Another Sunday, another Autocross. Like last week, this event was held in the parking lot of the Iowa Events Center which is on the smaller side, lending itself to tight courses. This month’s course included a long 7-cone slalom, which was great for working on getting my slalom speeds up and backsiding the cones.
I forgot to bring my helmet (on the day when you’re NOT supposed to forget things), so the flubs you see where I’m wearing a borrowed open face were on the second run where the tires were still cold and the car was incredibly tail-happy. Luckily my wife stopped by with my helmet so I no longer had to feel like I was wearing someone else’s apartment on my face.
Speaking of flubs, those poor RE-11a rear tires are pushing 7 years old and are certainly not as sticky as they once were. I was hoping to nurse them through a couple of events next season but it looks like I’ll be picking up some more RE-71Rs right away to match the fronts and to keep the rear end behind the front.
Last month’s course had a couple of high speed hard braking zones which brought out my engine’s tendency to lose oil pressure when all of the oil went sloshing to the front. For this event I switched from Motorcraft’s 5W-20 blend to Mobil 1 10W-40 and overfilled by about a half quart. You can see the pressure dip when I brake hard, but it only goes down to ~22psi instead of the 10psi I saw last month, and it recovers right away. Last event, it would stay at 10-15psi for a few seconds of hard acceleration out of the corner, which is a little scary. When I build this engine I’ll look at baffling the oil pan, but for now I’m satisfied.
Still waiting on final results, but as it sits I landed at 10th of 65 for raw times. That didn’t include the 7th and 8th runs, though. I know my 7th run was about two tenths faster than my 6th, but I know of at least one car that beat my 7th run in his 7th or 8th, so my position could drop. Either way I’m very happy with the event and my progression this season – I started out finishing mid pack but have managed to work my way up to the top 15% or so in the last couple of events. What’s next? October means Adventureland which tends to bring out 100+ cars, and also an event at Iowa Speedway’s road course. Stay tuned!