My results from yesterday: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Not too impressive. My excuse is Crow's Landing doesn't suit the MINI, and I'm not sure I have the setup quite right.

 

to add:

you've gotten way better since you first started, and honestly 60 isn't all that bad in chicago region lol

 

Well my SMF build is finally at 90% and at Saturdays local event (relative term, we get to run at Heartland Park the old National site. And my last count had 5 national trophy winners there). I think I may even have drove it at 90%, lol. Still learning to trust to the new capabilities of the car. Half the run was in 3rd gear and hit 70mph in two places.


That got me 4th fastest fender time behind an ESP, AS, and SSR car :-) Was even able to stick a 6th place PAX.

My hope for nationals is to stay with 1 seconds of the Honda's (same power, tires, but 600-800 lighter and VERY good drivers).

 

If you want a cuddly feel-good post about your future in auto-x... you might want to skip this one

Ok that made it sound worse that it is. First is your driving. You got much much better in the afternoon. However you're still late on a whole bunch of your turns and you're way off cones that you should be practically running over. There is still a lot of work to do in the driver development area. The only thing you can do about it is more seat time and more driver schools if you can afford them. The driver is by far the biggest difference at local events. It's going to take time. Lots and lots and lots of time. Don't get frustrated. Everybody started where you are. I've done probably 90 events in the past 3 years and am still mostly a hack driver.

Second... I really don't think the mini is going to be competitive in D Street. The bottom line is the really serious guys buy a car because it's a competitive car in the class they want to run in. They don't just show up in whatever car they happen to own at the time and win. Sometimes you luck out and you have a good car for the class. Other times not so much. Locally the mini should do well in D Street if you can drive it. If you're having national champion aspirations or a super competitive person then it's time to put your best foot forward. That likely means selling the mini and buying something else. At the very very minimum it's putting the parts you already own onto the car. I mean c'mon. You're complaining because your car that isn't built to the limits of the class is an underdog in the class? Shocks/bar/tires will make a huge difference in the mini in street trim. Sounds like you already have some of these parts. Why are they sitting in the garage and not on the car?

 

I believe his 07 MCS, with an LSD and fully built could easily land on the podium with a proper driver. It would take a JCW tuning kit, JCW suspension, Wheels/tires, exhaust and shocks and years of seat time though to get that extra 3-4 tenths of a second each day.

Until then, I think locally/divisionally, the Mini is a perfect choice.

 

I kind of forgot all about this thread...

The wife and I have done a few Washington DC Region Championship events as well as a bunch of events with other clubs since I last posted. I seem to have sort of fallen into a bit of an auto-x slump lately. I'm not really sure what's going on but I'm working to put it all back together before Nationals. There are a few events left before we head to the big show in Lincoln so hopefully I can clear the sand from between my ears and get back on my game. Usually the wife and I are dead equal and trading off who won that day. The past few events she's been consistently faster.

WDCR Championship event #2
The wife and I locked down 5th and 6th out of a class of 19. The wife was 4 tenths faster than I was and about 1.7 seconds behind first. Not a particularly strong showing but STX in our region is pretty solid. PAX puts us 35th and 46th out of 204.

WDCR Championship event #3
This event was my worst showing in a while. Sort of motivated me to get my mind back in the game. We had another local event with Capital Driving Club the weekend after this event and I did much better. We've recently got data acquisition (SoloStorm) and I think now I'm overthinking all of my driving and focusing too much on fixing my mistakes that I end up screwing up elsewhere. I find that I drive better if I just drive and don't focus on all the things I shouldn't screw up.

We've also identified that the car is generating enough lateral grip now to almost completely unload the inside front tire which means we're spinning that tire trying to power out of corners. I'm worse about it than the wife. We do have a diff but since it's a Quaife when that inside wheel starts spinning it doesn't work too well. Shoulda bought that OS Giken instead...

Either way it was one of the wife's better events. She was 3rd and I was 7th out of 16. She was 1.1 seconds behind first and I was... more... Also possibly her best PAX finish in the mini at 22nd out of 196.

We've finalized our plans for Solo Nationals 2014 and we're going to have a full car. Kate (I drove her husband's car last year at Nats) is going to be co-driving with the wife in STX-L and Steve (used to drive a D Stock mini and now owns Sam Strano's old FRS) is going to be co-driving with me in STX. Should be good times. STX is currently something silly like 66 entries so there has to be someone there I can beat

 

With you driving then yeah maybe

Speaking of which... why weren't you at Wilmington!?!?!

 

Yay more minis at nats!

For those of you going to nats feel free to stop and say hi. Our car looks like...

 

37 registered drivers in Minis... So I figure at least 20-25 Minis there.

 

Thanks for all the tips here guys. I was mostly just ranting to rant. I know autocross is mostly about the driver. I even mentioned that before my rant. Just getting it off my chest. I know there isn't much that can be done about it anyways. My car wasn't purchased specifically with autocross in mind so it is far from ideal for the class. I mean I have the extra weight of a sunroof. I have no LSD. I don't even think it has the sport suspension option. I don't even have the rear sway in it yet.

I run Dunlop Z2's so I'm confident in my tires. I need to get better as a driver. The event I just posted wasn't my best display. I couldn't really figure out the track. I feel I drove better at event #3. I was much closer to the cones during that event. My main points I try to work on is my braking, my throttle control, and ensuring I am taking the best lines. I'm pretty stabby on the brakes. I need to be smoother to ensure I can carry more speed through the turns without having the front end plow. I'm heavy on the throttle coming out of the turns and get more wheelspin then I should. Sometimes my lines are off. I usually get better at that by the late runs each event but its taking me too long to figure out the best lines.

Don't take my rant the wrong way. I am enjoying myself thoroughly. I look forward to event days. I'm just very competitive.

 

You could look for a base car more suited to your needs, like an 08 Cooper-S with an LSD, sport suspension and no sunroof. Just like the one we traded in a couple of years ago. Then add the sway bar. There are at least two of us here who traded in one MINI for another because it was more suited to autocross.

Once you get the hardware sorted out, you have nothing to blame but your own driving. If you really want to know if its you or the car, you can get a much better driver to drive your car. That's how I know the car is capable of top 5 in pax (out of about 170).

At least I KNOW its my driving which is holding me back.

 

I definitely would love the opportunity giving someone a chance to drive my car. It would at least let me know how much I need to improve myself.

 

Your tires are good. No LSD is a killer. I would have a really tough time paxing top 5 locally without an LSD in a stock Mini. The sunroof is heavy, but, isn't holding u back all that much. I would guess an LSD would cut off 1+ second on an average course that had several sweepers, especially on street tires. Wheelspin is a killer with no LSD. With that said, just keep having fun and if you decide you want to step it up a bit with a more competitive Mini, look for an 07-10 MCS with LSD. Or, just go to STX and install HVT coilovers and an OS Giken LSD. ;-)

 

WDCR Event #4 was this weekend at FedEx field. We got off on the way wrong foot on Saturday. I pulled the wheels off to swap front to back and when I did realized the inside of the passenger front wheel was covered in grease. Stick my head in the wheel well and sure enough there is CV grease splattered all over. Great. I guess this is what I get for always checking the car over the day before the race instead of checking it over after every race.



Well it's Saturday afternoon so not really much could be done. We went and grabbed dinner and another grease gun so I could load up the tube of Redline CV-2 I had and got back to the house. It must have failed at the last event and I just didn't notice. We had the drivers side fail last year. It appears what is happening is the boot just very barely rubs on the bottom of the shock body and eventually wears through so there is a hole. Looks like annual CV boot replacements just became part of my schedule. We had 4 people registered in the car on Sunday so I really didn't want to give up so easily. In the end there wasn't really much to do except pump some grease in there and seal the boot up with duct tape the best I could.

We also made a very small alignment change in the rear to try and get some more rotation on throttle lift. This was mostly in anticipation of running on concrete where we've had trouble getting the car to rotate in the past. It felt pretty good at Wilmington but it could have used a touch more rotation.

Sunday morning we get up and head to the event. FedEx is maybe a half hour from our house and the boot was already slinging grease by the time we got to the site. The old factory grease was kind of thin and flung out really easily. Fortunately the new Redline stuff seemed to be holding up much better and staying in the joint.

Since we had 4 people in the car we split up among two classes. The wife and her co-driver would drive in STX (my wife is going for season points) and Steve and I would drive in SMF. The wife drove really well and threw down a flyer on her third run which moved her up into 1st out of 17 in STX. The axle seemed to be holding together just fine so Steve and I did our runs in SMF. I drove... poorly... with 1 huge spin and another kind of sideways movement. The only good thing I can really say is that with data acquisition I can see that my fast run (where I got sideways) would have been a pretty solid time if I wouldn't have screwed up that one corner. So I guess I have that going for me. Still not very confidence inspiring coming up to nationals only a few weeks away. I ended up 2nd out of 7 in SMF which is actually a pretty poor showing for me even though our car isn't remotely competitive in SMF. I only got beat by .054 seconds.



Overall an entertaining event. Always good times hanging out with all our friends and chucking cars around a parking lot. The wife was 10th out of 225 in PAX. If you apply the STX multiplier to my times it puts me 41 out of 225. Not a terrible day but I did come away a little disappointed.

Now I've got two weeks to fix the CV boot, replace the passenger side motor mount, flush the brake fluid, and figure out why the hood latches are being difficult. Then we have one more local event then it's off to the big show in Lincoln!

 

I do wish you all the best out in Lincoln. Break a leg!

Up here in the North East I took the new Gollum (3 cylinder F56) into competition on the tiny course at the New Hampshire, and discovered that it's at least competent on course.

More telling will be the event on Sunday the 17th at Devens where the average speeds are far higher, corner radius is less severe, and that amazing 65 mph 2nd gear should come into play.

But so far so good.

Cheers,

Charlie

 

The results for this weekend's BMW club event are out: http://xmdforum.com/brian/2014-AX5-P...nalResults.htm

Competition got very tough in the B class. I'm 5th, a second out of first place. The three cars ahead of me are all within a half second and have quite a few more car points than me. I should have stayed in C class, I'd have won.

If I calculate the index results, I came 12th or 13th out of 69 (or 70) (not sure about one guy who's listed in the wrong class).

 

count me in for nationals this year (Sam L). looking forward to seeing you guys out there.

Mike, the rear sway bar makes a huge, huge difference. Go ahead and set it to full stiff from the get go and enjoy. I personally had a hard time with understeer with the Mini's stock suspension. I also sold my old Mini last year to rid myself of the heavy sunroof lol

 

Yeah I'm excited for the next event.

I'm stuck with this car for another year or 2 due to my prior car loan situation so I'm going to try to make the best of it. Besides the fact that I paid for a new engine in this sucker. So I might as well keep it for awhile.

I sent an email off to Norbert the CEO of BMW and was recontacted by MINI about my reimbursement. They are sticking by their guns and denying me an sort of refund. They did offer me $2000 towards a new MINI purchase. I don't have the means to do that currently so I'm working to try to get them to cover an AC Compressor replacement and replacing all the hoses along with a coolant flush. I'll see how that goes. Atleast try to get something out of them after MINI of Chicago completely screwed me.

 

is anyone thinking of going with the z2 star specs after nats? (it will be legal after nationals) it's more $$ than the RS3s, but I'm fairly curious about them. i always preferred the dunlops over the hankooks for the stiffer sidewall, especially on our cars

 

also, for those who are camber challenged (HS) and running the RS3V2's, how's the shoulder/camber wear been? not the best, I'm assuming

 

I'll probably be trying ZII* once the ZIIs are shot, which won't be long after nationals. I'm also thinking of trying RS3v2s.

 

I think someone posted on the Chicago SCCA Facebook about buying the new ZII's. I think that is where I saw it.

I'm going to do the free camber mod in the next week or so. Possibly tomorrow.

Then I want to take the car to get an alignment to make sure my toe is straight. I should tell them to keep as much negative camber in the front while straightening out the toe? What about the rears? I don't think there is any adjustment in the rear as far as camber, is that correct?

 

^ pretty much. how much toe out you want in the rear is somewhat dependent on how comfortable you are with the car right now. i'd probably do zero toe in the rear or a tiny amount of toe out if the car doesn't rotate how you want it to right now. rear camber isn't adjustable. with the "free camber mod," after you push the strut tops in to get as much as you can, that's basically where it's gonna be. alignment guys won't be able to get much more out if any

 

Rear camber is adjustable with the eccentric bolt located at the knuckle side of the lower control arm.

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using NAMotoring

 

i stand corrected.

still debating whether i should roll on my beat *** kumhos to nats & get z2ss after, or go rs3v2s before. rs3v2s are way, way cheaper also. just worried about camber wear and soft sidewall