Ric Prussman will be course designer. He may still be driving a force-fed Miata, but who really knows? I will be comparing Mazda3 to Neon for the battle of "which car gets the Kumhos?" Rumor has it Dave Rock is sporting a Celica in STS trim. Any trash talk? I'm going to put the smackdown on anything woefully underprepared on 300+ treadwear tires. How's that
We have some trophys to hand out to Jeff Israel, Rock, and a couple other blokes.

Added to our calendar.....

By the way, nice look to your revised site! Well done.

The courses are drawn for tomorrow's meeting.

The miata was sold in an attempt to buy another corolla, but the corolla deal was no good, and I sold the Miata prior. I'll be driving a turbo-charged 240sx on big street tires for 2009.

FYI...typo on the event page says the event is Jan 13.

Anyone from Phoenix going?

Want a co-driver ???

Considering that I won't have time to replace my newly-corded Hoosiers, the question is, do you want a co-driver?

Online registration is now run through the Tucson site, and for January, you'll want to head here. The data has carried over from the old Sierra Vista site, so if you've used it before, your info is there: throw in your name and email and you're on your way.

Well, since my co-drivers/tire co-owners won't let me use the 13" Hoosiers out of town without them, the question becomes what car and tire and class and ... Hmmm, not sure on this one. heeheehee

I've tried to register about 5 times now on 2 different computers and 3 different browsers, and it keeps telling me I haven't filled out all the required fields.. even when I go through and fill in every field, required or not

maybe I'm missing something.. I'll go home and try it on my ubuntu box tonight just for fun.. maybe that'll work

Edit:

There was a bug, it hath been squashed. If you selected 'No Preference' for your first Work Assignment choice it won't let you submit because duh, I set it up to make you select at least one a long time a go. :smacks head:.

So that's fixed, all is well. Sorry about the frustration Jana!

Worked fine for me when we registered last week........Thought for a minute we had accidentally registered
for a Tucson event.

Yeah, I am thinking about putting the SV logo or something when you register for the SV events. While it does say date, host club, site, etc. it could be easy to make a mistake if don't look carefully. On the other hand, I don't think there's a time when more than one event will have pre-registration open at the same time given the schedules for '09.

np happy to help debug.. thanks for fixing it

Online registration closes at midnight tonight!

Who drew that course anyway... he should be drawn and quarted for those back to back tight 90's. The next time I decide to do something like this, I'll make them more open to allow the driver to choose a better line (or worse). I heard mixed reviews and always appreciate the feedback.

Hopefully Harry will jump in with the blow by blow as only he can write them.

Thanks so much to the folks that came down to play with us.

See y'all next time. I'll have brakes with some modulation by then.

Drawing and quartering is so messy. Can I just smack you on the back of the head?

It wasn't as bad as it looked at first but it would have been better with a little more space.

Holy cow, those brakes are touchy, Ric. One of these days we have to swap cars for TO's so I can try again. The couse was uh, challenging. Nonetheless, it reminded me (after the fact) of all the things learned in Evolution school that I failed to remember while on course today. (Plug for Evolution driving school) I drove poorly, on account of still getting used to the peg leg FWD Mazda and letting frustration get the best of me.

We have to get a feel for how long the course will run before announcing how many runs there will be, and shuffle the run groups more evenly to assure adequate workers. There was a real mix of new faces out there, which can be attributed to who knows what? Whatever it was, we have to figure out how what we did right to bring that change about. This could potentially be a good year for the club if word gets out that we have the site of choice for people shaking their cars down for Nationals.
I think Gene is going to see about getting a new microphone. I was planning on bringing up the idea of a van-mounted scoreboard, since we have the room and some demand for something like the Tucson club has. The van is a welcome replacement.

Thanks to everyone who made the trip to come and compete. I counted about 20 spectators, many of whom were scoping out the event as future participants. We'll see you next month!

Yeah the exits for the 90* turns were a bit tight, I think the results will show that cars with AWD and/or gobs low end torque really had an advantage. So basically, it was the anti-Miata course.

It was also fun helping break in many of those shiny new cones also, all 16 that I hit (whoops). At least I got a couple clean comp runs including that 67.0.

Once I figured out the best way through, the 90's weren't quite as bad as I initially thought, they just weren't...fun. The fast slalom at the end made up for it though! I was really enjoying that at the end of the day.


This would in fact be awesome.

I thought the course was fun, you could carry much more speed through the 90s than I expected on the course walk. The first one could almost be treated as a decreasing radias if you set up wide enough. Thanks to all the Sierra Vista folks, I had a great time.

Makes one wonder what you expected.......

Brief commentary ensues:

Another sunny day in Sierra Vista, with some high clouds by early afternoon.
29 degrees at setup, high 40's when the first heat started, topping out in the upper 50's.

With the first event of the year we had some technical glitches. The mike for the PA died, so we were radioing times to a worker who logged them, and gave them to folks as they came off course. The scoreboard needs to be resurrected, the display needs to be fixed, you get the general idea. We persevered, it's what we do.

The course featured a late loop, so to be safe, overlap was less than optimal, stretching out the day, compounded by 65-70 second runs for most folks, and 5 of them, no less. We will have design discussions to make sure that doesn't happen too often in the future. The last group didn't take the track until almost 3pm. Our goal in the past was to get things done around 1-1:30, and I'm sure we can do that with some thought and planning.

The start to the first right hander was basically, redline 1st, shift up past the offset, and hang on. A proper entry to the right and a good lineup on the right side got everyone through the first "90 or L" fine, a short chute to the next "L" again rewarding left entry to the right exit, with a 100 foot run to the dreaded Arizona clump.

The clump had the standard offset drag strip to the south end of the course, a 90 left, enter the loop at the double gate. The loop allowed for a faster entry into the 'L" causing trouble for some folks (Jeff). The run home was a ton of fun, a left entry slalom, a decrease on the two middle cones catching many folks out (Megan) and a zippy finish.

Good times were had by those who followed the sweepy line, had good power and good grip. Street tire to Race tire gap was wider than usual, as was the gap from small nimble to big zoomy cars. The slow pieces were slow for everyone, the fast pieces better suited those with some good old fashioned horsepower.

In terms of times, these are approximate, I was trying to manage timing and scoring and call out times, so you'll have to wait for the officials. Here's what I think I saw.

Keith in the Kart, he had a 57 raw plus cone, and a 58 low clean. He was your FTD.
In fendered cars, Dan in the blue Z (XP or FP)was at 62.5, Toby Larsson in the FP Bimmer at 62.8
Tim, I think you and the white car were in the 64's, maybe a 63.
Ben ran several 65's in the Evo
Don in the (AS) Sky redline (on 295 Hoosier's no less) got out a mid to high 65.
Jeff was in the 67's with the R32, but I think you had a cone on almost every run I scored. 4 on your second run, no less.
Dave Webb was rockin' in the Mini, he for sure had a high 67. Impressive.
Steve Burger (after a long Florida absence) was back in the FS Camaro with a 68 flat, on REALLY old BFG R's.

Doug and Gene shared Gene's CSP Miata...errr MX5 Doug pipping Gene by 0.2seconds.
Gene claims it was all that gravel buildup. ;^)
Dave Rock was out in his STS Celica, his first run was clean and best at 69.2.

In street tire...there are a lot of new PAX's in play for 2009, so no idea of the overall, just some observed raw times.
Scott Meyers has these all written down in great detail, so he can pipe right in.

Mike Whitehouse in the Shelby GT500 69.4? on an A Stock index.
Bruce in the S2000 was at 71.2 ditto on the index.
Scott had, I believe a 71.0 on the GS index (new Konis on his V6 Mustang now).
Jack finally got out of his SRT4 and got 5 runs in a REAL car (MX5) to a 72.4
My nest run was a 71.6, some spins, some conage, and some ride alongs for bystanders.
Thats what I saw. Hopefully we can get a results board up, some the commentary and abuse can be heaped on everyone in a fair and consistent manner.

It WAS seriously a fun course.
Next event, Buena, probably BDI in March.
We hope to have a couple more shots at the Airport concrete before Nationals, so stay tuned.

Yeah, that was TOs. Comps I got 2 clean passes (67.3 & 67.0) before the massacre began. I didn't have a clean run the rest of the day.

Was entering the first L on the second loop where I was hitting them? I knew when I tagged some on the slalom and when I tagged the first cone on one run but no one in grid happened to see the others, I guess I should have gone and asked you in the van but I was jumping back and forth between cars... I was surprised at the 4 cones on the second TO run, I had no idea where I hit them all!

Nice write up Harry!

Keith in the Kart, he had a 57 raw plus cone, and a 58 low clean. He was your FTD.

Times shown in ............................................................RAW...........PAX
In fendered cars, Dan in the blue Z (XP or FP)was a..........62.511........55.135
Toby Larsson in the FP Bimmer at ..................................62.811.........54.771
Ben ran several 65's in the Evo......................................65.555.......54.804
Don in the (AS) Sky redline ..........................................65.777........55.450
Jeff was in the 67's with the R32....................................67.020.......55.090
Dave Webb was rockin' in the Mini, he for sure had a .......67.777.......55.645
Steve Burger (after a long Florida absence) ....................68.381.......56.961
Dave Rock was out in his STS Celica.............................. 69.211........56.615
Mike Whitehouse in the Shelby GT5............................... 69.467........58.561
Bruce in the S2000 was at ...........................................71.211........60.031
Scott had, I believe a ..................................................71.064........58.344
Jack finally got out of his SRT4 ......................................72.426........60.621
My best run was a .......................................................71.611........59.938

Guessed at some decimal places when Harry gave only tenths. Can't do Top Pax without knowing fastest times.

65.418 for me unofficially

Put the debate to rest, results are up.

Top 10 PAX:
Keith, Sodi Kart, 1000
Ben, STU Evo, 997
Jeff, STX R32, 990
Beverlee, FP BMW, 990
Toby, FP BMW, 985
Don, AS Sky, 985
David, GS Mini, 981
Tim, SM M3, 978
Dave, STS Celica, 962
Dan, XP 240Z, 958

Top 10 raw:
Keith, Sodi Kart, 56.994
Beverlee, FP BMW, 63.196
Toby, FP BMW, 63.519
Tim, SM M3, 64.355
Dan, XP 240Z, 64.561
Ben, STU Evo, 65.421
Don, AS Sky, 65.719
Jeff, STX R32, 67.020
David, GS Mini, 67.718
Doug, CSP Miata, 68.221

Big "THANKS" to all who came out. Long day but a lot of fun.

Guess I owe Gene an apology, I really thought I hit the brakes before the lights to add some time. I'm sure this is the last time I get to drive your car, huh?

I very much appreciate the ride.

Doug McBride