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 it turns out, 44.449 was good for third place in the ESP class, 81^st overall out of 113 competitors, and 75^th overall after PAX.  I was thrilled with this outcome for my third race, and was starting to feel like the 1968 Camaro could be competitive if only I could bring up my skills and dial the car in.  Although there was a wide gap between me and the first and second place competitors in ESP, there were three other competitors in the class, including two Mustangs that I was faster than on that day.

There were 12 domestic cars out of a field of 113 total racers, so about 10% of the cars were domestics.  The breakdown was six Chevrolets consisting of 3 Corvettes (two C6s, driven by Randy and the Z06 driven by Jay and one C5 Z06 driven by Mitch) and 3 Camaros (my first generation and two fourth gen Camaros).  Pontiac was representing with two third gen Firebirds (one of which was driven by my new buddy Rick, who invited me to hang out in the “Musclecar Tent” he puts up every race day).  Ford had two Mustang entrants (one Fox body and one new Mustang) and there was a single Dodge Neon R/T as well as a single Saturn Ion Redline.  Of all of the Domestics, Jon from the ESP class in his 4^th Gen Camaro SS finished first again at 13^th overall that PAXed to 10^th.  Next was Jay in the C6 Z06 at 21^st overall and PAXing to 19^th.  As usual Charlie was very competitive in his bone stock 4^th Gen Camaro which was 39^th overall but PAXed to 22^nd.  So again about 10% of the cars were domestics and only a single domestic car got into the top ten standing for the day.  The abundance and relative dominance of the imports creates a certain camaraderie among the guys driving domestic cars, which is fun.