That is what i like about the S2000 autox culture everyone is always willing to help each other out when needed. I am glad the bar helped you out Ricardo, It was good to see how much you improved moving up the rankings over the course of the sessions, keep it up! Noel thanks for donating bar clamps to complete the setup. I hope that camaraderie is something that will continue.

This weekend was tough indeed. I could not seem to figure out the left side, and struggled to improve from my day 1 AM sessions trying a few small adjustments. I think the 245's all around were an advantage at the last DC pro but not this time, i was on the rev limiter more than i would have liked, and did not have 275's to fall back on as i am weaning myself off the Ho Ho's to switch to RT or STR. Thanks for the offer Nick for your 275s for day 2, but i was so far off pace it would not have made that much of a difference other than mid pack bragging rights.

I was all packed up and ready to go home after day 2 session. I did not realize you could win stuff in the bonus challenge, but after being informed i threw my name in the hat on a last minute whim. I was also not ready for the weekend to be over. To my surprise my name was the first one picked. Panic immediately set in as i was already packed up, tires swapped and ready to go home. Jadrice was nice to offer me his ride for the challenge, and thank you for the offer, shortly thereafter his name was also selected. I especially want to thank Steve Kahre and Kenny Sorenson for helping me out in getting my car swapped back over in record time for the challenge.

This was my first challenge and people were telling me to keep it clean, no cones, no RL's, and try to be as consistent and mistake free to your session runs as possible, since "winning" is relative to your session times factoring in a delayed start to make it even. It seemed like the stars were aligning as i was making it through the rounds, maybe some of that good karma was helping too, only to go head to head with Jadrice in the final round was awesome. Not sure if that was the first time that was an all S2000 challenge final round. I kept my left clean and tidy, and then on the right i botched my RT giving up around 0.2s right at the start, my tires were getting greasy, got a little too loose on the downhill turnaround, and almost lost it (Steve Kahre i think you were working course on the challenge were you thinking or saying anything about my run at that time?, inside joke but that guy has amazing super powers). Anyway it was a fun ride, the win was there for my taking, but Jadrice is the man for digging deep and finding ways to win. Congratulations! The experience is priceless to know what to do better the next time i make it into a challenge.

The real story is on the class winners, Nick with a solid win in BS, great battle with Jadrice, you guys are on a whole other level in the class. Nick it is surprising this was your first event win. Jon winning STR and his co-driver Andy taking 2nd it a tough and tight battle amongst all the guys in the trophies, WOW all 5 trophy spots within 0.6s total. Congratulations guys, great driving!

 

That was really fun with everyone so close. I knew where to get time on the right side, and was sitting at the light after getting the good left run putting in me in first, trying to decide whether to sand bag or not, since if I didn't I knew I would get knocked out pretty quick in the challenge. I finally decided that sand bagging is dumb and just to go all out and see what I could do, but my decision was made for me when I got a 0.48 or so red light (the R/T detail on sololive is missing for that one?). The run was a 32.2 though, so it would have gotten me another 4/10. I'm glad the red light happened though because if I had gotten that 4/10 it would have knocked Andy out of the super challenge, which it was cool to have us both in the challenge.

 

Congrats Nick and Jon, impressive driving and two very well deserved wins. STR and BS were both great battles on Sunday and very exciting to watch. The right course kicked my butt all weekend as I had trouble finding pace and staying off the cones but alas that is solo racing . Great weekend, looking forward to seeing everyone at the Divisional!

 

Congrats to all of the winners this weekend and it was great to see everyone again, as well as, meet a bunch of new people. I didn't get to meet some people that I was hoping too but thats why we have more than one event per season, right.

Anyway, I wish I could say I was happy with my results this weekend but thats not the case, it was a bit of a cluster. This event was essentially my first event on the new suspension, not to mention my first Pro, and I was pretty much lost. The car didn't feel right and I didn't even know where I needed to be or when, this was evident by the reaming I got from impound for missing the results (still don't know how that happened).

Saturday (once I felt the tires start to grip) the car was pushy. I kind of expected a little but not as much as it had, so I adjusted the bar after the second session. It felt much better on Sunday but still not where I wanted it as it was a little too loose and it took til my third run to realize I could throw it around a bit more. At this point its time to dial in the shocks. Maybe next event I'll have my S together (you see what I did there?)

Thanks Jadrice for all of your help! I hope to see everybody again soon.

Also, I can provide custom Hoosier stickers to all those interested (you had to be there).

 

An amazing experience. Starting my write up now. I just want to say thank you to everyone that sent me texts, FB messages, posting on the forum and rooting me and Jay on! I was checking s2ki frequently to catch the buzz, haha!!! Just so happy, this was my first national event win, and it was emotional. An absolutely epic battle with Jadrice, one for the ages, and one that I will never, ever forget. I wouldn't have changed a thing if I could. Just so happy and thrilled <pins heart to sleeve>.

I am editing the videos now, will posts the short snippets of my fast clean runs, and will also upload the full video for those of you interested (I like this kind of stuff) that captures the emotion and experience before/during/after runs, the wait time between runs, pre-run habits and all of that other funny stuff, including awesome commentary by Mike "Junior Johnson." Give me a few hours.

Jay, you are awesome, I don't need to say that you drove your butt off, because you already know that.

Jon/Noel/Austin and the STR guys, great battle and a well earned win to you Jon great driving by you guys.

Justin Lau, WHAT A RUN to grab 3rd at the end. ATTA-BABY!!!!!

And yes, in the saturday night foot race, Jay demolished me to the 100 FT Marker, but gassed out early. I then gapped him by 5 seconds to the finish, and hit a cone in the process, but still took the win with the penalty!!!! Yeeeehaaaawwwwwwwww!!!! LOL!!!! Pants falling down and all. Hahahaha!!!

Oh man, what a weekend. I have a lot to talk about with BS and STR and look forward to more chit chat, catch ya'll in a lil' bit.

-Nick

 

LOL Congrats Nick.. I can't believe this was your first national event win. Obviously well-deserved, but WOW!!

Seeing all of the camaraderie made me realize again how great a group this is. From the top of the grid sheet to the bottom.

We all won.

 

Thanks! Everyone keeps saying that!

Amen

 

Alright everyone, I need your help. I have been trying since 7pm to find a way to get these videos uploaded to youtube. It fails to upload each time. I downloaded a million converters, codecs, free video editing software. Nothing works. Frustrating! Please let me know how I can get these videos uploaded properly. They are standard format Go-Pro Hero HD videos in .mp4 format.

<sigh>

 

Nick,
youtube supports mp4. There shouldn't be anything for you to do.
I had this issue a few weeks ago myself, and then I realized that the videos were in fact uploaded, each and every time I tried(and said it failed) and therefore had 5 copies of the same video on my channel. Check your youtube channel and see if they uploaded, even though it said they failed.

 

What's the file size and duration/length of the clip? What error do you get/how does it fail? Also, some people seem to like uploading videos to Vimeo.com