Back Again

For the third year in a row, the Subaru Impreza WRX will be back at the Washington Auto Show as part of the WDCR SCCA exhibit. One of these days, they are going to make me join the region. ;)

As usual, I've done a few things to the car since it was on display last year. It's got a Sparco race seat on the driver's side now. Billy Brooks sent me a MODE Racing double adjustable short shifter, to which I added a TurnInConcepts bushing, plus Kartboy front and rear shift bushings.

It's got the purple Rota Grids with 285/30R18 Hoosier A6s, plus zzyzx coilovers that I bought in Greg McCance's fire sale.

The day before I took the car to the Convention Center, I received a "care package" from Kartboy that included a white Delrin shift knob, some drivetrain bushings, an oil filler cap and exhaust hangers.

I managed to get the oil filler cap and the shift knob installed, but the rest will have to wait until I pick the car up after the Capitals vs. Penguins game on February 6th. Then I take the car up to its second home, IAG Performance, where it will also be getting some steering rack bushings.

The worst part is, I'm liking the modding of the car, but I'm still not excited about the upcoming season. I did get my own HD camera for the holidays (my mom bought a GoPro Hero HD camera for me), and so I can do more video. But, I'm still kinda scared about breaking things. Maybe I can convince Pat to let me use his new-to-him F150 Lightning and Econoline trailer when he's not playing with his ESP Camaro.

We shall see.

The Good Life

Nebraska is the home of Arbor Day. Welcome to Nebraska, from the Wyoming side
And, for the foreseeable future, Nebraska is also the home to the SCCA Solo Nationals, which is where I spent most of the second week of September.

The car arrived on site on Monday, and Shawn turned it over to the capable hands of Billy Brooks and Greg McCance to figure out why there was a persistent drip from the front passenger side axle. The Mfactory front differential had been a difficult install, and I suspected that there may have been a resulting issue with the axle seal. However, the two of them could not get the axle out in order to see what was going on. Since there hadn't been enough of a loss of diff oil to register on the dipstick, it was decided to just drive the car as it was.

Wednesday morning came way too early for my liking, as I'd spent most of the previous evening getting ready. My suitcase had been packed with the car, so I didn't need to do laundry and the like, but I still had to decide what I was bringing with me as my carry-on. Ninety minutes of sleep also wasn't a good idea, but I was too anxious over the whole trip to go to sleep. I left the house around 4:20, and after some side trips, parking, the shuttle bus ride and "re"printing my boarding passes, I got to security around 5:00. I was through security around 5:02. Gotta love BWI at god-awful hours.

I spent a miserable hour or so at St. Louis waiting for the second leg of my flight. I was pretty much bored out of my skull the entire time, to the point that I paid $5 for an hour of WiFi time, just so I could at least do something. Oh, and on both flights, I found myself unable to fall asleep until the descent had begun. Major suckage, which continued with the rental car pickup -- bright yellow Aveo with a bent rim. Joy.

An hour drive to the site, and all was well through MM399. Between MM399 and MM395, it started misting, then a light rain, and by the time I'd driven down 48th to the turnoff for the site, it was a downpour. WTF? It had been sunny in Omaha! The rain stopped shortly after I arrived, even as I parked the rental near the WRX and started looking for people. It wasn't hard to find anyone; it was actually hard to walk more than five feet and not get hailed by someone asking, "Did you just get here?" Why, yes, I just arrived 3 minutes ago.

I got through registration (thanks, Connie, for the rulebook!), and said hello to John Thomas (who was driving his FP Datsun) and Steve Mieritz (who was driving, of all things, an SS Z06), the latter whom I hadn't seen in years! I puttered around for a while then was told in no uncertain terms that the car "needed to be teched." When I deigned to ask why it hadn't been teched in the 2+ days it had been on the site, I got yelled at. I grabbed the keys and took the damned thing to the tech area before they closed. Don't know why I bothered, since it was Corey Ridgick and Jon Krolewicz on the job.... I'm not sure they really looked at it. ;)photo by Danny Kao
So, once competition was done for the day on the West course, we waited (impatiently, I might add) for the abomination known as the CP parade to finish (some people didn't know to avert their eyes.... I hear their sight is just now returning! :o ), then I did a quick course walk so I had an idea of what I was going to be driving the next day. I was still too tired to really process it much, but I also needed to get over to the awards ceremony to help Rupert Berrington with photographs. I figured I was clean enough to be presentable, and jetted off to downtown Lincoln.

I was dying of hunger by the end of it all, and ended up getting to the hotel with nothing to eat until the next morning when I grabbed some disgusting roller-grill things at the local convenience store. I really wanted to walk the course at least twice in the morning, now that I had a few hours of sleep, but I was still in pseudozombie mode, and I didn't really pick up on important stuff during my walks.

Chris Cline had jumped into my car for Nationals, since his other ride offers consisted of FWD, FWD and more FWD. Considering he's been driving an STX E36 BMW the last two years, he wasn't exactly looking for a FWD Civic or CRX. He'd called me on Monday to discuss driving the WRX, and we come to an amenable agreement for the ride. He didn't get a chance to drive it besides taking it up the road for a fill-up with 100 octane, so his first real experience was the first run. Pat followed up with a decent run that would have had him deep in the trophies, except as is too normal for him, he'd coned.

The next run, Chris was a bit faster, and Pat tried to tone things down just to get a clean run in. I don't know what he did, but the resulting time was slow. It was clean though, and that was a start.

Then third runs.... Chris went a bit faster -- good. Pat started off great, then about two-thirds of the way through the course, through the showcase turn...
I just turned around and started to walk away, then I remembered I should warn Chris not to even think about going to the grid spot. Sure enough, Pat needed.... "time" to decompress. I felt bad, but I couldn't dwell on it. I needed to start thinking about my runs.

I got one walkthrough during the break between heats two and three, and then I waited through the slightly-less-than-a-billion STS first drivers before I got to run. There were merely three of us in ESPL -- me, defending ESPL champion Lorien Feighner, and Hilary Anderson in McCance's car -- which meant it was "win or go home" in terms of trophies and tire contingency. Just a tiny bit of pressure.
photo by GotCone.com
My first run was all over the place. I don't think having my last autocross attempt be an RX8 on A3S03s was a good idea. Still, it was a tick faster than Feighner's first run (less than a tenth), even if it was a lot slower than I would have liked. My second run, I pushed it a bit harder through the opening offsets, and up into the showcase. I thought I might have coned coming out of the big sweeper, but nothing was called, and I'm glad I resisted the urge to glance in the mirrors.

The run was minutely quicker than my first, and it would ultimately stand as my best, as I coned my third run in the opening offsets. Lorien slowed down on her second run, and coned her third as well. I would have a 0.295 lead going into day 2.
photo by GotCone.com
Some alcohol and foursquare with the Atlanta Region would ensue in the evening hours, and finally, I decided that sleep would be good. I think we might have made a run to Taco Bell for some kind of snackery, but OMG was I tired. I realized quickly that I had to spend pretty much all day in my grid, with Pat and Chris running first heat, me covering AS and GSL for SportsCar in the second heat, running third heat, sitting around for an hour in impound waiting for results during fourth heat, and then announcing during fifth heat. It made for a long day, but when I was done, I did get a walkthrough on the East Course before the foursquare began.

I started off the second day in a similar manner to the first, except one of my course walks was with Anthony Savini, a local who drives a supercharged Mini Cooper S in GS. He was leading GS by a scant 0.09 going into the second day, but he's also an Evolution instructor, and he went into instructor mode while we were walking. It was something I needed, with my addled sleep-deprived brain needing something to focus on during my driving.

Pat and Chris were well out of the trophies going into the second day, so they were both trying to salvage their respective prides with some decent times on the Feldpusch-designed course. Pat's third run was 0.4 behind local driver (and trophy winner) Brian Burdette, so I think he felt better about how he did. Chris didn't improve every run like he did on the first day, but he was driving the car harder, to the point that he actually coned his final run (which had his fastest raw time, unfortunately).

I got one walkthrough during the break, like before, and as Pat and I approached the start line, I asked Billy Brooks to join us. Pat decided to take offense at this, and walked away. So, even as Billy and I are walking, and Billy is telling me what he was doing in any particular area, I'm worried about how Pat is mad at me, so ultimately, I don't think my attempt at getting input from two people really helped. I would end up falling back on the advice Savini had given me during the morning walk.

My first run, I had a front row seat for Lorien's first cone of two. Seeing her cone made me relax -- probably a bit too much -- since I knew she wouldn't catch me on that run. Her time was a mid 60 second run, while mine was about 1.5 second slower, raw. It was a wake up call, but I was still hitting snooze, since with one look at the course and a driving pattern "set," I wasn't sure what I should do in order to rectify my sluggishness. photo by Aaron Boltman
It didn't help that we had a huge delay before our next runs, due to two GP cars breaking, then an STS car breaking. Yikes. Multi-car breakage when you're driving an *SP WRX is a bit unnerving.

Fortunately, Lorien slowed down on her second run -- by a lot. She went almost a second slower on raw time, while I dropped 0.7. I was still in the lead, though I wouldn't say "comfortably." If she was even 0.3 off her initial raw time, she would be beating me -- that's how slow I was running. photo by Aaron Boltman
The last run, I really don't know what I was doing to prepare. The lack of sleep and the anxiety of not having much in the way of downtime was starting to wear on me. I really couldn't think of a plan to go faster; this was the same situation I found myself in for the previous day. I knew I could go much faster, since Pat had run in the 59s. Hell, even Cline had a raw time in the mid-60s. Yet, I was sitting on a 61.2. I just was at a loss of what to do, and I felt it all slipping away when I pulled up to the line.

You can hear me cursing through the "wall-lom" about two thirds of the way through the course. I am so late on those elements, it's disgusting, and I know it. The funny thing is that in my mind, what I said was a lot louder, and a lot faster. Weird. The run was marginally faster than the second run, but either one was good enough for the win, as Lorien went even slower on her third run. More than an hour later, results were finally handed to us in impound (after having to fix an issue with Hilary's times), and I was declared the new champion.

Now for the "but" part. Pat ran 1.5 seconds faster than me on the East Course. 1.5. I can't remember the last time he legitimately drove 1.5 seconds faster than me when we were in the same car (I'm not counting the abortion called the WDCR Practice Event with me in his SE-R). Generally, we're pretty close, at least on raw time, and I was pretty flustered that he was so much quicker than me on both courses (raw time -- he had to sit on a run 0.2 slower than me on the West Course due to his conage). photo by Aaron Boltman
I'm not sure if the issue is me still driving the car like a DS car, or what. I just know it's got to stop. I drove like crap at Toledo, and I drove like crap at Nationals. I didn't feel nearly as bad about my driving at the DC Pro, but I'm sure it could have been better there too.

So, I'm the newly crowned ESPL National Champion, thanks in huge part to IAG Performance, Vorshlag Motorsports, and Billy Brooks with MODERacing. As for next year, we'll see where the WRX goes from here.

Lock and Load

I picked up the WRX from IAG on Wednesday night, forgoing a Capitals season ticket holder event and another chance to skate for free at Kettler to do so. I wasn't particularly happy about having to do so, but it was either then, or wait until Friday, and I wanted the chance to put some miles on the new differentials before leaving the car with Shawn, the B-stock driver who was going to take the car out to Lincoln for me.

The Mfactory front differential is evidently not completely "plug-and-play" for the 2006 WRX. While Greg McCance had no issues with his 2002 car (which requires "axle stubs"), my car was a bit of a challenge. The guys are IAG were evidently having issues with getting the axles and the new front diff to cooperate. The rear Cusco diff was no problem at all.

Saturday morning, I dropped off Pat at BWI for his flight to Omaha, or, as he calls it, "The Homeland." His dad still lives in Omaha, and he is going to visit for a few days before heading to Lincoln. I came home, and started to clean and load the WRX for it's trip.
loading the WRX
I need a better vacuum. Between the vacuum at the local car wash and the attachments to the vacuum at home, I still couldn't get as much grime out of the car as I would like. It was a lot better than it was when I was done, in any case. I also washed the Rotas before putting them in.

I started all this around 9AM and by noon, I was grabbing a quick lunch and getting ready to head out the door. I touched base with Gabe, who would be picking me up at Potomac Mills, and with Shawn, the driver, and then I was on the road. 1:45, I was at Shawn's house, and then he took me over to the mall where I got to ride back to Gabe's apartment in the ghetto-fabulous DSP Maxima. Mary must really like him if she puts up with riding in the back of that car instead of insisting that he drive the M3!
tires in the car, and ass-kicking boots ready to be packed
Three hours later, I'd successfully navigated the Metro and Amtrak mazes, and had finished the 40 minute walk home from the BWI rental car building.

Shawn and his codriver/car owner Chike were leaving Sunday morning around 7AM, and I got a phone call about five hours into their trip. "Did you have any issues with the transmission leaking?"

I couldn't lie, especially considering how worried I am about my vehicles when others are driving them. "When I picked the car up on Wednesday, I was smelling gear oil after driving it. It didn't really leave any spots in the driveway, and I took it to a car wash to get the undercarriage cleaned off because I knew they'd had issues with the axles and there was likely gear oil spilt."

He told me that he'd looked underneath and there was a "steady drip." I clarified that it was a drip and not a flow and then told him I'd call JJ and find out what he thought. Shawn asked if he should wait for an answer, and I told him, "I didn't smell gear oil when I dropped it off, and if it's just dripping and there wasn't anything in your driveway after last night, I'm not going to worry about it. I will let you know what he says."
the larger of the spots in the driveway is visible here. it didn't seem significant until the phone call
JJ thought it might be the axle seal, possibly slightly damaged from the issues with getting the axles and the front diff to play nicely. I also called Billy Brooks, and conferred with him about what to do with the car once it got to Lincoln, as there were a couple of days before competition and even before Pat would want to drive it at the Evolution School Test-and-tune. I relayed the information to Shawn, and five-and-a-half hours after the initial call, he just checked in and said that the transmission dipstick is showing that the level is okay.

The car should be in Lincoln tomorrow morning. Billy and Greg (McCance) will look at it for me, and everything should be good to go.

In the meantime, @WDCRSoloNats is reporting via Twitter that Ian Baker won the Finale Hawk Super Challenge over Sam Strano, but Strano took the year-end Challenge win. Annie Bauer took the L2 win and therefore the L2 year-end win, as expected, despite some shifter linkage issues on the FSP car. Leslie Cohen won the Ladies Challenge for the event and for the year.

Maybe next year I'll revisit the ProSolo Finale. In the meantime, I've got some work to do in order to be prepared for the days I'll be gone.

Compression Perfection

The WRX was at IAG for the pre-dyno inspection and 60K service on Wednesday. While it was there, I had them install the up-pipe and CAI that Billy at Mode Racing had sent.

The verdict? The compression had extremely little variance across the board -- 136, 137, 135, 139 -- pretty excellent for a car that has been ridden hard for the last year, especially with the power mods done over the last two months. I guess the previous owner did take care of the car pretty well during the 15K he owned it. Rick at IAG said that it's more usual to see up to a 10% variance between the cylinders.

Now, I've been using Mobil 1 5W30 since I bought the car, but I let them do the oil change with Motul 8100 5W40, since so many Subaru owners complain about the Mobil 1. I know I haven't had issues with Mobil 1 in my green Camaro Z28 1LE that currently has right around 390K on the odometer, but I also know that the formulation has changed in the past few years, so maybe there are better alternatives.

The dyno tuning session is scheduled for 5:30 tomorrow evening. I dropped the car off at Gabe's this morning, and he's going to take it there and report back (and hopefully take a picture or two). I have no idea what to expect out of it, but it's going to get a race fuel map as well as the 93 octane map. We'll see.

In the meantime, I'm still pondering how two different mechanical engineers can come to opposite conclusions on the need for a rear swaybar.

Action Shots

I finally was able to upload the videos from the Ladies Challenge rounds at the 2009 DC ProSolo, despite the best attempts to thwart me by the shoddy Verizon DSL connection and the craptastic wireless router they provided.

These are not by best runs at all; my fastest times were achieved Sunday morning, moments before the rain started again, and ruined my try at a clean, green-light 29.9s on the right side. :(

Round One : Me versus Meredith Najewicz (L1-ST Honda Civic Si)

We were the last pairing, as I was the top qualifier, and for some reason, despite Meredith being the 5th place L1 trophy (ahead of Chris Peterson), they had her as the eighth qualifier (according to Howard Duncan, there is something a bit screwy with the seeding program, and he's looking into it). I was shaking from nerves at this point, and despite knowing I could go a second faster on the right side than my dial-in and class-winning times showed, I was still very tentative, especially with stone cold tires. I evidently hit a cone coming back through the crossover, on the right side, likely with the front of the car, judging from the video, and didn't realize it. I really botched the finish, as the car went into ice mode as I was trying to slow down at the end of the crossover, and it messed me up mentally for the finish, as I didn't trust the car to slow down. I'd never had ice mode on this car before.

Interlude between Rounds One and Two :

More of me swearing about the ice mode, and asking where the cone was. This is separate from the previous video because Pat was playing with the camera's remote.

Round Two : Blue Ridge Region FTW

I don't know why running against Tara Knoll always makes me more nervous than running against anyone else, but it does. So, Tara benefitted from a Denise Kugler red light in the first round, pitting me against yet another ST Civic Si. This was actually my best round, as it was relatively uneventful -- no cones for either of us, and I even managed a mini-breakout of 0.010.

Final Round : ProSolo Finale Redux

Carrie had won L1 with ever-increasingly quick runs in Jerry Enger's ES Toyota MR2, and when she drives well, she will put down times on par with the open class (kind of like myself). I was concerned in this round only because, as I pulled up on the left side, I noticed the CEL was on. It's something that will need to be looked out later.

Jerry told me that Carrie had broken out earlier in the Challenge, but the results sheet didn't show that, so I wonder if she broke out on one side, but not the other, or if the breakout wasn't put into the system. It ended up not mattering, as she pushed too hard into the left side crossover (the more difficult of the two crossovers, for sure), and coned. She said she DNFed, but that's not what was announced; so she took a red light on purpose, leaving me to my "victory lap." I really should look to see what I'm supposed to do if I'm in that situation again.

So, the car has been washed of the champagne, and divested of the trappings of an autocross car for the most part while I consider what to do next with it. It will most certainly be getting a tune when Jorge makes his monthly trip to IAG in July, but beyond that, it's up in the air.

Revenge of the Fallen

Last September, on a cloudy Saturday, the ProSolo Finale came to a close in Topeka, Kansas. The rain had stopped, the tires had been switched over to Hoosier A6s, and the Ladies Challenge Championship was on the line as Carrie Snyder and I pulled through the staging lanes. I'd secured the L1 class championship in the DS WRX -- most certainly with the help of AWD and Hoosier radial rain tires, but it's not like I jumped into the car for the event! -- and Carrie had just barely squeaked into the Challenge after her worst class finish all year. With the drying conditions, I'd dropped a bunch of time through the first two rounds (well, in one round, as I benefitted from a Connie Smith red-light), but Carrie had gotten to the final though top seed Annie Bauer's redlight, followed by Kristi Brown spinning. When we paired up, ES MR2 versus DS WRX, I had to give her a several second head start. There was little-to-no chance of me winning without her making a gigantic mistake, which she didn't.

Fast forward to Sunday's Challenges at the DC ProSolo. The top two seeds met in the final round -- L1 winner against the L2 winner -- and it was me (L2) and Carrie (L1) in the same cars as before. The only difference was that the WRX was now ESP, and so I'd be giving her a legitimate head start. I was the one who'd gotten lucky in an earlier round, carrying a cone on a win over Meredith Najewicz, but I'd still managed to break out ever-so-slightly when I took out Tara Knoll in the second round. Carrie hadn't exactly breezed to the final round, needing to get by Chris Peterson and Heather Everett. I knew I had a second of "sand" on the right-side course after posting a 29.9 there earlier in the day on a 0.464 redlight, so I wasn't too concerned.

We paired up to the sounds of Jeff Jacobs announcing the reprisal of the Finale. I turned on the CD, going for Paramore (Misery, Inc.) , and getting Against Me! (Thrash Unreal) instead. The video for this (hopefully I'll get it posted later today) is funny, as my launch is perfectly timed with the music. In any event, I had a good launch, though I was still more tentative on course than I should have been. I was really too worried about cones during the Challenge (and it didn't help me against Meredith, as I didn't know I'd coned until I came in and heard the announcement). I came across the line first -- no surprise, as the difference between courses was close to two seconds -- and I hear Carrie is nearly four seconds back, plus a cone! Wow, wasn't expecting that. So, I line up on the left, bring the revs up, her lights come dow-- redlight. What? I can't remember if I have to complete the course, as she pulls forward and around, so I just do a "victory lap."

Later, she tells me that she didn't just cone on the left, she DNFed, and she knew it. She redlit to "save timing the trouble of figuring out" she'd already lost. Wow. I was relieved though, as the CEL had come on before my runs, and I was happy to not have to push the car hard through the course one more time.

So, my first National event in the WRX was a resounding success! Additionally, MODE Racing is a new sponsor for the season, so things are looking up with the car. And now... it needs a bath. Champagne gets sticky and disgusting after a few hours!
photo by Marnie Soom