August 16-17 - Summer Sizzler Autocross (Cumberland Airport)

[Brian]

Originally Posted by wannarace928

1. svxfiles (Tom)
2. green_eyed_lady (Di)
3. subi-crosser (Jerry)
4. Hocrest (Dave) & Mellis
5. SVXyGirl (Rebecca)
6. Mike621 (Mike)
7. SVXRide (Bill M.I.A. Cutlip)
8. TomsSVX (I gotta show up and beat up on Tom some more)
9. Sov13t (still a bit iffy but definitely one of the days, gotta check whether the autopilot module is still working)
10. Tim ( I think I'm going to come up Saturday morning very early and then leave in the late afternoon.)
11. newsvx (Harry) Will be racing on Saturday.
12. Rufus (Mike)
13. svxcess (maybe bringing Dan along (SVX92-97) to pick up his Polo)
14. GreenMarineSVX (Chris)
15. BugBomb (Mike, Jen, and Jake Moran)
16. Wannarace928 (possibly bringing SVXonthebrain with me... provided my car makes it. )
17. Brian (Saturday mid morning-mid afternoon)

Rebecca, donuts (If it's not too late): chocolate coconut, chocolate iced.

[Mr. Black]

Oops... logged in as the wrong person

~ Chris

[GreenMarine]

Day one was great!... The Autocross course was challenging in the sense that it was hard to actually figure out where you were going most of the time. Other than that, I loved the course. It combined awesome high speed sections including a double lane change at about 60+mph...

Can't wait for tomorrow!! I'll be running in the first heat tomorrow so I can leave and get back to Raleigh at a decent time since I have work at 7:30am on Monday at my Army unit... Too bad there aren't trophies or something like that... I really wanted to have something to put above the fireplace to remind me of this weekend... Hopefully there will be enough pictures postsd up though

~ Chris

(Now I'm logged in as the right person)

[SVXyGirl]

Made it home. I will upload the hundreds of pictures tomorrow sometime. The color turned out better than I thought. I was afraid that the lighter vehicles (Harry's Pearl and Dave's XT) would blend in the background. I had fun today guys. Hope everyone has a great day tomorrow!

[newsvx]

Looking forward to Becky's photos - since all of the SVXi were in the same group, I was unable to get any pics of the SVXi on the track. BUT , check out my album on PhotoBucket at http://s222.photobucket.com/albums/d...0Sizzler%2008/
for some video and pics of the group and some of the other cars. The video of the road to OT's house should be play banjos in the background . The video of my "on-car" camera is good from the standpoint that it shows how challenging the course was (great job running, Chris!) and it also shows the pit area where tires were changed, etc.

Did anyone else take pics? Please share .....

GREAT time folks. The best part was getting together with all of the SVX'ers (even RUFUS and his Porsche - he USED to have a SVX). Many thanks to OT and Lady Di for their hospitality - that was the BEST part of the weekend!!
Great to see everyone again - and BILL SHOWED UP TOO - finally!!

Looking forward to the Pumkin Run in the Fall ....
Harry

[wannarace928]

It was very nice meeting some of you guys. Thanks a lot Tom and Di for having SVXonthebrain and I out to the meet. Wish we could have stayed longer out there. But our trip ended up lasting about 8 hours longer than hoped when the car broke on the way home, But it seems we may have finally fixed the problem!

[green_eyed_lady]

Glad to hear everyone (so far) made it home okay, albeit later than expected. It was a great meet; Tom is saying his final goodbyes to YT, Sov13t and Downforlow (I think that's his name) as I type this.

Thanks to all for coming, I will post more in the morning, when I have more time.

[SVXRide]

What a meet! I almost want to say that I missed the "up close and personal" abuse from the SVX family (as if the abuse via the Network wasn't bad enough). Thanks so much to OT and Di for their hospitality! Thanks to YT for making the trip down to MD to install the R180 and caravaning up to OT's place all in the same day (did I mention how loud YT's exhaust is?) It really was great getting to see everyone and knock off some of the ~2yrs of autoX rust that had accumulated

As Chris has already mentioned, Saturday's course was, to be kind, challenging. I have never heard so many people called off course - a lot of them very experienced autoX'ers. Sunday's course definitely made up for the somewhat confusing nature of Saturday's course. Thanks to YT and Dave for their help with the "adjustments" made to Battlescar late Saturday night (yes, the "Official AutoX Parts Breaker" title was confirmed) in preparation for Sunday. I'm not sure if Chris or YT had the fastest SVX time of the day on Sunday. My Sunday times were:

Run 1 = 59.933
Run 2 = 57.911
Run 3 = 55.996
Run 4 = 55.444
Run 5 = 54.551
Run 6 = 53.535

I can honestly say that I still hadn't reached the car's limit after 6 runs. I do think the high 40s were out there, I just ran out of runs

I took ~50 pics and will provide a link sometime Monday.

-Bill
p.s. anybody see Ben?

[subi-crosser]

Originally Posted by wannarace928

It was very nice meeting some of you guys. Thanks a lot Tom and Di for having SVXonthebrain and I out to the meet. Wish we could have stayed longer out there. But our trip ended up lasting about 8 hours longer than hoped when the car broke on the way home, But it seems we may have finally fixed the problem!

Sorry about your problem. I just wish that you could have stopped up at the airport, (since you were so close that you could see the hangers)!
I met all the others though.

My hat goes off to new member, Nathan! He not only drove a 'totaled' SVX here from Upstate New York, he ran BOTH days and actually was COMPETITIVE!
Sat night, we took the car to my brothers shop and cut the wheel well out and hammered it back so it didn't hit the tire on sunday.

The course was faster today. (I was told). I had a family thing that took all day, so I was out of the mix.

There were MORE SVXi there than Corvettes OR Cobras!! Thanks people!
THAT is how you drive the VALUE UP on these cars!!

Last time, I was asked if this was a 'local' club. I told him to look at the TAGS on the cars! Mass, N.J., Va.,ETC. This time there were Ohio and N. Carolina!

I had TOO much fun again!

Can't wait till OCTOBER! I'll haul the 'silver' out of mothballs and clean the rust off the rotors! I'm not going to tag it this year, so it will arrive on the dolly.

THANK you, ONE and ALL for making the mini-meet a SUCCESS!!!

Thank you, Tom and Di, for putting up with all of us again!

[GreenMarine]

Whooo-hooo!! That was a great weekend guys! Thanks so much for making my only vacation away from Raleigh this year a good one.

I just got home ( TRAFFIC ON I-95 was giving me an anurism for atleast 4 hours!!1!! ) and unloaded the car. I've gotta get my uniform ironed and all that good mess because I'm doing work out at the armory tomorrow at 7am (and it's 1 hour north of Raleigh)... With all the driving this weekend, my car finally rolled over 130k... WOW, I can't believe I bought it in 2001 with 60k on it and I have driven it more than the previous owner ... I love my baby

It was good to see the peeps I first saw at Reading 5 again (OT, Di, Bill, SVXCESS, and others who I forgot your names already). It was also great to meet some new people (or people I may have met earlier but forgot the first time )... Thanks for the Driveshaft YT!! It really made my car a lot smoother... ( Oh hell, I forgot that Aluminum chunk that I left up there... I was gonna send it back to smallcar.com with a few other things I still have of theirs)... As soon as I can be bothered to look into that Ring Gear thing in my steering wheel, I'll get the AirBag light and Cruise fixed... Thanks for those tips too

As far as the Autocross goes, Here is my take on the courses. Personally I LOVED them. They were fast and long. However, the Saturday course was quite challenging to navigate. I (along with a few other veteran AutoXers) felt that there should have been more directional cones in certain parts of the course. But no worries though because no matter how ya look at it the simple facts are these:
1.)We were there to have fun (AND I DID!)...
2.) We weren't racing for money (damn)...
3.)There were no trophies (double-damn)...
4.)NONE of us were competitive with the rest of the SM cars ...

So that just left the option to go out there, and drive like your @$$ is on fire!!!

Here were my runs from the weekend: (better put them up before I loose the slips)

Saturday

Run 1 - 53.628
Run 2 - 52.032 + "OFF" = DNF
Run 3 - 52.362 +1
Run 4 - Lost the ticket
Run 5 - 51.608

Sunday

Run 1 - 51.165
Run 2 - 50.120
Run 3 - 50.451
Run 4 - 50.569
Run 5 - 50.732 +1
Run 6 - 50.166

Great Autocross which allowed me to wear down my tires just alittle more, but hey, that's why I bought them (to make them into SLICKS, and keep running )...

I hope I can come up and Autocross with youguys again sometime , If nothing else BILL, I might have to get up there to that "FedEX" place you talk about in MD and run with you there...

~ Chris

[benebob]

Originally Posted by SVXRide

I can honestly say that I still hadn't reached the car's limit after 6 runs. I do think the high 40s were out there, I just ran out of runs


-Bill
p.s. anybody see Ben?

No the question is did anybody see Bill. Aparently his car was here, his shell was there but the idiot behind the wheel finished a .10 ahead of HS winner Dave! I'm thinking he's been snatched up by an alien.

I can honestly say that I didn't reach the car's limits in the allotted runs either. Just think, if you had 100 runs and Dave had 100 runs in his poorly running stock XT6 you might be 2 seconds ahead. Then again, you probably would have driven into an airplane if you had that many runs!

.1 better than DAVE and you're whining about me not showing up? Obviously I'm not interested in wasting my time on a lightweight! Instead I'll send Hocrest with a Bone Stock XT6 and street tires to entertain your boy racer ambitions. Do your rockets fly that slow too!

[TomsSVX]

ugh... finally made it back to the shop by 5am. Shortly after Nathan got onto 81 from the Penna Turnpike, I had to pull off to take a short rest...`2hrs. Then made the rest of the trek home.

Tom & Di your hostility is always second to none....wait... hospitality??? There was no point in my visit that I felt anywhere but home, and we even got to discuss exoculation!!!

The A-X was the second best part of my trip. Sat being a course that was easy to get lost I tripped 2 off-courses and 1 +1 run. 2 clean... best time of 54.590

Sunday the course was easier to read but VERY FAST!!! I was topping out 3rd gear at the end of the straights. Ran R-compound tires that Tom lent me instead of my street tires on the Sti wheels. Managed to close Saturdays gap of 3.xxx seconds behing Chris to .4 seconds with a best clean time of 50.5xx. Chris, i congratulate you on your abilities as you were able to carry a lot of speed through those courses.

Played around with the G-tech both days.

Maximum Lateral G's on Sat= .99 on street tires
Maximum Lateral G's on Sun= 1.16 on r-comps

Just a cool little tid-bit about the car. Hope to see you all again real soon at the Jersey Beach Meet!!!

Tom

[GreenMarine]

Originally Posted by TomsSVX

ugh... finally made it back to the shop by 5am. Shortly after Nathan got onto 81 from the Penna Turnpike, I had to pull off to take a short rest...`2hrs. Then made the rest of the trek home.

Tom & Di your hostility is always second to none....wait... hospitality??? There was no point in my visit that I felt anywhere but home, and we even got to discuss exoculation!!!

Yes, thanks very much Tom and Di for letting me stay there with youguys. Sorry I wasn't in much of a "party mood" on saturday, but I was worn out ... Hopefully I'll see youguys again sometime soon.

Originally Posted by TomsSVX

The A-X was the second best part of my trip. Sat being a course that was easy to get lost I tripped 2 off-courses and 1 +1 run. 2 clean... best time of 54.590

Sunday the course was easier to read but VERY FAST!!! I was topping out 3rd gear at the end of the straights. Ran R-compound tires that Tom lent me instead of my street tires on the Sti wheels. Managed to close Saturdays gap of 3.xxx seconds behing Chris to .4 seconds with a best clean time of 50.5xx. Chris, i congratulate you on your abilities as you were able to carry a lot of speed through those courses.

Played around with the G-tech both days.

Maximum Lateral G's on Sat= .99 on street tires
Maximum Lateral G's on Sun= 1.16 on r-comps

Just a cool little tid-bit about the car. Hope to see you all again real soon at the Jersey Beach Meet!!!

Tom

Tom, thanks for letting me drive the 6MT SVX down the road and back. It handles very similarly to an STi. Well I mean that it transfers power very similarly and was the feel I was hoping it would have. I would have loved to take it around the Autocross course a few times too I think your car definitely has the potential to be really good at Autocross, if only you could get more seat time. Hell, that is hard for me to come by too now days. But it was fun having you slide towards me while I was working at corner 3 on Sunday ... Wish I had a camera for that!

~ Chris

[green_eyed_lady]

Counting our 4 "spares", we had a total of 20 SVXi and 28 people show up at our little meet, at one time or another over the total 2-1/2 days.

In attendance were: (* means they brought an SVX)

1. svxfiles*
2. green_eyed_lady*
3. GreenMarineSVX*
4. TomsSVX*
5. SVXRide*
6. downforlow*
7. svxcess*
8. SVXyGirl*
9. Wannarace928*
10. SVXonthebrain (rode with Wannarace928)
11. Brian (from Pgh.)*
12. Mike621*
13. newsvx*
14. Mr. Black* (Tom's son Nick)
15. BugBomb*
16. Jen Moran
17. Jake Moran
18. Chris (came with the Moran gang)
19. Rufus
20. Hocrest
21. subi-crosser
22. Dave Williams (one of the major organizers of the autocross events)
23. Linda (came with Dave)
24. Dan Semler (a local friend of ours)
25. Sov13t*
26. Ron Durham (another local friend, but he didn't bring his SVX)
27. Rick Robeson* (another local SVXer)
28. Brian (our next-door neighbor)

The official autocross results haven't been posted yet; we'll let everybody know when they are. It's always great when we have several SVXi show up for the autocrosses - the more people find out about them, the more valuable they will become!

Thanks again to everybody who came. We all had a great time.

We are planning another meet for the next autocross event, the September 20-21 "Harvest Moon" Autocross. More info on the Autocross Series can be found on the National Road Rally website.

[green_eyed_lady]

Harry (newsvx) took some great videos, including this one of the drive to our house. Great view when you come in the driveway, eh?

Thanks, Harry.