Well after winning the Winged Warrior II event for Team USA this year my car has now been placed on the front page at the lower left.

http://wingedwarrior.net/

   It's been awhile since I've added anything here. In the past month or so alot has actually gone on though. I guess I'll start in chronological order to make it easiest for me to remember.

   At the very beginning of July I got an e-mail from our local SCCA Region that were were going to be entered into a parade in a small little town near one of the members and that if I wanted to I could bring my car for the parade and a carshow afterwards. I figured if nothing else this would be a great time to get some face time for my various sponsors so we cleaned the outside down and headed out for a leisurely cruise through the town.

   Upon arrival though I noticed that a small issue that's been bugging my car since the beginning of the year had grown much worse. My valve seals have been leaking a little bit at idle since late last year, last time I did an engine rebuild I didn't have a valve spring compressor tool, nor the money to buy one so I just left them laying in a box figuring I'd get to them later on. By the time I'd arrived at the parade it was obvious that my valve seals were no longer amongst the living. With pungent blue smoke rolling out the back of the car during the parade I was a favorite of the kids, and most likely despised by the parents. Oh well, parades are for the children and they loved the new look of the car with many of them yelling out "That one's my favorite" and "Oooh look at that racecar".

   After nearly killing my friend with smoke in the car behind me we finally made it through downtown and over to the carshow area. We pulled in with 10 cars, 8 of which were imports, and as far as I could tell were the only non-american cars there. I don't know what categories they were giving awards for, but I don't think a single one of us got an award with our imports. Not really surprised though as my car is anything but a show car. We did however manage to win an award in the actual parade itself in the "Classic Car" category which I found extremely odd as the oldest car we had was an 85 Civic, but whatever.

   Fast forward another two weeks and I'm in the garage with Andy Moraitis and Corey Standord, two local buddy's and dsmtuners, doing a valve seal job on the talon in the middle of the season. I'd lost nearly a full quart of oil idling around the parade and I didn't want this to pose a problem later on so the decision was made to repair them mid-season. This is like an olympic athlete having open heart surgery right before the Olympics. Not the best decision, but it had to be done. After breaking the valve spring compressor the night before and re-welding it, then losing a valve keeper somewhere down by the steering rack I managed to get the car back up and running. She's not moved much since then but I plan to put some miles on her and try to repair my dual stage boost controller.

   On a more personal note Kendal and I have finally decided to get off our asses (or maybe just off my ass) and set a date for our wedding and begin the planning stages. Sometime next year I'll finally be able to enjoy the sweet rewards of reduced insurance due to being married , not that there aren't some other benefits as well. We've been engaged now for something like 3 years which is hilarious when we look back at it. Well that's it from me for now, til next time I suppose, keep her shiny side up and the boost needle pegged .

   Well after a couple years working on their website, dsmtuners.com has jumped on board for the remainder of the 2006 racing season. You can check out their announcement here:

DSMTuners.com Sponsorship Announcement

   Just got word that I won the Team USA Overall Champion crown at the Winged Warrior II event I wrote about in my last blog. Should have a large trophy from that one.

   That same day I also got news that I've got a new sponsor joining the project this year as well. I don't want to break the news too early, but I will say that it is a large web forum that I'm a member of. Which one you'll have to wait and see. I also did just take some new photos of the car. I'm still awaiting graphics for the new sponsor, should have those before the end of the month hopefully. Expect more photos once the sponsor spills the beans, I get my trophy, and I can get my friend's professional photographer friend to get some new shots for me.

 

Larger Image

   Wow, what a weekend. I've never been a part of anything like this in my life and it was an absolute friggin blast. For those of you who haven't been paying attention to what's going on the Winged Warrior II was a charity competition for the children of Riley Children's Hospital in Indinapolis, IN. Through two teams of sports cars we put on a race and donated some of the entry fees and other donations to the Riley Cheer Guild as well as giving rides to some of the children who were able to actually make it out to the event.

   The weekend started with a drag racing competition to be held at Muncie Dragway. The 60' times and 1/4 mile trap speed would be recorded and scored as events. The following day would have an autocross competition put on by the Fort Wayne Region SCCA, a high speed slalom that would be timed on it's own, and a skidpad event to determine maximum handling g's.  The cars in the event would consist of two teams of around 40-50 cars making up both Team USA and Team Import.

   My weekend started by meeting up with a couple of the other Fort Wayne guys who'd been selected to be on Team USA (somehow my car's a domestic because Eagle is a domestic brand, whatever) at the south end of Fort Wayne. We proceded to caravan down to our hotel in Anderson where we secured a room for $37 a night. Not too shabby considering the price, but not the greatest place I've ever stayed either. After unloading our luggage we headed up to the dragstrip in Muncie which is about 45 minutes when stuck behind semi's the whole way. Man I hate two lane roads.

   After getting the car ready to run by adjusting the rear shocks to maxt stiff and lowering the front tire pressure I headed up to the line to get my first pass in. Already some of the heavy hitters were laying down passes in the low 12 to high 11 second range with some trapping higher than 120mph. So much for winning this event, but to be honest I know better than to think my car really had a shot in this area. Without racegas and risking a blown headgasket I just plain wasn't going to make the kind of power these other guys were. I decided to play it safe and see what I could do on the tune and boost I normally run on. We'd been told that the track would be prepped for us and for once it was actually a little grippy given my street tires.

   Off the line on the first run I spun first a bit at the top of the gear, grabbed second which hooked perfectly thanks to my new boost controller, and then slipped her into third and fourth as I walked away from the turbo mr2 in the next lane. First pass of the day clocked in at a 13.4 @ 111. 60' time was a 2.3 and I knew she had some more in her. This was good as the 13.4 was almost a personal best already. I resolved to head out on the next pass and really try and get her out of the hole smoother to drop that 60' time and hopefully increase my trap speed a little while I was at it.

   This time around I was lined up with a silver BMW M3 which looked like it could give me a good race. I brought the revs to 4000rpm and slipped the clutch nice and soft out of the hole, boost started building and she spun the tires a little around 5000 rpm and I short shifted her into second and put my foot to the floor. She hooked perfectly again and I immediately began walking the M3. The switch to third brought on all 21psi and the car lept down the track with the BMW shrinking in my rear view mirror. Into 4th and another surge of power to carry me through the finish line. I knew this run was a good one and as I got back to the timeslip booth I looked down to see a new best of 13.1 @ 112.4 with a 2.1 60 foot time.

   I thought the car might have a little more in it and I didn't want to let the track go to waste so I headed right back in line and ended up lined up against the same BMW. This time though I let the car build too much boost while letting the clutch out in first which brought on wheelhop, I quickly shifted to second, but too quickly causing second to spin as well a little bit. By this time I knew the e.t. was shot on this pass so I figured I'd just stick her in third and see if I could at least re-gain the ground I'd lost on the BMW. Sure enough 21psi in this little thing is a rocket and I quickly reeled in the BMW and passed him before shifting to 4th gear and crossing the line with a 13.5 @ 111mph.

   Having a personal best already in the bag I thought I might try a couple more psi and see what I could do mph wise on the top end of things for my last run. I pulled to the line against another decent car who's description evades me now. After leaving the line with the usual wheel spin she hooked second again and I thought I was on a good run. Shifted her into third and glanced over to see 22-23psi rocking through the Forced Performance 18g, but then I felt it. A hickup, then another, and another. Into 4th gear and all is clear, but its obvious she didn't like that extra boost and was blowing the spark out, had I gapped the plugs down she might have held, but in the end it was a decent 13.2 @ 112 mph again. At this point I was done making passes for the night so we packed up and headed back to the hotel, unfortunately I'd forgotten to lower the rear shock setting so I rode down country roads at 65 with the rear AGX's set on 8 and the car's ass literally hopping over some of the bigger bumps. Gotta remember not to do that again.

   Back at the hotel we met up with Todd James and Tom Miller, two of the leading forces behind the Fort Wayne region SCCA club. We headed out to dinner to discuss the particulars of the event and how they came to be in control of it after the leading insurance underwriter backed out with only two weeks before event day. Luckily there are few out there with the drive and devotion of these two guys and they were able to pull together and get the event ready and approved in two days (it usually takes 4 days to get an event of this nature approved through SCCA).

   Race day, 4am. I awake to the sound of the Dukes of Hazard theme song playing on my cell phone's alarm. I love that song, but not at 4am. I begrudgingly get up and throw some tennis shoes and shorts on. At 5am we meet up with the rest of the crew which now includes Ron Conrad from FW SCCA and Tom, Dave, and Tyler from Team USA to head out and grab a quick bite at the local McDonald's. It must've been a sight that they're not used to. Sitting out front was my talon, Dave's Neon ACR, Tyler's SRT-4, Tom's Turbocharged Ecotec Cavalier, Ron's race painted Civic hatch, Todd's STI adorned with graphics from SCCA racing, and a big yellow Ryder truck with Todd's other toy a 1988 Mustang LX with flared fenders and 12" wheels all the way around that Tom would be driving this weeekend.

   By 6am we're already at the airport, but the fog is so thick we can barely see the runway of the airport from in front of the hangers. Regardless we load up the cones and begin heading out onto the course to drop them off on our way around to set up the course. My fiancee volunteers to help with people signing in and entering the event, she's such a trooper sometimes, and ends up spending most of the day later helping the event to run smooth. Slowly the safety stewards show up and begin teching in the cars as the drivers start to file into the event site. After setting up a wicked looking course, timing equipment, and the generator / air compressor Tyler and I begin heading out to chalk off each cone. This is an arduos task and one I'd forgotten about so I'm out walking the entire course outlining each cone and like an idiot I'd already strapped on my driving shoes. These new reebok's are great for driving, crap for walking, within half the course my feet already hurt from these things and my other shoes are 1/4 mile away in my pit area.

   Finally we have the driver's meeting and lucky me I get to drive the autox first, then run skidpad, and finally finish the day with a relaxing break. I couldn't have planned that any better. As the first group of cars begins to file out we soon realize we have a problem. Cars are missing, cars are numbered wrong, this is going to take awhile. Unfortunately this number issue arose from adding cars at the last minute and having different lists circling the paddock area. It's been assured to me that this won't happen again and I have no doubt they'll get this squared away after seeing the frustration is cause to those putting on the event.

   After working things out as goos as possible the first car is sent out on course. Dave Buschur's white evo 8 rs takes off onto the course and looks extremely fast. After assuring that the timing system is working good Jon Krolewicz in the AMS widebody Evo 8 heads out onto course. While watching him I realize something's missing, the Buschur evo hasn't returned yet. A look down to the end of the staging area reveals the cause. The driver is pushing the thing back to the front of the line with the hood up and the hazards on, not a good way to start the day. The diagnosis was a failure of either a valve or valvespring. Meanwhile the imports continue running and then they finally start working their way towards me on the usa side of the cars.

   Now the course is a very interesting course and i'm itching at the trigger to get out onto it and see how the car responds to the layout. At the startign line I'm stearing into two successive mandatory direction slaloms. The starter waves me off and with a smooth 4000 rpm slip I head to wards the first cone of the day. 1st gear, 25 mph stay to the right let off long enough to transfer weight and turn to the lef to setup for the next cone. Shift into second and keep her steady as I go left, then right, then back left again around the last cone of this first 4 cone slalom. Now from here I have a gate and another slalom after that starts on the left side. Luckily for my rather narrow car this means I can create a miniature straightaway between the end of the first slalom, the gate, and the start of the second slalom. It's foot to the floor and let her eat until I reach that first cone.

   Tap on the brakes to let the front end bite and flick her right then left then right again and now we're finished with the second slalom. At this point I'm at the end of the taxiway and have a 90 degree left hand sweeper that is an offcamber turn. I setup early on the first cone with my foot on the gas and right as I get there give her a quick stab of the brakes to send the rear rotating around and get me rotated through the corner and it's back on the gas to accelerate towards a relatively open chicane. I roar through the chicane with only a lift at the first entrance, a little more gas and it's hard onto the brakes for the keyhole turn. I downshift into first and turn in slightly, then I give her full right lock as this is actually a hairpin 270 degree turn that can suck alot of time out of a good run. As soon as I can see the next short chute I'm back on the gas and back into second gear as I approach the third slalom of the day.

   Once to the right, once to the left, once to the right, and back to the left, then a tight narrow left hand 90 degre that makes you pause to turn in without taking out the inner cone. I'm staring at about a 100 foot straight away here so I open her back up in second and she scrabbles for traction down towards a left hand near 180 degree sweeper. Tap on the brakes, late apex it and accelerate up another little 50 foot short straight which is followed by a 90 degree right hand sweeper at about 35mph. Exiting the sweeper I have a quick little open slalom that requires just a little flick of the wheel and I'm heading back towards the taxi way and out onto the main runway. I backtrack through the gates I used when exiting the second slalom on the start and I'm into another 3 cone slalom where I keep her in second gear and work my way out onto the main runway. from here I make a right turn and enter the final stretch and slalom of the course.

   This slalom is timed as part of the course, but also has its own timer on the second cone until the finish to determine the top slalom speed of the day. I accelerate in second towards the first cone, lift, turn, and shift it into third to control wheelspin through here. I flick it back and forth thorugh 4 more cones at around 60-70 mph and then it's hard on the gas to roar through the finish line at around 80mph. First run 59.6

   After finishing I return the car to grid and begin talking to some friends where I learn of my time and that I was one of the few on team usa to even break the 1 minute barrier on the opening lap. After checking the scoreboard I find I'm only a tenth behind a 425hp c5 vette. I'm in 2nd place already, this fires me up and I go from "let's have fun today against all these incredibly fast cars and not embarass ourselves" to "let's kick some ass" mode. I immediately head to the hill overlooking the course to observe the lines the other drivers are taking and to plan for my next run.

   Run #2 is finally around and I'm lined up again. A little too much wheelspin makes me upset about the launch but I clear it out of my head and continue the attack. Everything feels a little faster, my turn in points are better and the car is responding great to my every move. I fly through the finish slalom and get hard on the brakes to hear 58.3. I know I'm well into first place now and sure enough a check of the time board shows me .2 ahead of the vette who also bettered his opening time.

   I can see that the awd cars are whooping on me pretty good with the AMS car turning in 52's and a final run of 51.9 and a good group of other sti's and evo's running in the 55 range. The lack of grip when accelerating and the 205 vs 235 or wider tire issue is rearing it's head but I figure to hell with it. I'll bear down and take team rights at least. Heading out onto the third of four runs I start fantastic but as I try to exit the 180 degree left hand sweeper the car spits, sputters, and nearly dies. I stay on the gas and she recovers and I finish the lap mad as a hatter but with still increasing my time to a 57.99.

   Noone else has turned a 57 yet but it may not matter as I'm running out of gas due to the g-loads sloshing the gas away from the pump. A quick holler to one of my DSM teammates turns up a 4 gallon can of 93 octane in his truck and a willing person to run it out to me in grid. I suddenly switch into panic mode as they've already started sending some of the domestics onto the course and with me being #12 it means I'm not too much farther from having to leave. Finally the gas arrives and I throw it into the tank and pull up to the line nearly late. I head out onto course and in the second slalom i hear a familiar "thuck", I resist the urge to look into my rear view mirror and continue down into the keyhole. The car's tires are hot and sticky now and I can get some good power down in second coming out of the tight corner, but it all may be to waste if that was a cone I heard back in the slalom and I've still got the looming issue of gas hanging over my head as I approach the sweeper with some serious apprehension. The car survives the sweeper and I get a clean line out of it and out towards the runway. On the previous three runs this uphill straightaway had given me trouble as the 15-16psi I run in second gear was still spinning the tires, so this time I shortshifted to third to let all 21psi to some talking and then downshifted into second again before entering the final two slaloms. The car moves well and before I know it I'm back into third rolling through the final slalom. I try to keep my times to a minimum here and I hear that familiar "thuck" again and get furious with myself. I've been clean all weekend and now on this pass I potentially collect two cones. I fly through the finish line and in anger mash the brakes which lights the tires and draws some quick head turns from the paddock area. I listen as I'm sitting though waiting for my time. Finally it comes, 57.043 clean run. I'm way ahead in first at this point. At the end of the heat I'm in first place with another car .1 second in back of me who was the last member for team usa to run. Close but I hold on.

   From here it's over to the skidpad. Not much to say about this event. We get two timed runs where you pretty much drive in a circle both clockwise and counterclockwise. We head out onto the course to find it's angled and extremely slick, not going to make any big numbers here. At the end of the day Jon in the AMS evo turns in a .80 g average on the tight and slick circle. On a wider, grippier circle, with 240lbs less weight and less sticky tires though the evo turned in a 1.04 in one direction only three weeks ago, proof that all the numbers were realistically down by about .20 g from what you may be able to expect on a real skidpad. Considering that I was pretty happy with my 5th place team finish with a .76g average which corrected could come out to be as high as .96 g. The camber of the course screwed me up bad, not to mention that 1/4 of it was on a grippier surface than elsewhere. This meant that your steering angle was constantly changing just to drive in a circly, not exactly ideal. Clockwise the car wanted to understeer badly, counterclockwise it felt planted and the rear would actually rotate on the offcamber section. This showed in my times which were 18 seconds for two laps clockwise, and 17 seconds for two laps counterclockwise.

   At the end of the day I managed to finishe 4th in the autox for Team USA (14th overall), 4th in the slalom for Team USA (19th overall), and 5th for Team USA in the skidpad (18th overall). We still haven't seen final placings for the 60' times or 1/4 mile trap speed segments, but I was very happy with my scores considering there were around 84 cars present at the event.

   I'll have some pics available later today hopefully once I get back home along with at least 1 short video of the course from the 2nd slalom back to the crossover. I'll also have some pics of my new carbon fiber hood from VIS as well.

    I'm not at all surprised that the rear brakes on my car were an absolute mess and near impossible to get off of the car in one piece. After all I haven't worked on them for the last 5 years, but damnit this was a total pain in the ass.

    The front's went so-so this time around after only having one bolt give me a bit of an issue. But that turned out to be nothing really major and was taken care of quickly.

    The passenger side rear brake however had something against me. After remembering how to remove the parking brake cable assembly I was getting ready to remove the caliper bolt and the 12mm bolt snapped after trying to break it loose. I ended up having to remove the caliper completely, grind the end of the bolt flat. Then drill it out and heli-coil what's left. Hopefully after covering the bolt in anti-sieze it shouldn't give me so much trouble next time.

    The rotors themselves came off rather easily which had me totally amazed but then we hit issue #1 of the night. I'd called ahead to Kendal and asked her to pick up the rest of my brakes at Autozone since I might not get off of work in time. Since I already had two sets of brake pads from Hawk Performance sitting at home I figured she'd understand that she needs to get the rear rotors for me, apparently I needed to be more specific. I had a lovely set of Duralast brake pads sitting in her car which was exactly what I didn't need. I decided to call it a night after all this frustration and to just get it taken care of in the morning. Little did I know that the morning would prove even more difficult than the night before it.

    10am, and I'm standing at Autozone where the kind gentleman is informing me that they don't stock my brake rotors and it'll be a 2 day order to get them here. I take my refund and head home. I make one call to Advance Auto Parts in Kendallville and then head in to pick up the rotors they have. I swear though Autozone never stocks a damned thing for me, yet the old Advance Auto Parts I work at never fails to have it in stock right away that very day.

    After the drive back home I clean of the rotors and begin installing them. Everything is going nice and smooth until I try to install my new racing pads from Hawk. They don't fit. I find this odd as all rear brakes on 90-94 DSM's are the same so it's not like they sent me the wrong one's, or did they. I check the backs of the pads against the box and all the numbers line up, so then I compare my new pads to the old, and realize someone somewhere made a big mistake. Although nearly equally tiny in size, they are far from the same pads as what I removed from my vehicle which makes me wonder wtf I just ordered.

    I head in and pull up Hawk's website and check the listing for the 1992 Mitsubishi Eclipse. I always look up Eclipses since some sights list more for them than its Talon and Laser cousins. I find exactly what I'm looking for at the bottom of the page, the matching part numbers for the pads I hold in my hand.

92 Eclipse listing

    Then I decide to check those part numbers against the 1992 Eagle Talon and find to my horror that someone dropped the ball and listed pads only for the Eclipse that don't fit it. If I'd looked up the pads for the Talon I would've not ordered these bastard pads that seem to fit nothing at all.

92 Talon Listing

    So now I've got to put my old pads back on and roll the car back outside the garage and figure out how to return these pads tomorrow at work so I can get something decent in their place. Although these little bastards are so friggin small I can't imagine they do much of anything at all to actually stop the car.

   Wow, fun day yesterday. I'm trying to finish up some last minute things before the Winged Warrior event on June 3rd and I've only got a couple days to do it so I had to make good use of those few days.

   I started off yesterday by pulling the car in a nd removing the transmission as well as the other parts needed to get it out. The input shaft seal has been leaking a decent stream of fluid right into the bellhousing so I had to get it fixed before the oil got all over my clutch taking it out. The fun thing is that the seal is clear at the bottom of the transmission so you've got to remove literally everything in the tranny just to get to the seal in the first place. After removing the seal it was plainly obvious that the seal wasn't in the best of shape and the new one should hopefully solve any issues I had.

   Of course the fun thing about taking the tranny all the way apart is putting it back together. Kendal returned from job-hunting and was busy talking to me. I was trying my best to pay attention to what I was doing and her, but ended up leaving out the fifth gear oiling tube at the last minute so I had to tear the center case back off to get it installed. Gotta love dooing your work twice.

   After getting the tranny back in the car I threw on my new Hawk HP Plus brake pads into the front. I've got a set for the rear as well, but I've got to wait and pick up some new rotors for the rear as they are pretty much toast back there. Hopefully I can get that knocked out this Sunday.

   While I had the battery out I decided to see if I could switch back to my fullsize battery on the car as the mini had nearly stranded me a couple of times. To do this though I had to shrink the catchcan which I was able to do relatively easily by simply removing the center section, sanding down what was left to smooth and level and then gluing them back together with pvc glue. Since it's never under much pressure I don't anticipate any issues with the bonding technique I chose.

   Now onto today's issues. After ordering up a set of hoodpins the other day from http://www.hrpworld.com/ I began the task of tracking down my new carbon fiber hood. Problem is that there is a world wide shortage on carbon fiber and since I need this hood by June 3rd I don't have time to wait on a couple of the shops to build me one at their leisurely time. I'm trying desperately to track down one that's already made and ready to ship. I think I might have found one from VIS Racing, their Invader hood may be in stock in their California warehouse and as I type this the boys at VIS are checking in on it for me. Hopefully I'll get a call back from them sometime soon.

   This month the drama surrounding the event started a day early on Saturday. After trying to get ahold of my new graphics sponsor all week I was told that my decals would be available on Saturday and that I could swing down and pick them up after work. Knowing this I figured I'd bring the talon in to work that day so I could give it a good free cleaning at the dealership. After un-successfully trying to reach the owner of my sponsor company I decided I'd just head off in the car and meet him at the shop to pick everything up. On my way out of the dealership though our #1 salesman backed into the hood of the talon as I was waiting to pull out of the lot. Luckily there was no extreme damage but this hood is done for and the fender is going to need a little repair of its own as well. So at the end of the day I'm stuck with no graphics and a damaged hood and fender now, not the way I wanted to start my weekend really.:(  Good news is that the current hood will be replaced with a new lighter carbon fiber unit along with a carbontrix hood vent for it as well.

   Fast forward to the morning of the event and Kendal (my fiancee) decides she wants to get into autocrossing with the talon and wants to come watch how this event is run and ride along on some of my runs. We get up and get everything thrown into the car (except for the custom fiberglassed headlight intake which I've forgotten for two straight events) and  head off to the track with a completely full tank of 94 sunoco and about 13psi of boost to try and keep tire spin to a minimum. Thanks to some issues with my graphics company (still haven't heard from them) I had to dig out the old numbers and throw some masking tape lettering on the car.

   After signing in at the event I stake out a relatively close spot to the action and get everything unloaded and proceed to get the vehicle teched in. I double check the tires and then begin to check out the competition. In our particular region we've started up a street mod street tire class which has absolutely taken off in popularity, at this event alone we had 22 entries in this class. Tires are limited to the normal street tire class rules, but everything else follows street mod rulings. This new class (SMS) has even earned the nickname of Street Mod Subaru by those of us not driving them. At our event I was the only dsm racing compared to about 15 subaru's in the various classes. About an hour or so after showing up I start to notice a couple of the heavy hitters rolling in. Todd James is our local solo director and runs an 04 sti with Tein coilovers, Hawk brake pads, boost controller, and Falken RT-615's. He won our first event, and I know I'll be lucky to get close to him this time. Chris Smith is another strong subaru driver but he's brought out his 04 sti with springs and hawk pads this week instead of his normal sti swapped 2.5rs. This means he'll still be damn fast and to boot he's got a co-driver for the vehicle which means I may be losing to this car twice today. Other than that the class is its normal mix of wrx's, honda's, and mustang's. Any of which could put down a good time, but none I'm terribly worried about.

   Looking at the course it appears to be similar to the one we ran at our last event here which means I can apply some of the things I learned to todays track. Turns 6 & 7 for example are the exact same corners we ran last week as corners 6 & 7, although this also means that they'll be extremely bumpy as they were last week. The good news is that the first three turns and the final four are wide open switchbacks. Once I get the car into second gear I should be able to hold a solid 40-60mph through the first three turns and the last 4 turns are similar to the first 3 but narrower and probably in the 30-40 range. After the opening set of 3 switchbacks you enter the first of two optional slaloms. Due to their layout taking the wrong entrance to one of them means you're doubly screwed for the second one. Luckily the second slalom is plainly obvious as to which way to go, the only question being how to start the first so your transition into the second is the smoothest. Since the first slalom puts you into a predicament where your first right turn will be off-camber I play into that fact to help the car rotate and decide to start the first slalom on the right hand side.

   The nice thing about being in the same class as the regional director is that you usually get to run first, work second, and then you can relax during the hottest part of the day. Being #97 I of course get gridded clear at the back of the run group. After hearing the opening times from the two sti's (both dual driven -todd's wife is running his car in SMS) I can already see it's going to be a quick course out there meaning that there won't be much room to make up for any mistakes out there. Although since I'm traction limited the fact that this course has alot of sections were your vehicles transition speed will be the limiting factor it means that my rather light vehicle has a good chance of placing high. Todd turns in a blazing time of 38 seconds on his first lap (not surprising given he designed todays course) and Chris follows with a 41.8 second time obviously still getting used to racing the STi as compared to his RS. I've got Kendal riding shotgun and a full tank of gas so I'm just hoping to get a good feel for the course on this first run.

   They've got me launching off of a small rise in the lot which equals wheelspin and then I have to accelerate over a washboard section at a 45 degree angle. This is about the absolute worst start I've ever had to deal with and the car is slow off the line as a result. I short shift to second and lay into the throttle as I make the first left turn at about 35 mph. Still accelerating through the second corner at about 45mph and into the third corner at 50 the rear end steps out a bit as the rears are still cold and the extra weight of kendal and the full tank of gas means the car's handling different than what I'm used to.  A quick right flick and I'm into the first of the slalom's. It feels terribly slow through here at about 25mph and I'm starting to question if I'm taking this slalom right. The second slalom I pick some speed back up and  accelerate through a mild 45 degree kink and into the bumpy 180's of turn 6 & 7. Coming out of 7 I'm back on the gas in 2nd gear and back up to 45mph. The next set of corners are setup so you have an easy right turn followed by a tight left. Two combinations of like that to slow you down to about 25mph through the finish. At the end of the run I turn around knowing I'd lost some serious time out there to see a 41.1 popup on the screen.

   Kendal decides to take 2 more runs with me before taking a couple in Todd's STI. Todd and Chris both drop their times down to 37.8 and 40.9 respectively at the halfway point and my times are still at 40.4 so I'm doing good. But Chris's co-driver rips off a 38.8 and a couple of the other wrx guys knock off 39's pushing me to around 5th place at the midway point. At this point I talk to some of the other drivers and they tell me they're having better luck going to the left on the first slalom so I figure I'll give it a shot. On the next pass going left and without my fiancee in the car I ripoff a 39.8 putting me into the 39's finally and but still in 5th as the other driver's are improving as well. I stumbled on the first slalom since I wasn't used to going that way, but now that I've got it figured out I crank off a 38.9 on my 5th run putting me into 4th as Chris is now going right and just joined the 37 second time club with Todd who set FTD with Kendal as his passenger. I'm starting to wonder if I should have her riding with me for good luck now. :sneaky:

   Going into the last run of the day I'm going to be the last one to run so I can get a good feel for where I am and know just how much time I have to shave off. I've just about counted out the top two positions as I don't think I can come up with a whole second out on course. Maybe a couple tenths, but I just can't match the acceleration of the sti's out of these 20mph corners. The 6th runs start and some fast times start flying in. Todd's off-pace with a 38 but his 37.5 is still atop the field. Chris comes through the lights also a bit off pace with a 38.1 but once again he's got a 37.7 to fall back on as well. Out of nowhere, Jeremy Jacobs in his 93 Civic hatch scorches the lights to the tune of 38.6 seconds, over 2 seconds faster than any other run of his all day WTF . Chris's co-driver heads out and is well off pace with a 40 second timeslip but is still ahead of me with a 38.821. This means I'm sitting in fifth only a tenth behind 4th place. I head off onto the course and proceed to clear the first half fine. Coming into the 180's though I lockup the inside right tire and I'm a little slow through the first corner. I try to make it up and absolutely nail the last section.

   I roll through the lights, turn my head and see the final number. 38.827, .006 behind 4th place :( So close yet so far away. I end up in 5th, still shaking my head over that civic dropping 2 seconds. He's never finished close than half a second behind me, either way the 5th place finish was a vast improvement over last month's 13th.

   Now it's time to tear some things down. Car's getting a new input shaft seal, new hawk HP Plus pads all the way around and of course the new hood once my friend's insurance company cuts me my check for him hitting me.

   For anyone wanting a cool looking shot of my car mid-race check out this excellent photo from Jen Goble from www.jengoblephotography.com .

http://www.photoreflect.com/scripts/prsm.dll?eventorder?photo=0DZ9000X000027&start=0&album=0&adjust=-1

   You read it right, she's on the fast track to being back on the road. With the first autox coming up soon ( www.fwscca.com ) coming up soon I've got to get her up and running soon. I'm looking at about 3 1/2 to 4 days working time on the car total before the dealine comes up.

   I just got in my new oil cooler from Diamond Star Motorsport ( www.dsmotorsport.com ) as well as my new braided stainless turbo feed line. Just got confirmation that Brian and the boys down at FP are sending my turbo back to me post haste for no charge. If you ever need to get a turbo for your car I'd never suggest anyone other than the boys down at FP. I've got nothing but the best service in the world from them and they can be found at www.forcedperformance.net . More to come as the installs begin.

   Turbo death that is, and it looks like it's struck again. There's good news and bad of course. Good news is that the turbo still makes boost, so it's not beyond saving. The bad news though is that the bearings will definitely need replaced but hopefully not the shaft itself. Time will tell. As for now the car's sitting at work without any lungs in it, but I'll be swapping in an old junk blown 16g to get it back to the garage and do a further tear down.

   Initial speculation is pointing at a possible oil feed issue so I'll be installing a braided line to the oil filter housing and swithching to a 90 style oil filter housing at the same time as I currently can't seem to remove the allen headed plug from the housing. I figure a best case estimate puts the total repair at around $400-500 as I'll need to rebuild the turbo ($100 for a rebuild kit from FP if it's not covered under the warranty) , $50 or so for the 90 oil filter housing, $65 or so for a braided stainless oil feed line for the new turbo to keep this from happening again, and then as much as $200 for a oil cooler unit to go with the 1990 oil filter housing. All this while I'm trying to get the transmission rebuilt, 4 new tires for the season, and get the ecu socketed for my new huge fuel injectors.

 

   This could be a long and ugly season.