Ok, time for some racing. DC Rallycross #5 and 6 (doubleheader) last weekend was at Panthera Training. The weather was clear and crisp with a nice breeze to keep the dust off the course for the most part. MR was, as usual, the largest class with 15 entries out of the 50 total cars there. All the usual suspects were there:
(here's where I apologize for taking very few photos for some reason, since I knew Sara Nonack was taking about a billion of them which I'm sure we'll see at some point)
(also, be sure to catch up on Nonack's and Nick's and Mike's threads here on GRM for their takes on the event)
This was the first event with the new suspension setup. I put a grand total of 5 miles on the street on it so wasn't sure what to expect. To recap, at the previous event it had Bilstein HDs up front with 220# 10" springs and in the rear it had IX stock springs with the Gp4 gravel Bilsteins (no sways). Now it has the Escort gravel Bilsteins up front with 12" 230# springs and the e36 M3 springs in the rear again, plus the weight "rebalance" from the spare tire relocation, etc. I ran all weekend with a rally spare in the backseat area. In short, spring rate up front got a bit stiffer, damping up front got much softer, rear spring rate got stiffer, and front camber went from about -2* to about 0.5* negative. So i was interested to see how it would feel.
The Saturday course was the shorter "back side" course that is basically a hillclimb full of technical S-curves and cutbacks. It tends to favor the more powerful cars since it's pretty much entirely uphill, with a long vertical "drag strip" coming into the finish turn. That said, it also has some narrow areas with large cone walls (to keep people from tumbling down large hills) and "moon dust" on the edges that are time-killers if you go too wide (one e30 did that and got high-centered and stuck). Also many of the turns are blind, so you can't really 'look ahead' all that much, and have to go a lot on memory from the drive-through and early runs.
Everyone went fast out of the gate in this tight class. On the first run Nick, Stephen Nichols (e30 M20, the current points leader), Mike Golden (2zzz-swapped MR2) and me pretty much matched times from the start, with minor variations. The next 4-5 cars in class stayed close behind but picked up some cones here and there while we mostly stayed clean. After 6 runs none of the top 4 cars had any cones, and we went into lunch with me holding a ~2-second lead over Nick and Stevie, with several others close behind.
The after-lunch course was largely the same with some small changes but Nick was clearly in a groove and started laying down consecutive very fast and clean runs, using the M3's power to out-climb the rest of us. Stevie and me both made a couple minor mistakes costing us a second or two and by the last run my lead had been whittled down to 4/10ths of a second, with Nick beating me on every afternoon run. My last run was pretty good, my 2nd fastest of the day. Nick out of the blue laid down a flyer, beating it by 1.6 seconds (the fastest run by anyone in the class other than Golden's MR2). So he took the win on the last run.
So for Saturday, Nick won, I was 1.1s back, Stephen was 2.7s back from me, and the rest of the class were gapped 2-5 seconds behind each other for the most part. So that was pretty disappointing
Here's the top-10 MR results, minus the MR2 and Miatas down at the bottom.
We headed out to grab some pizza and beer and then came back to hang out with the people camping out in the near-freezing temps at the venue. It was cold.
It was also cold in the morning, evidenced by Golden's MR2
Sunday we ran what can only be described as the biggest, fastest, longest course in mid-Atlantic rallycross history. It used pretty much 75% of the entire rallycross venue, including the giant long hillclimbs (and hill descents) that we haven't used in a couple years due to conditions, which had finally been graded. This promised to be an epic course combining huge power-friendly areas with some very tight and technical/cone-heavy/blind turn areas. Course conditions were excellent with dust mostly blowing off the course (keep this in mind). The closest to a stage rally that you'll ever see in rallycross. The early run group was taking well over 2 minutes per run (in grippy conditions, no slippery mud or grass slowing people down)...the course was THAT long. It also had the popular high-speed downhill-into-pin-turn-and-then-straight-uphill. I Ken Block-style nailed it every time in the morning (turning left) but not so much turning right in the afternoon. I hope there are some pics lol.
Still pissed over Saturday's blown lead, I went out of the gates hard. So did Stephen. Both of us ran low 117-second runs, with his co-driver Chris putting down 119. The closest car after that was Nonack's 122 in the BRZ, and much of the class were in the 124-125 zone. This is highly unusual in this class, with everyone evenly matched usually, and I'm not really sure WHY it was the case, honestly. But the trend continued all morning, and at lunch I had a 4-second lead over Stevie and he was about 15 seconds ahead of Nick in 3rd. The afternoon course reversed to the direction I'm typically slower at for some reason. But still, Steve and I went out of the gate hard. Nick switched tires from grasstracks to gravels at lunch and started laying down run times similar to ours with the M3's power and clean driving. The rest of the class continued to fall further behind for the most part. With two runs left I was holding onto about a 4-second lead over Stephen, with nobody else remotely close to the two of us. Mid-run I came over the hilltop crest and got a full-bore blast of dust from the car coming up the hill below me and it was a total whiteout heading toward basically a big dropoff with no marker cones. I'm one who is a proponent of "just remember where the turn is and drive that way" but in this case the total lack of any course markers (or anything) visible made me shut it down. Going off an embankment would not have been fun (and likely would have stopped the event for a good amount of time). So after coming to a complete stop I finished with a 124)-second run (my prior run had been 117). I've only once ever requested a re-run due to conditions before, but in this case with the tight battle I felt like it was warranted. Re-run was granted and I went immediately, made a couple big mistakes, and finished with a pretty slow 119. A full second slower than Stevie. So had the dust run stood, Stevie would have had a couple-second lead going into the last run, but as it was, I maintained a 1-second lead. My last run I went all-out knowing he would as well, and nailed another 117-second run, not knowing what Stevie had run right before me since he was still on course. As it happens, it didn't much matter as he hit two cones in addition to a slow 119 and ended up almost 7 seconds behind me. Even with Nick's very fast afternoon runs, he only pulled within 11 seconds of Stephen. So, I finally got a win this season.
Here's the finishing positions for Sunday's giant course:
So, the takeaway is this: I didn't hit any cones all weekend. And there were some areas where it was possible to hit 6 cones at once if your line was just a foot or two off. I was overly careful in these areas and tried to make up the time elsewhere.
The real takeaway, though, is that the new front suspension is really, really good. The car felt completely controllable, with no surprises from either end, no matter what I did. The softer damping up front (and increased front end height by about 1") really balanced the car well, and the more vertical camber felt like it give better outer edge bite. Overall, the car felt extremely locked-in - ESPECIALLY on the high-speed sections on Sunday where the prior suspension setup sometimes felt somewhat unsettled. Makes sense since this suspension setup is intended for high-speed stage rally. But in short, I'm very very pleased with it and there's no chance I win on Sunday with my old suspension, in my opinion. There are many drivers in this class who are better than I am. But I honestly think I've managed to build the best car at this point (just my biased opinion, of course). I suspect several of these guys (Nonack, Eisele, Stephen in particular) would probably beat me badly if they co-drove my car lol (most of them have in the past, in truth).
In other news, we revived our habit of putting a bottle with flowers in it onto the course right as Julian Zottl is approaching. This is an inside joke among us from the old Summit Point days (and it's only done because he fully expects it to be done and he loves hitting it)...
Also, this thing was there, and it was not terribly fast, but still awesome. Especially with the driver wearing full Speedracer helmet and ascot. This is the one with the locking center and rear diffs, and it looked to have traction for days....
So, here are the season points as they stand. One remaining doubleheader next month at Summit Point, where freezing temps may be a factor for tire choice. Summit is very flat, so the power edge Nick and I have over the class is mostly negated compared to the big hills at Panthera. So, we'll see how that goes and who picks the right tires, I guess.
One thing to look at here: Take a look at the fact that we've had 6 events, with 4 different winners. Meanwhile, there are extremely fast guys (Nonack, Cox, Golden) that could win any time but haven't (yet) this season. Most regions and classes there tend to be 2 or 3 top dogs who always win. Here in DC, I'd say there are probably 8 to 10 drivers in MR that COULD win at any given event. Plus, many-time PR champion and class leader Shawn Roberts could certainly finish at the top of MR if he chose to up-class his Miata (I think he doesn't because he doesn't want to embarrass all of us lol).
