Went Racing. Finally.

 Okay, it wasn't pretty. I was slow. I've forgotten some of the most basic tenets of autocross. I don't understand the limits of my car. I have a half dozen important issues with the car to address. Yada yada yada....

...but damn, it was fun.

I'm talking, of course, about my first autocross drive in over fifteen years. And of course, the first race with the Bugeye. 

The local SCCA group (Arizona Border Region SCCA: https://www.azbrscca.org/) conducted their first event of the season yesterday. The race was held at Kino Parkway here in Tucson, and about 60 cars showed up. Everything from Teslas to Miatas, and Porsches to BRZs were in attendance. And the Bugeye, of course. The course itself was pretty straightforward, with four big sweepers, intermixed with two slaloms. 

Here are some random thoughts on the event, the car, and my (lack of) abilities:

• Autocross Is FUN. Many decades ago, before marriage and kids, I was a regular in the local A/X scene. Then life happened. I still sporadically went to races, but other priorities took, well, priority. It also didn't help that I moved a number of times in the ensuing years, to Europe, Hawaii, Colorado, etc.. for work. Further, when I moved back to Arizona, the Bugeye was in pieces. Now that it's running (and mostly reliable) it was time to go back and see if A/X was as much fun and worthwhile as I believed it to be. It is.
• The Car. The car is great. The car is lacking. First, there's plenty of power, but the rear end gearing really limits performance, making first gear worthless and forcing the car to run out of RPMs at just the wrong times. The other big thing is body roll. Yes, I put a sway bar on the car this past week, but it's not enough. Probably need a rear bar, too. Also, I've ordered stiffer springs for the rear, which should help a lot. But the excessive body roll is unnerving. The car never really felt in danger of going over, but the suspension geometry was clearly affected in the sweepers by the excessive body roll. There were a half dozen other things I noted, but these two (gearing, body roll) are the big ones that require first attention.
• The Driver. Okay, I've forgotten how to drive fast. Even the basics are greatly lacking, like looking ahead, not trying to brake and turn and accelerate all at the same time, etc. The good news is I got a full second faster on each lap, which is huge. The bad news is I was still near the bottom of the pack in overall time, with the fastest cars being a full 8 seconds quicker per lap than me. I need to practice a lot more, plus probably ask for a ride along with some more experienced drivers to point out the things I'm ignorant I'm doing/non-doing.
• The Day. I'd forgotten how long an autocross race day can be. Don't get me wrong; it's a fun day, but I left the house at 6:30am, and didn't get home until~3pm or. Only a fraction of that time is spent driving; the rest is getting through tech, standing through the drivers meeting, walking the course a few times, working the course, jawing about cars, sitting in grid, loading and unloading the car from the trailer (yes, I trailer'd it because I worried about breaking something). Heck, just literally standing around on course that long is a bit draining (yes, first-world problems, I know...). I did remember sunscreen and food and water and a hat, but it's still a long day. 

Some photos:

Car loaded on trailer and leaving home. Next time I will probably just drive the car to the event, but I was pretty concerned about breaking something and being able to get the car home afterward:

First in line at the tech inspection:

On course, trying to remember to look ahead, look ahead:

In one of the big sweepers. Pretty sure that course worker is yelling at me to look ahead, look ahead:

Bad news is the (very) slow overall times. Good news is each run getting significantly faster by over a second per lap. Just needed another 8-10 runs at this rate to vie for FTOD. Yeah, right...:

Sway Bars and Tow Hooks and Racing, Oh My!

 It's been a while since I last posted, but that doesn't mean I've been idle. (Well, mostly; I did get really sick in February for weeks, so that did slow things down... sigh.) In any case, I've been driving the car every weekend, taking it on group rides, and a few car shows. Generally having fun with it--and making lists. This week, started tackling some of the items on the list.

First up is prep for the car's first autocross, which is this coming Sunday. Lots of little things to do, plus a few big ones. The most important of these is excessive body roll and some "bottoming-out" that's been happening on hard cornering and in roadway dips. The solution is twofold: first, am ordering stiffer springs for the rear coilovers. Going from 200# to 300#/in units. Might be overkill, but it should fix the problem. (I can always drop back down to 250# if required.)

The second fix is installing a front swaybar. The one I had on a back shelf in the garage came out of a competition MG Midget from many, many years ago. It might be too stiff, but like the springs, I can always back down if it proves to be too harsh. The only real issue with mounting it is (like everything else on the car) finding space for it. In the end, it's getting mounted below the frame rails behind the front tires. I'm a little disappointed in losing a bit of ground clearance, but it should be OK overall.

The other two things happening this week are: a) re-installing the front tow hoops (which were removed last year for a variety of reasons); and b) relocating the shoulder strap mounting points to higher up and further back in the car to provide better protection/compliance for the driver. 

Really looking forward to the A/X on Sunday-- but, yes, with some trepidation about breaking things or embarrassing myself on track. One way or the other, it's going to be an interesting weekend....