S&M Racing

June 24th, 2001 (Steel Cities)

Another lovely day at the 'ole Allegheny County Airport, despite a foggy and cool morning and some pretty menacing looking cloud formations, we got mostly sun (a little too much, in my case...forgot the hat. Doh!) and some very high temperatures. Matt wasn't in attendance, he was busy getting smashed at a friend's wedding, and then gettign frustrated by some little projects he was workign on Sunday after he got back. A good turnout (about 100 drivers) resulted in a change in the running order, there were four heats, and you did your four runs in a group, then rested, then worked, and then rested again (or some combination of the four, depending on your heat). I was in the first group, and I think my tire pressures were consistantly too high, because i was pushing everywhere and getting very little traction. My best run was my second, and it was a decent street-tire run, but I was very incosistent and not very pleased with my performance. On the bright side, I have gotten pretty good at rev-matching the 2-1 shift while doing other things, so i'll consider that a minor victory, hopefully with long-term implications. A local ITR owner, Robert, showed up for his firt event, and he did what most novices do, which is improve by massive chunks...I think we'll be seeing more of Robert, congrats on your first Autocross! William (Black ITR) and Shawn (PY ITR) were both on hand to represent in G Stock, and I missed the outcome, but i'm sure they both placed on or near the top of the heap, both are excellent Type R pilots..and Shawn is on his stock tires, which just eliminates any excuses I might have :)
After the offical event, there was a 16-person elimination round, where entrants were selected at random, paid 5 dollars each, and competed to win the pot (80 dollars). To even things up, each pair was given two runs that were then added together and multiplied by their PAX index. I was the last name drawn, and I was paired up against a CP mustang on race tires...I might have had a slim chance (though being in CSP on street tires kinda screwed any PAX advantage i would have had), but I went off-course on my first run, so that kinda screwed that pooch right-quick. That's okay, because my next competitor would have been Street Mod champ Kent Rafferty, whose times were only about 5 seconds quicker than mine. Still, anything can happen, and it did: Fellow Integra driver, John Wagner, in his beautifully set-up Street Touring GS-R faced off against Kent, and Kent hit a cone on one of his runs! Johns consistently fast driving and the PAX index did the rest, and at the end, John had a little more cash than when he left. Great driving John, and way to fly the Integra banner! (Moral: Type R's are nice, but driver skill rules). Next week it's up to Akron, hope to see you there!

There's alot of pics from this weekend (almost six megs total), so I'm going to break it up into three sections to make it a little more bearable for the modem crowd. If any of you see a picture of your car that you think is the bee's knees, email me at srl@itr.wilkerstaff.com and I may have a higher-quality origional of the photo (most of the pics I take are 1600x1200, and are ressized for the webpage).

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And now, in the order I named the files, which is totally illogical, the pictures:

Andy's CRX (NO-TEC) sporting a new look...a little more low key, still the best looking CRX around.

These pics are for anyone who complains that since their car isn't a race car, they can't AutoCross. YOU'RE WRONG. Exhibit A: Stock Accord Sedan.

VWs retain their rear-wheel lift even when you've got the go-fast goodies onboard...speaks of a rigid chassis!

I had erroniously said that this camaro belonged to Keith, Rudy's son...he points out that his camaro is red. Well, so much for coding late at night, sorry about that one! Don't have this guy's name handy, but whoever he is, he's not afraid to smoke some rubber!