2013 Solo National Championship Recap - LAP-N

It's the update you all probably haven't been looking for.  I mean honestly, who reads these things anyway? :)  Nationals is finally here and finally gone and what the experience it has been.  I met a lot of new faces, saw some friends I had made earlier in the year and happened to autocross in the process.  I have to say that if you have never been to Nationals, by all means come for the cone carving but prepare yourself for all the stuff that happens in the paddock too because a lot of the fun is hanging out with your fellow competitors and I would argue that that is the sole reason many people show up to Nationals!  I would also like to say that I wish things worked out better for me scheduling wise so I could have been down there later at night but my brother's cats are very temperamental and the one requires daily eye drops and he happened to choose this week to go on vacation.  Next year I'm going to tell him to pound sand so I can catch all the excitement in the paddock because compared to the racing, I think the paddock stuff is more fun!

Before we begin I thought I should just recap on what is on the car so people can judge for themselves what the "prep level" of the car is:

Ground Control Coilovers (custom valved Koni singles) 440lbs/in F, 200lbs/in R
Ground Control Street camber plates (-3.0º camber, -0.10º Toe out, +7.0º Caster)
Strano 35mm front bar (middle position)
Stock 20mm rear bar
Fays2 Watts link (top bolt hole)
Cortex Racing Torque Arm
Freshly rebuilt Traction-Lok (rebuilt before Mid Div 3 ish weekends ago)
Car weighs in around 3425lbs at 1/8t h of gas
Enkei PF01, 18x9, ET45 ~19lbs
Hankook Ventus RS3 in 265/40/18

It doesn't look like much but suspension wise the only allowances not being taken advantage of are a larger rear swaybar and poly bushings at every suspension component.  The only thing left for the car by my count (please correct me if I'm wrong) is Diff (largest time shaver left) Seats, harnesses and bar, battery, exhaust, CAI+Tune, brakes and poly suspension bushings in the front lower control arms (I have stock arms with poly bushings ready for the rear).  The total weight removal is around 100lbs (I have 122lbs calculated but the Torsen T2R weighs more than the stock diff) which would put this car around 3325lbs.  All things considered, that isn't too bad it's just a hell of a lot heavier than everything else in STX and STU.  If I had a pile of money sitting around I could take probably another 20-30lbs off between much lighter wheels, much lighter coilovers, super light weight brakes and custom aluminum or titanium exhaust but I don't have a huge pile of money sitting around and this is my daily driver.

I'll let you all decide how "prepped" the car is.  On to the Test'n'Tune stuffs!!!

Evo Test'n'Tune + Randall Prince's Test
On Sunday I drove down for the Evo Test'n'Tune hoping to get some valuable seat time with an instructor.  I also set out to really gauge how the car was doing since at the previous event and test'n'tune I moved the swaybar full stiff and Dave Whitworth and myself fought push all day long.  I moved the bar back to the middle position for this event since it didn't do much in the way of Chapman lawing the suspension into a more ideal portion of the camber curve.

On the test'n'tune course the car was a tad bit pushy so I played around with tire pressures some to better balance it out and the tire pressures fell to a rather even 31 PSI front and 31 PSI rear.  The push was relegated to "on throttle push" and maybe a hair understeerish in steady state depending on how hot the tires got.
It was at that time that I asked an instructor to join me to see if I'm making some sort of driving errors.  We spent probably 4 or 5 runs figuring out what types of mistakes I was making and the largest one seems to be turning too late on some key cones and over turning in some sweepers when I could let the car come out wider and carry more speed with less scrub.  It was highly enlightening and I managed to crack out a 32.0XX on the test'n'tune course and having seen a few other STX cars run only a half second quicker I felt pretty good.

At this time the instructor jumped in and took a few runs in the car.  He managed to get a 32.0XX as well and had some reassuring comments on the car setup.  He felt the car was reasonably balanced, push on acceleration but a slight stab of the accelerator away from being correctable and he was surprised the car stuck as well with street tires.  His major comment to me was to be more aggressive with the brake pedal since he felt like the car had two areas of superiority over the class, the brakes and the power.  He said I had the power side down as I was getting on the gas way earlier than any other car in the class he has driven (he's a Corvette guy though, no it wasn't Sam Strano, I wish! ;)) and was shocked it put power down as well and as early as it did.

A few days later on Tuesday I came down again to meet up with Randall Prince to chat his ear off and in general be annoying while he's trying to get his car ready and it was nice to be able to chat with a member of the STAC although I'm not sure he felt the same way.  :)  More importantly he and I both wanted to see just where the car was at.  He hopped in for 2 runs and managed a 32.1XX and a 32.5XX.  His own BMW was only running .6 quicker on the practice course which was about where most of the other STX cars I had seen were at.  I don't want to put words in his mouth but I think he was reasonably impressed with the car's capabilities, a few comments were made about wallowing (an indication of needing better valving on the Koni's and stiffer springs all around) but the car took a set and just gripped and went.  Apparently the gas pedal isn't an instant "Fry the Tires" switch as was described by other drivers trying out Mustangs on street tires which is kind of what I was going for with my suspension choices.  Anyway, I'll let him fill in the rest of the details (don't forget to push the comments to other forums).

At this point the only things really left to do were to hang out, watch the people on course, walk the course and run.  I felt pretty good about the course going into Day 1 because it had places were the torque and power of a V8 should provide a reasonably large advantage and maybe get me higher standings to go into on Day 2.

2013 Solo Nationals Day 1:
Day 1 would start with pretty tolerable weather (heat 1 workers were probably loving it) so I decided to get another course walk in before we started to run Sam Strano's East course.  I had picked out a few key cones, remembered a few of the Evo Course Walk cones and made a game plan to not suck! :)

This is the course map, it's better than my MSN paint drawings and a heck of a lot more self explanatory:

Some notables on this course:  Lots of big braking points and not a lot of difficult transitions.  Most of the stuff on the course was visually open so the keys were to get the right line and find the right braking points.  The optional slalom wasn't but thankfully you were already "shut down" right before it so there was PLENTY of time and grip available to make the corner without fuss and get on the correct side of the slalom.

Run #1 came awfully soon after I got back from the course walk and boy was I glad.  I've had the jitters all week going into this.  I was confident and ready to strut (horrible pun) my stuff and this car's capabilities to the whole of the STX world and flaunt it in the face of those who I beat (just kidding on the flaunting part).  Run #1 ended up coming in to a 98.9XX something... no way that could be right?!  "There's been a timing error so a few cars are going to get re-runs."  PHEW!  A free look at this course at speed at a National event!

Run #2 didn't take much longer (5 minutes really) to get to and I had all the "mistakes" I made in my head from Run #1 to correct.  Most of it was not fast enough/braking too soon.  I managed to get all the way around the course and in the final slalom a downed cone, SLAM on the brakes and point to the downed cone... corner workers didn't even flinch... continue to point to the downed cone as I roll by it, FINALLY someone starts to go get the cone so I took off and finished the run.  88 something IIRC and ANOTHER re-run!  Sweet!  Two free looks at the course at speed, warm tires and a power friendly course?! WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?!

Run #3 is what went wrong, well, more specifically cone #502 in the optional slalom is what went wrong.  The car felt great, hit all the braking points, got to the optional slalom and walloped #502... damn... it's ok, two more runs to go, clean it up and you'll be fine.  I ran a 81.058 but the 2 second cone penalty brought it to 83.058.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DulhO9nXQX0

Run #4 I got a little greedy on some parts of the course, particularly going into the back sweeper which was WOT from basically the start of the wallom before the sweeper to the braking point IN the sweeper, FAST!  Like 63 MPH fast!  I got down on the brakes and when I turned in the car 4 tire slid out wide and nearly took out the cones at the exit to the turn.  I guess the tires are hot?!  I made it all through the course, got back in and got the time slip and it was an 81.981 which was at least clean, but a second slower than the previous run.  I think this time on solo live had me in like 43rd place or something.  I was stoked! Not DFL! :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liVq6QbBqPE

Run #5 I set out to fix the errors in 4 by braking a touch sooner to get around that back sweeper's apex cone rather than slide out and nearly kill them and I did manage to make less errors on that run.  I came in with an 81.257 which was a good solid run!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rndHa01R6Xw

However... I didn't know this until the grid sheets came out after impound, but I coned the last two runs away.  I honestly had no idea as I don't remember any cone hits on those runs?!  That was a bit shitty feeling.  While I was waiting for my work assignment I went and looked at the corner sheets, turns out I hit cone #502 in the optional slalom on EVERY SINGLE RUN.  What the hell are the odds of that?!  I guess I made cone #502 my bitch!  Now I want that as a shirt!  Hell, I may make a "fake" racing team out of it "Cone 502 Racing".  How frustrating.  This would pull me all the way down to 55th of 59 going into Day 2.  Good news is that I was not last going into day 2! :)

2013 Solo Nationals Day 2:
Day 2 had a more positive start.  I wasn't in last place going into day 2 and I had a course that was more my style of driving.  It may not have been a particularly Mustang or power friendly course but the much smoother transitions rather than the hyper violent brake/gas/brake/gas fight that was Strano's course suits me better.  Don't get me wrong, I rather enjoyed Strano's course but it isn't what I would call my driving strong suit.  I'm not sure I have a true driving strong suit, but if I did it would be the smoother "road course like" transitional courses.  Unfortunately that isn't what I would call a Mustang strong suit, being wide it's stable in transitions but it requires a lot of movement to get around cones in a transition.  This is, of course, no surprise to anyone with half a brain so it definitely isn't a surprise to anyone reading this thread!

So here is the course map:

As has been stated the Speidel West course is a "speed maintenance" course... or at least more of one than Sam's course was.  I personally think that all autocross courses are speed maintenance courses, the highest average speeds in every corner with the shortest distance always seems to do well.  Certainly this course was less punishing of mistakes than Sam's course was which would literally hang you if you blew a braking zone.  I'm glad I'm in the Nebraska Region and we will get to run these courses again because I REALLY REALLY REALLY want another shot at these courses.

I wouldn't be getting any re-runs on day 2, just 3 quick runs and the "band aid" had been ripped off and my first Nationals would be over.  Of course the goal was to do the best I could and have a blast doing it.

Run #1 would be my fastest run, thankfully it was clean.  It seems that my "tell yourself not to hit cones but be fast" routine before we started runs helped level my head enough to get at least one clean run in before the end of the day.  Honestly this run felt like I left a lot of time on course and that would be because I did.  The following runs never felt as quick or as smooth and without reviewing the videos back to back to back I'm not sure I could pick out the reasoning why.  I came in with a 60.904 with which I felt another second could easily be lost.  I went for it on run #2.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8bpETWWKB4

Run #2 would be my time to kill off some of the time I thought I left on course.  Unfortunately that over zealousness to going faster came with a price, a cone price.  I would hit two cones, both in slaloms I believe.  It wouldn't matter, the scratch time for this run wasn't faster than my first.  That would be disappointing because it certainly felt faster in some places.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CenvT85uf0c

Run #3 started off well.  I had told myself after run #2 that I needed to clean it up and run the car hard but hard in the right places and not everywhere.  I focused on my course walks and tried to remember what the other Nebraska Region drivers had said when they ran this course, where to stay tight, where to let it push out and so on.  At the end of this run I felt really good and the run felt extremely fast.  I was fast in places I needed to be and slow and tight where I needed to be but the time just wasn't that good.  I came in with a 61.047.  In hindsight I wish I had ran a "slow but tight" run around this course as I think that approach could yeild some interesting results.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_GmSpLvbR0

At the end of the second day's runs I felt a massive release, it was almost euphoric.  I had managed to survive my first Solo Nationals without any drama (well aside from that stupid cone #502...) and managed to have fun in the process.  I put a lot of faces to names on forums and hopefully made some friends that I will see again in the future.  While some may look at my 143.962 and 53r d of 59 entrants and scream failure, I think we need to step back and look at the relative success.  A 3425lb Mustang driven by a hack with streetable preparation level managed to NOT be dead last in one of the deepest talent pools in all of Solo.  If we look at the "could have, should have, would have" side of it I could have placed as high as 47t h at my first National Championship in a car that has no place in ST.  I don't see the failure here, what I see is success.  Success in the sense that I achieved a rather simple goal that I basically failed at Spring Nationals:  Don't be DFL of those that compete both days.  For my first Nationals, in a major underdog car, I don't see failure here at all.  I don't see success either.

What I see is room for improvement.  I'm a hack, a serious hack of a driver, and I don't think it is fair to base the fate of the car on my driving alone.  This is my 3r d year of autocross and my second National event EVER so my driving is not what you'd expect to take a trophy spot.  That said what is left for car prep is not going to kill the 3.671 seconds per day deficit to cars that can and do win.

It's taken me two years to really admit it but the car is really quite difficult to drive fast on 265 wide street tires.  I think it will get easier to drive fast with 285's but it wont make the car fast enough to win in STU.  We are talking about over a 5 second per day deficit to the top STU cars with this hack behidn the wheel.  It's not that the car is hard to balance on the edge, it's just that the car requires a finness in the controls that simply do not land a hand to the inexperienced.  The car is not the scalpel that STX cars are and that really punishes the car when the driver makes a mistake.  Add in a course that also punishes the driver and we have a very large compounding effect.

I want to put out this challenge now to whomever will take it:  If you honestly think a Mustang can trophy in STX then I'm open to your co-drive at Spring Nationals and Nationals next year (assuming the Mustang doesn't go to STU?).  If you think the Mustang can trophy in STU then I am also open to your co-drive at Spring Nationals and Nationals.  Give me a non-hack driver and lets prove the car's capabilities.

So where does Project Tilty go from here?
I'm not entirely sure.  I know the car can do well in ESP, again maybe not with me behind the wheel, but I'm sure I can do better than the bottom 6% of the class (basically the last 3 spots in ESP).  I'm also 100% sure that skills learned in STU on wider tires will pay dividends later in ESP but at the cost of another year of frustration.  At this point I remain conflicted.  I championed the move to STU and should "see it through to the end" but by the same token my competitive side is SCREAMING to find a better place to play and ST just isn't going to be it for a while.  I'm also extremely interested in the next generation Mustang's Ecoboost 4 cylinder, something which I hope lives up to the hype that is building around the car.  At any rate, I fully expect my decision to come before next season.  There is some long and hard thinking that needs to be done before we get too excited about the direction the car will go.  I'll probably end up doing a full on "super serious" ESP build with the car:

(Running joke with Britt Dollmeyer and Tim Bergstrom)

ANYWAY... Some things are still planned changes for next year.  If the move to STU goes through, I'll be buying 18x10.5 wheels anyway, I just need to decide if I'm going to ESP or STU and chose the appropriate tire for the class.  Stiffer springs will go in and the class decision isn't going to play too huge into the descision making process, I'm thinking 550 up front, 275 out back, both Sam's bars on and adjust as necessary.  The torque arm is staying if for no other reason than it was an expensive addition that I plan to work around.  One of the consequences of it's installation was the throttle on push the car has.  It would be nice to put down power while turning and I think a large part of that push comes from the type of differential I'm currently running.  Clutch based diffs don't like turning but they sure do like to put power down.  A Torsen style torque biasing diff with a high bias ratio should allow for turning under power without added push and it should remove a wear item from the car for at least a few years, hopefully a decade or so! :)

I would also like to add in some harnesses and a harness bar to help better support the driver.  My knee caps will thank me for that and I'm sure co-drivers will too!  We will see what budget, if any, is left next year to do anything beyond those modifications.  I imagine probably not, but if so, I think it's time for an exhaust, cold air intake and a tune.  I'm sick of people asking if my car is a V6 or a V8.  It should be pretty damn obvious it's not a six cylinder car already but I was asked no less than 3 times this past week if it was a V6 and that doesn't include the folks before.  I checked the sound readings and my stock exhaust came in on day 2 at a rather loud 85 decibels (that's a joke for the record...) so I can spare a little extra noise! :)  I suppose I should think about seats in the not to distant future.  It's more of a weight thing than it is a driver comfort thing.

Anyway, I WANT to tear this build, my driving, and anything related to it apart, so please, comments, both negative criticisms and positive ones.  Comment away!