See here for the 2014 results thread.

I think the Minis are in HS, GS, DS, STF, STX & SMF this year

Anyone have events/been having events?? Plans for the 2015 season?? Post them up here? Any fellow Minis staying in HS to do battle with the Fiesta ST (which I honestly think will have rollover risk at nationals)??

 

I'm running SMF again this year. Finally found a tuner worth the money. May get those 275/35/15 Hoosiers up to temp.

 

My Mini got a good revamp this off season. Building the car through last season kinda sucked for the beginning of the season.

Hopefully witb all the off season changes I will come out swinging this season. We will find out soon enough as I head down to the Blytheville Pro Solo in 4 days!

Myself and another co-driver from the team will be driving in STF and the GF will be in L3

 

couldn't make it to blytheville pro but looking forward to seeing how everyone does!

 

43 years of Solo II. I was looking forward to Blytheville Pro. It was cancelled due to weather and moved to 1st weekend in May. Planning to go there then. Thinking about going to Wilmington, Ohio also.


HS - Yes almost stock, or at least stock shocks.


Planning on running St. Louis Region events in the MINI. Everythin else in the Lotus Super 7.


Got to start practicing with the stop lights.


Craig

 

Running my '07 R56S in the Open PAX group with a DS PAX. With all the class shuffling and my year old ZII's I'm only expecting FUN this year. My mantra will be: "Compete against yourself".

I love to autocross!!!! First outing is this Sunday. This has been a dry year in the Pac NW, but we are forecast for rain......

 

I am running 3 national events this year.

Champ Tour College Station
Pro Solo Mineral Wells
Nationals

and competing in D-Street trying to keep up with the WRX drivers in Texas Region!

 

good luck guys! my first event is exactly 1 week from now!!!

 

http://sololive.scca.com/HS.html

BTW - one mini cooper leading all the fiesta st's! just day 1 though

ended up trophying 3rd at the event - not bad!

 

Thanks for the nice comment.
I had a good day one and could not get it down on day two.
Do not know why I did not do as good. Great course - no complaints about the car handling or set up.
I was learning the new Hankook RS3S tires and adapting to them.
Great initial turn in.
I have not had time to look at data and video yet.

Todd was doing great for day two in STF and I should have been closer to his time.

CONGRADULATIONS TO JOHN LAWSON FOR WINNING THE EVENT OVERALL.
He is an ex MINI driver.

Take care,
Keith R
2010 MINI HS Solo II

 

Thanks for the nice note.
I had a good first day and was not aggressive enough for day two.
Not the cars fault as it was handling perfectly and I was adjusting to the new Hankook RS3s tires.

CONGRADULATIONS to Former MINI owner / driver John Lawson for his well deserved victory.

Good Luck to all in 2015!
Keith R
2010 MINI Cooper HS SCCA Solo II

 

another victim of the fiesta st here today, lost by about 1s to a decent driver - any tips at all would be greatly appreciated. i know i screwed up the final slow turns before the very end there, but in general not sure how to make up so much time..

 

anyone running the 200tw r1rs, re71rs, rival s, or z2ss this year? any word on how the shoulder wear will be for any of these for our camber limited cars? i've got a good amount of shoulder wear on my rs3s after about 70 runs.. i'll hold out until 90 runs before i flip them. i flipped the z2s i had at 60 runs and that was too early for them, ended up heat cycling those out and gave them away anyway

 

I've gone with the RE-71R. Remember if you are truly a sick puppy there is -1 degrees of camber available. It's just a wee bit expensive.

Cheers,

Charlie

 

pulled the pins and pushed all i could, -0.7 is where i'm at :(

 

Here's a tale from the opening event up in New England.

Them RE-71R tires are pretty darned good! A friend running a 325 Bimmer actually suffered a ball joint failure using them - and was reading a sick 1.4g on the course that day! That is a STREET tire...

Cheers,

Charlie

 

I was at the SCCA College Station Champ Tour Event a few weeks ago, competing in D-Street in my Mini against a whole field of 2015 Subaru WRX's. Actually I think one of them was a 2014. Ended up being the meat in the sandwich and finished 4 of 8. The WRX is certainly an over dog car, but we gave them as much hell as possible.



a Bit about the Car in it's 2015 configuration
-2012 JCW S - Stock, has JCW Red Springs and Front Strut Brace from the factory
-Rear H-Sport Bar installed on Medium Stiff
-Carbotech AX6 Pads in Front - OEM Pads on Rear
-Koni Yellows - set medium stiff
-Team Dynamics 1.2 light weight wheels that fit over the JCW Brakes
-Hankook RS3-v2 tires (typically run about 5 psi lower in front than rear). I think for this event we were in the 33 (front cold psi) and 39 (rear cold psi) as a starting point and then we adjust accordingly based on roll over, heat, etc.



A few other observations
1. Seems the Subaru with the same driver and comparable setups is definitely good for a second or so - at least that's my excuse ... lol
2. everyone is very enamored with the new Bridgestone Tire. Lots of people going that direction this year or waiting on the Rival-S. General feel is that they are throwing out last years tire Hankook with the bath water haha!
3. Our car looked the coolest in class, so that counts for something right?

Our next event will be the Mineral Wells Pro Solo in June.

 

Thanks for the videos - that was a great ride. Nice tightening sweepers in a couple of places there.

Is this your article? If so, my compliments.

So what are you running for camber in that puppy? It seemed to understeer predictably at the limit, and I never saw the back end twitch.

You like it that way, or am I mistaken?

I normally run every second of front camber I can get, and go full stiff out back, and STILL run +10 pounds front to back. 38 front and 48-50 out back with a nice bar and you have something that will really dance.

Too twitchy in the slaloms? Take a few pounds off the back to increase the contact patch and things calm right down.

'Cause you can open the throttle sooner if that thing dances.

Just sayin'

Cheers,

Charlie

PS: And yeah, the Bridgestones are that good. I ran the R1R last year (the now illegal tire) and have run the RS3 on my STX Works car, and the Bridgestones are a trip. Have you ever driven a car with Hoosiers? The second you ease out the clutch the noise of tiny bits of gravel being thrown against the fender liners is startling, right? It's like HOLY CATS this is bubblegum - they grab everything off the street, right?

Here's the thing - the RE-71R does the same damned thing - it's funny. A street tire...

PPS: I haven't dared to mount the GoPro yet this year, but for your amusement here's late last year. We run at Moore Airfield at Devens, which gives plenty of room.


Notice that you cannot hear the tires... I am not running a lot of slip angle at the front end!

 

Yeah I wrote that article for Solo Matters, was fun. Thanks for the kind remarks.
We are stock Camber on the front end, since it's Street Class, can't do anything with plates, etc.

I'll have to play with some wider variables in the tire gaps on psi to see how it feels, but the car is pretty stable right now at the limit. A little looser could be tolerated though. I definitely wouldn't say it pushes anymore. It's more loose early then after a couple of runs, feels nice and balanced, and for the most part turns in pretty well.

 

They do turn in don't they. When I have a guest driver they often will clobber a cone or two due to turning in sooner than needed and being startled when they nick a cone!

Your car is a 2nd gen, yes? Have you pulled the plastic locating pins on the top of the front shock towers and taken advantage of every smidgen of adjustment up there? You should be able to get -.6 to -.8 out of it.

If you're truly crazy and want to close the gap to the Subarus I'd warrant that the new Bridgestones are .5 to 1.0 sec quicker than last year's RS-3 on a 60 second course.

Of course as we all know the loose nut behind the wheel is always the best tuning opportunity.

Which reminds me - when is the next Evo School? [ Oh, right - the 11th and 12 of July of course! ]

Cheers,

Charlie

 

dang.. you don't roll over running 33/39? what is your camber at? i'm at 39/43 and i still roll over my rs3v2s (base cooper HS).. but maybe it's my driving...

 

Another fun day up in the New England Region - this time with sweet spring weather.

Notes here.

Peace,

Charlie

 

With Rte. 66 taking a **** on the Chicago SCCA, I went further up north to join the TSSCC boys at an event.

Really happy with my results. 16th on PAX. 2nd in my class of all WRX's. There was another JCW Mini who runs in their pro class. He was able to pull 9th in PAX and would have had 2nd in class if he wasn't running pro.

If nothing gets set for June then this will be my last event in this region. I will be moving to New Hampshire at the end of June/July.

Here are the PAX results:

http://tsscc.org/2015/event_1_pax.htm

Here is my best run. I swear it looks like i murdered that last cone but the run was called in clean:

 

That doesn't look like murder to me. What tires and at what pressures are you using may I ask? And thanks for the run - that was fun!

Cheers,

Charlie

 

looking good, very good improvement from last year. shame about chicago region. if you ever want to run a little further south, ccscc (rantoul il) hosts about 10-12 events per year at the rantoul aviation center. decent site, concrete but pretty broken up. very good drivers there.