross Forum that HS runs first with CM, STS2L and FSAEL. We run the East Course Thurs and the West on Friday. We will be working Heat 3. That means we can get back on the road early. Per needs to be dropped off at the KS City airport for a trip to europe to preview the new 2007 MINI Cooper and this run/work schedule works perfectly!

No comment necessary:

The SCCA’s Solo Events Board recently published this item in the September issue of Fastrack (which is essentially the club rules newsletter for the SCCA)

“1) General: The four black jacking pucks underneath Mini Coopers should be removed before competition for safety reasons. Comment: these are considered somewhat like a wheel center cap in the type of hazard they can present if they come off the car at speed during competition. ”

This is a little weird, as the pucks don’t pop out unless they are broken and are actually quite helpful for jacking up the MINI without damaging any of the unibody. Maybe we should make this sticker prior to our trip to Topeka?

For what it’s worth, in SCCA-speak, “should” is not quite the same as “must” so we’ll be keeping our pucks in place for the big show.

The Solo National Championships is a mere one month away and the GRM team is ready. We’ve had a successful year so far, with numerous top index finishes (10?) and two National Tour wins. We’re hopeful that the Big Event will go well for Kim and Per. It’s Kim’s first nationals and it’s Per’s 12th, so we’ve got competitors at both ends of the experience spectrum.

This weekend, we drove up to Cecil, GA for a test and tune event with Dixie Region SCCA. We got six runs each on the pristine asphalt surface and felt like we were in the hunt with our times, despite the sections which favored a higher horsepower car. Yesterday’s Central Florida Region event in Deland was another MINI-party, with Per and Kim taking the top two index spots. That leaves Per with just one more perfect 100 to gather to max out all nine scored events.

At this point, we’re also looking at our tire situation for Nationals. It looks like we will continue to run the same rear tires (they don’t do much) that we’ve had since May and scrub in a new pair of Kumhos for the front at an event the weekend prior to our journey to Topeka.

The upper strut bearing replacement requires removing the strut assembly from the car.

While the MINI was at the dealership, we had the guys install an Ipod adapter for our listening pleasure.

Our MINI is just about to hit 20,000 miles and we’ve yet to take advantage of MINI’s free scheduled maintenance (which uses MINI’s synthetic oil!) so we treated our car to a trip to the dealership today. Downtown MINI changed our oil, replaced our a/c system filter and reset our service indicator at no charge. We also had them investigate a rattle in the front suspension, it turned out to be a loose upper strut bearing, which was replaced under warranty (our first warranty claim for the car!)

We also had them install an Ipod adapter which will work a lot better than the FM transmitter type that we had been using. That was our only charge for the day, as the adapter was $149 and it took them about an hour to install.

While we were there, we also talked to Larry Taylor, our salesman that we bought the MINI from. Early reports on the second generation MINI are very favorable, with the car having the same wheelbase, slightly longer overhangs and thanks to an all-aluminum engine, a curb weight of 180 pounds less than the current car. We’re looking forward to the Press Introductions for the new car, which will start happening in September. Maybe we’ll have to drag a turbocharged Cooper S home for next season’s autocrossing!

It’s not boring to us: another top index in the MINI:
Brooksville PAX results

We’ve got another event coming up this weekend in DeLand. We’re ready!

Edit: Another top index in the MINI in DeLand…that’s now at least seven top PAXs for this year.

DeLand PAX results