SCCA Camaro

When it was time for the drivers of heat number three to autocross, I put my car “on grid” and prepped to race.  I started off with 34 lbs of pressure in all four tires and put some chalk on them so I could see if they were rolling over at all.  Since the Trans Am has a much lower torque curve than the ’68 Camaro, I decided to try my first run in second gear.  Some of my fellow competitors mentioned they did this in third generation F bodies and C4 and C5 Corvettes so it seemed worth a try.  In my first run, I came out of the slalom pretty hot and used the ABS before heading into the hairpin turn.  I was clean with no cones and a time of 34.845 s.  I was definitely not as smooth as I should have been.

For run number two I decided to go with first gear because I didn’t quite have the torque I wanted coming out of some of the slow sections of the course in second gear.  The rear tires seemed to have the chalk I applied still running right onto the tread so I let air out of them all the way down to 28 lbs, but I maintained the front tire pressure at 34 lbs.  On my second run my time improved by over four tenths to 34.402 s.  On the grid I let a little air from the front tires, bringing them down to 32 lbs, while maintaining the rear tires at the 28 lbs.  On my third run, I decided to try more speed after the slalom and came into the hairpin after the slalom too hot again, this time sliding deep into the turn with the ABS hammering away.  This strategy wasn’t working as I ended up slower on the third run by about eight tenths at 35.248 s.  I needed to pull it together for the fourth run or risk finishing very near dead last on the day.  I didn’t take air out of the front tires, so they were at 34 lbs of pressure while I let even more air out of the rear tires down to 26 lbs.  I finally put a decent run together by trying to be a little smoother and less abrupt in my inputs to the Trans Am.  I finished with a clean 33.474 s, good for third in the small CP class of four drivers. 

We had 113 racers show up for SCCA Solo II in O’ahu on April 13^th, and my time was only good enough for 94^th overall.  Worse, staying in the CP class (PAX 0.864) for the points even though the Trans Am could have raced in ESP (PAX 0.841) wasn’t helping me out since with the PAX my time was 103^rd!  I had an overall expectation to continue to improve with each outing at the track so was a little disappointed with my finish, but given the circumstances of not knowing how to drive the Trans Am and moving into the tougher CP class I wasn’t really surprised that I took a step back either.  During my fun runs I did get some level of consistency from the Trans Am: in 5 runs I was clean on all and ran a best of 33.024 s and a slowest of 33.760 s.  I missed the ’68 Camaro for sure, and was determined to have it ready for the next race day.  I had a full three months until the next SCCA Solo II outing—July 13^th.

Although I was without my ’68 Camaro for my fourth SCCA autocross event, showing up in the ’01 Trans Am WS-6 on the morning of the 13^th and tech’ing in was uneventful.  Although the Trans Am would be legal in ESP, I decided to race in CP since there is a year-long points race and I would be spending most of the year in my ’68 Camaro which is not legal in ESP.  This time my map covered all of the area that we race, and I was able to get all of the cones down pretty well while I walked the course.  The course started off to the right with a few cones set up in an exaggerated slalom, then entered into a narrow section that required a little weaving but was fast if you could stay steady through it.  A sweeping 180 degree turn brought you back around and through a relative long slalom followed by a turn to the left, then a hairpin turn followed by a turn to the right before a hairpin exit from the course. 

I didn’t expect to be able to perform as well in the Trans Am as in my ’68 Camaro mostly because I knew the suspension was a lot softer and I had no experience racing the Trans Am.  Since this was only my 4^th SCCA race and my autocrossing skills were still infantile, I didn’t figure I was going to be able to switch between the two cars without missing a beat on the track.  My first autocross day in December of 2007 with the ’68 and ’98 Camaros taught me that.  I was, however, very interested to see how well the 315s in the rear and 275s up front would grab the blacktop in an autocross event.  I was racing in the afternoon heat so watched some of the morning racing and hung out in Rick’s American Muscle tent the rest of the time. 

As you recall from earlier blogs in addition to the 1968 Camaro I raced the 1998 Z-28 convertible during my first SCCA outing but I had been wanting a fourth generation WS-6 for some time, and one came up on Craig’s List for sale at the right price.  The only problem was the car was on the Big Island of Hawaii, and I live on O’ahu.  After talking it over with my sainted wife Cris, we decided to fly over to the Big Island and check the car out for the day.  We used miles to fly over in the morning on Hawaiian Airlines and return the same evening.  Dad was here to stay with the girls for the day so it cost nothing out of pocket, and Cris loves visiting the Big Island.  To make a long story short, we bought the WS-6 and sold my Z-28.  In the process I stepped up to a higher class car (the WS-6 is, performance-wise and options-wise, on par with the SS, while the Z-28 is one step lower) as well as a 3 year newer car.  The WS-6 has the 6 speed T-56 transmission with the optional Hurst shifter and a 3.42:1 rear gear with an Auburn limited slip differential.  Additionally the WS-6 has sharper styling and leather interior, and was black on black, all of which I preferred.  The last and best part was the fellow I purchased the Trans Am from had tastefully modified the car with the addition of SLP resonators and stainless steel exhaust, less restrictive air filters for the Ram Air, an SLP smooth bellows, a shock tower brace, and American Torque-Thrust wheels at all four corners sporting 275 rubber in the front and 315 steamrollers out back.  He also had installed a sub-woofer to go with the 8 speaker surround system and a couple of amps controlled by a nice Alpine head unit that has the i-pod interface built in.

Preparing the Trans Am for autocrossing wasn’t that difficult.  I had checked it out before purchase, giving it my own tech inspection.  Mostly I just had to remove anything that was loose in the car.  One of the amps was laying on the back deck without being secured, so I secured it with some Velcro and was good to go.  I wasn’t sure how the car would handle relative to the ’68 Camaro.  If driving the ’98 convertible Z-28 was any indication it would be a lot softer in terms of the shocks.  I did expect it to be a bit tighter than the Z-28 as the WS-6 suspension is supposed to be a higher performance suspension.  I was also keen to see how the big meaty tires would fare on the race track.  Being a stick car, I knew that I’d be able to put the torque down a lot more directly than with the automatic-equipped Z-28, so it would take more finesse to handle the WS-6.  It wasn’t the Camaro I’d be making my debut in the CP class in, but at least I did have a very nice back-up until I got the bent valvestem in the Camaro fixed…