May 20th, 2001 (NOVR)

Matt and I joined the NOVR crew for their second race, these are usually very laid back autocrosses with far fewer competitors, on a nice flat chunk of asphalt near Steubenville, Ohio (about 40 mins outside of Pittsburgh). We drove through some heavy rain in the morning, but by the time racing started around noon there was not a drop, although temperatures were crazy (heavy wind and sometimes sunny, sometimes dark conditions forced everyone to dance in and out of their jackets.) There were about 40 people racing, and the course was brilliantly complex, tripling over itself in places and turning the small lot into a mentally and physically challenging 50-second course. To make things even more interesting, the pavement was very slick for everone due to sand, and so there was lots of fun, predictable drifting going on for everyone. Off-throttle and tail-out, the Type R is a beautifully rewarding car to drive. Matt was sporting his new JDM Header and high-flow Cat for this event (see the mods section of our site), and I'm sick of taking out my JDM reat strut-tower bar, so I ran in CSP despite my car being otherwise stock and on the OEM street tires. With the slippery conditions, I'm not sure the guys on race tires had much of an advantage though...today was a blast! I'm very happy with my runs, while I wasn't able to keep up with the R compound guys I had a some extremely rewarding runs, and felt that the R and I were working as one for the first time. Matt got it together in a major way and spanked the rest of CSP with a blistering run...(and he had a malfunctioning-timer run that both he and a passenger swear would have been about a second faster). Andy Waldman, who usually spanks us VTEC guys with his CRX, was having trouble finding the fiendishly complex course, and so like a dunderhead I rode shotgun and navigated, whcih resulted in his only clean, and faster than my best, run. Like I told Andy, he didn't beat me...I beat myself! :) Another nice thing about the small lot is great picture-taking locations, so the cars are a little closer this week. Check out the results Right Here.

Shiny miata action!

This isn't the one, but a supercharged miata did a great Reverse-gear peelout after missing a gate...left two strips of rubber for about 15 feet.

I'm really fond of this color.

Chris Carlisle getting his groove on.

Chris's groove is now in the On position.

A VW powered dune buggy, this sucker doesn't launch too quickly, but that engine in the rear means oldschool 911 handling characteristics.

Mister Two!

John Wagner has a wicked fast ST GS-R, and he can drive the thing too. He's got some great seats in there Matt and I were taking turns sitting...mmm...snug..

Andy makes use of the "Oh Shit" handle in Matt's R.

I busted out the sequential mode on the digicam for Matt's last run, so get ready for a slew of pics...

here comes the money shot...

Ooooohh...aaaaaahh...sooo beautiful!

And the finish!

All you have to do is tilt your head and it counters the lean of the miata

There were like 3 black miatas there today...we need to repaint some for ease of recognition.

There was only one Mini, however...little wheels rule!

Hi!

A look at the rather meager pits...but it's nice to have a chill Autocross now and again, when North Hills is running as many as 150 cars some weekends!

If you see a beetle spin, and your vision is bad, can you tell when it's facing the right way again?

Rudy was having some trouble keeping all four wheels working together on the slick lot, but he got it together pretty nicely

Rudy's son drives a Camaro...apparently if he'd bought anything other than a Chevrolet product he'd be written out of the will. I think I'm gonna require my kids have cars that redline at a minimum of 8000 RPM.

Ryan took FTD, breaking into the 49s with his thundering firebird...he drives this thing full-on, and it's just too much fun to watch.

here I go!

Unfortunately, the poor guy I enlisted to take pics had to shut down the camera during a timer error, and when it restarted it did not go back to its optimal-autocross settings, so I only got a few pics of me. Next time at steubenville i'm gonna camp Matt out on the grass with the camera and make him take about 50 in sequential mode so i get some nice ones...i think he owes me :)

I just made these numbers to comply with rules requiring 8-inch digits and 4-inch letters, but I kinda hated the numbers...so about 10 minutes ago I finished making a bigger version of my old font. Picky Picky! Gotta love giant rolls of magnetic sheeting.

I'm always out of cleverness when i get to my pics, heh.

I've finally figured out how to nail the brake at the finish without collecting the throttle too...nothing like the rev-limiter and ABS at the same time!

One of Andy's Hoosier AutoCrosser tires was seperating in ugly ways...hopefully he can convince good ole Hoosier to send him a replacement. They've only got 20 miles on them! :)

Can't wait to race in Steubenville agian, the slick pavement is a ride and a half. Next week, for maximum contrast, is the first event at the Allegheny County Airport parking lot...CONCRETE! R compound tires stick like glue to concrete...but they also wear pretty quickly. Steel Cities Region SCCA, here we come! Hope to see you there.
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