September Autocross Report

Car number 4 was the 4th fastest Porsche on the day!

The Carolinas Region of the Porsche Club of America returned to the Greensboro Coliseum for the second time this year, and NMS was there! The club did not have any autocross events during the hottest part of the year (AKA July and August,) so it was great to get back to another driving event. Due to a big event inside the Coliseum, we drove in a different lot than normal, so it was just a different bit of pavement for driving around some cones! Here's the link to my fastest run of the day:

NMS FASTEST RUN ON YOUTUBE

I was curious to see how things went for a few reasons. First of all, I was going into this event with some changes on my car. In no particular order, I had 4 brand new tires, brand new brake pads on the rear, and a real alignment on my suspension. Any one of these items SHOULD make my car faster, but would the DRIVER be any faster? Here's how things went. 

2PM and it's only 68 degrees, tire pressures at 30 in front and 31 in the rear. Let's go!

Tires: Well, as expected, new tires are nice to have! I only adjusted my tire pressures in a small window, and didn't notice any big changes in performance, so at the next event I'll try a wider range of air pressures before each run. Sunday I was in the 30-34 psi range, and they all felt good. 

Bringing home the new tires mounted on wheels, and the two old rear tires still have some life left in them. 

Rear brakes: No noticeable change in the rear brake performance, since most braking on this autocross course was a light tap on and off the brake pedal. Only one spot required hrd braking, into a very tight Chicago box formation, although now that I think about it, since I did NOT slide into the cones I guess the new brake pads helped out!

NMS proudly flies the OHIO state flag on front of the helmet. This is the only state flag that is NOT a boring rectangle!

Alignment: The alignment performance is tough to judge, since apparently I'd been driving around for a few years with a crappy toe out setting! But, since I felt that the car performed well all day, I'd conclude that things are much better now, and I can't blame the car if I'm not going fast enough, since it must be the driver's fault!

Lined up on the grid waiting for the afternoon drive. 

Morning Driving: With 5 runs in the morning, and only a few raindrops and nice temps in the 60s, I managed to set my best time on the 5th run. Before that I really wiped out one cone by going too fast out of the biggest sweeping curve on the course, so there was no doubt about a big fat cone penalty on run 3. When I saw the official results I saw a DNF on my first run, so I'll have to check the video and see where I went off course. Anyway, with 5 more runs in the afternoon, my goal was to go faster!

Snazzy alignment rack at Discount Tire in Rock Hill. They mounted my new tires. 

Lunch: The Porsche Club provided Dominos Pizza for lunch, and along with our cool temperatures in the 60s and cloud cover with only a few rain drops earlier in the day, it was a great day to be out doing car stuff! And if you're curious, it was half pepperoni pizzas, and the rest were supreme with all the goodies. 

NMS-North HQ on new tire day, one day before autocross. 

Afternoon Driving: Dang, with 5 more runs I didn't go any faster than in the morning. I tried a couple of different tire pressures, but that was no help. On one run I had a weird experience when I went to tap the brakes my right foot ALSO got on the gas pedal, so for a split second I realized I was not going where I wanted to go. It didn't last long, but wow, it felt like I was going to wipe out a bazillion cones and throw away the run. Oh well, I'm thinking next time I'll wear my track shoes that are smaller instead of everyday fat running shoes. 

Not ideal to be this close to curbs, but this part of the course was a straight shot. No one hit the curbs as far as I know, just a few drivers knocked over one of these cones.

Overall: No complaints on the car with the new parts, so life is good! At the end of the day I took first in my class out of 3 drivers, had the 4th fastest Porsche car time, and the 7th fastest overall out of 34 drivers. That's my best placed day this season, so things are all happy at NMS! The next Porsche Club autocross comes up in November at the always fun to run Michelin Proving Grounds in South Carolina, so the team is looking forward to that one!

Thanks to reading the blog!