This past couple of weekends have been filled with Autocross fun. On the 10th we had the season finale for the Brandywine Motorsports Club autocross program, and on the 17th the Philly SCCA Summer Series #8 event. These were very different courses, both with their own set of lessons to be learned.

BMC Autocross IV

It was a great event for the CS class. We had eight competitors, six MX-5s, an RX-8, and a GT-86 (and the greater the number after the two letters, the better you did in the course—but I'm getting ahead of myself). The course was unusual in that it felt simple and straight forward—BMC events otherwise tend to be complex, tight affairs with emphasis on variety. Yet, despite the feeling of simplicity this was a slow course, with pace for CS set at 60.166s.

I felt competitive and had an even drive, with no DNFs.  The car felt good, and my times were improving run-to-run more or less as expected. I knew where I had to try to do better, I just ran out of runs before I could improve further. The slow bits of the course were the make or brake points, with the sharp left at the last sector being where I could definitely have done better.

My best time out of six runs was 62.636s, good for 6th in class, but there was less than 0.5s separating me from 3rd, which was where the gap widened to the two front-runners. In watching the video I can certainly see where I could have done better, but overall I felt OK with the result. Here's the run:

Here are the event's unofficial results:

Position Driver Car Best Time (s)
1 C. Higgins – 841 2013 Toyota GT-86 60.166
2 M. Shea – 781 2007 Mazda RX-8 60.925
3 F. Krizner – 37 2019 Mazda MX-5 RF 62.144
4 M. Mooney – 223 2013 Mazda MX-5 62.228
5 N. Kirk – 54 2015 Mazda MX-5 62.445
6 B. Castelo – 454 2019 Mazda MX-5 62.636
7 J. Gray – 907 2006 Mazda MX-5 68.275
8 S. Hurt – 59 2008 Mazda MX-5 70.569
The BMC events allow more time to walk around and chat than the SCCA events, due to the group splits. Here's some eye candy from the Ripken parking lot.

Philly SCCA Summer Series #8

The Philly Region SCCA events have been an advanced version of the BMC ones. As I mentioned before, the work area is substantially larger than the Ripken Stadium's parking lot, leading to longer distance courses. The organizers take advantage of the extra space by allowing higher speeds then what I usually see at Ripken. And level of control and confidence at higher speeds is what will differentiate winners and losers in this event. Deciphering the course and looking ahead does feel a little easier here, due to the increased distance between the gates. The competition level at Warminster Community Park (where the Philly SCCA events take place) seems to be higher as well.

My drive in this event was not as even (nor was it competitive in class) as at the BMC event. I didn't feel confident in my ability to keep the car on track at higher speeds through the side-to-side transitions. The temperatures were lower than in my previous events and it was not easy getting any sort of heat in the tires, which might explain why the car felt skittish. I also have no clue what I'm doing with tire pressures, which could also explain lack of grip. I explored using lower pressures than usual with the expectation that that would give me more grip, but the experience in this event made me think that perhaps that's not the way to go. I went down to 25.5 PSI in the rears, and 28 PSI in the fronts with the hopes of reducing oversteer, but I still felt no confidence, and actually had a spin as I tried to push for better times (for the record, this was a much less dramatic spin than my last at Warminster, when I conveniently had the cameras off):

This was not the greatest spin in the world. This was just a tribute.

The result was a last place in class (7th), with a 41.610s, 4.853s out of pace in CS. Nick Kirk (a.k.a., Nemesis), my reference driver this season, managed to completely blow me out of the water in this event, ahead of me by over 3.5s.

Oddly, I am not unhappy or frustrated with the experience. I think earlier on this season I might have been, but now I think I understand better where I need to improve. This result means something, the pace change between this and the BMC event means something as well:

  1. I need practice in high-speed transitions.
  2. I need to either acquire confidence in the chassis, or get to the bottom of weather the chassis needs more balance or not. It's probably a combination of the two things.
  3. I need a better understanding of tire pressures.

I think those are the three most important points. But I'm happy I can think about these issues better now than in the beginning of the season, when I had only two events under my belt. This season, especially in the last three events I've participated in, I feel that I've acquired valuable data points and experience, and I feel that I can turn that data into progress. Unfortunately I'm now done with the season, so any actual progress will need to wait until 2021. It's going to be a long off-season.

My best run at Warminster:

Here are the Philly Event's unofficial results:

Position Driver Car Best Time (s)
1 J. Eisen – 786 2004 Honda S2000 36.757
2 J. Hebbel – 67 2006 Honda S2000 36.915
3 C. White – 11 2019 Mazda MX-5 36.978
4 J. Wozniac – 85 2006 Mazda RX-8 37.716
5 N. Kirk – 54 2015 Mazda MX-5 38.081
6 A. Leventhal – 39 2019 Mazda MX-5 39.002
7 B. Castelo – 454 2019 Mazda MX-5 41.610
The pictures are probably not to the same exact scale, but the Elise really is smaller than the MX-5. Such a cool, cool car.