SCCA Camaro

Based on the final standings of the day, my earlier assertion that the track layout would likely favor the smaller import cars and not the domestics seemed to be the case: the only domestic car on the Top 10 list eecked in at number 10, and was the incredible 2008 Corvette Z06.  The rest of the top ten read like a who’s who of sporty Japanese imports with a lone BMW M3 representing European cars.  Perhaps the best sense I could give you for how many twists and turns are on the course would be to say I doubt I got the car much up over 35 MPH on the course that day.  Another little stat that will give you some sense of what it’s like is that there where 17 Miatas racing that day out of 113 racers—it seemed like you couldn’t turn around without tripping over one!  In contrast, there were only 17 domestic cars present in the entire field, although there was at least one representative of each of the Big Three.  Of the domestics, Chevrolet had the most representatives at 12 (3 Corvettes, 7 Camaros, an Impala SS, and an S-10), followed by Ford (one Mustang and one Lightning) and Pontiac (2 Firebirds) at 2 each, and a lone Dodge entrant (single Neon R/T).  After the C6 Z06 at number 10, the next highest placed domestic was the 13th place finish of a 4th Generation Camaro in ESP and the 24th place finish of a 4th Generation Camaro in A Stock (AS).  Of course I’m dramatically simplifying the situation by stating how the cars finished rather than the drivers; this is not to take anything away from driver’s skill, just to give a sense for where the domestic cars end up since this blog is about autocrossing Camaros.


 

A quick discussion and the car was pushed off the grid and the reliable ’98 Camaro was in its place.  Some quick taping later and I had the correct numbers on the car and was ready to go just as my turn for my third run came up.  To say that I was surprised at what a difference there was in driving the ’68 Camaro versus the ’98 Camaro in the autocross would be an understatement.  Where the ’68 was taut due to the aftermarket suspension and steering, and ’98 was like driving on marshmallows by comparison.  My third run was an unmitigated disaster, as the car behaved completed differently than I expected it to, yet I finished quicker than my second run, due in most part to just getting used to the course I’m sure.  I finished with a 43.199, about six tenths fast than I had been in my second run.  In my third run, I made a fairly dramatic improvement and ran a 42.250, nearly a full second faster than my third run.

So my first day autocrossing SCCA Solo II with the ’68 Camaro was a mixed bag.  On the one hand, the car made it there, tech’ed in successfully, was placed in a class, and did get in two runs before loosing a belt, forcing me to run my back-up car.  On the other hand, I only got two runs in the car before having to switch to another car, not something I’d recommend for someone on the steep part of the autocrossing learning curve, as I clearly was.  I had also asked my instructor to view the oil pressure gauge during the second run to make sure I wasn’t loosing oil pressure during high-g turns and he indicated it hadn’t dropped at all, which was great news, and means the Milodan oil pan with built-in windage tray was doing its job.  We found the lost belt and I bolted it back on before heading home.

Overall on the day I finished 100^th overall out of 113 drivers, and last in ESP, which had a total of six drivers.  I finished higher than all but two of the novices, and higher than a few non-novice racers.  Unfortunately, one of the novices that placed above me was Dear Old Dad (99^th overall!), who had the luxury of driving the same car for all four runs (at least that is the asterisk I will always place on this race!).  I ran faster than Dad on each of the first three runs, but he pulled it out for his final run!  I had stayed with 38 lbs of pressure in the tires on all four corners for all of my runs while Dad had decided that was too much, and taken air out of his tires, which he attributed to putting down his fastest time of the day.  We had purchased a “Fun Run” card for $5 for five additional runs at the end of the day, but unfortunately Cris and I had someplace to be so I had to run off before Fun Run time.  Nevertheless, we did have a lot of fun, but I had a lot of work to do to get ready for the next race!