I know this is a few weeks late, but better late than never It took a while to get the videos edited, but it's done now

So for the El Toro ProSolo, I was back in the 07 AP2 (thanks again Greg!) that I ran and took second place with at the San Diego National Tour just a week prior. As happy as I was with second place, none of us compete to get just second place, and El Toro, with its much greater grip, would even out some of the advantage the Toyo-shod MX-5s had on San Diego's slippery and deteriorating lot. During the San Diego Tour, we had added a good amount of rear rebound, which helped settle the rear end more on Sunday. While not totally curing the tail-happiness of the car, it did help. For the ProSolo, we decided to experiment with my new-ish 245/40R17 Hankook RS3s. Greg's 255s had nearly 100 runs and some street miles on them, and we had heard a rumor that fresher Hankooks would grip better. The 245s only had 3 events on them, so they were pretty fresh, and since they were mounted on my Volk CE28s, they were a good deal lighter than his TR Motorsports anchors The tire should also theoretically be slightly shorter, which should help with the launch and beginning straight-away. One other advantage that I was hoping would help us would be that since the contact patch is slightly smaller and flatter, it'd put heat in the tires more quickly so the first run wouldn't be a throw-away like it was at San Diego.

Having been away from autox for a while, we each took four practice starts on friday, which I desperately needed. This was my first experience with the LED Christmas tree, and it took a couple tries for me to knock off some rust. The start was also slightly uphill, so a handbrake start was necessary, which made it even harder to get the drag race start right. Grip level was less than I had anticipated, and I was spinning the wheels too much at the start. Still, we managed to get 60 ft times in the high 2.3-low 2.4 range, which was only a tenth or two back from the Toyo-shod MX5s that were getting 2.2-2.4 range. The Toyos were definitely helping the MX-5s launch off the line better than the S2000s. If we were gonna beat the MX5s, it would have to be on the course itself.

Saturday morning, I cone the first runs on each side, but am able to clean it up for the second runs, and finish the morning leading STR. Jim Reyenga had secured the 2nd position, with Bob Endicott and Jeff Cawthorne rounding out the top 4. The car felt decent, but was oversteering in the oddest places.

Saturday afternoon runs were a major dissappointment. I laid down very fast runs, but coned EVERY RUN. Most of those cones I must have barely tapped becuase I had thought most of those runs were clean. The videos I uploaded are from this session, and if you watch the videos, it's impossible to tell where I hit cones. The real tragedy is that had just ONE fast run from EITHER side been clean, I would have won the ProSolo. If both sides were clean, I would have won by a decent margin... As the course got grippier, the rear end started to get even looser. I was quite frustrated that all my runs were dirty. I had put down some decently strong runs in the morning, so even though I was standing on my morning runs, the only person to get ahead of me was Reyenga. Cawthorne got ahead slightly ahead of Endicott, and that's how we finished Saturday.

So I was frustrated at how the rear end of the car was behaving. I've driven plenty of loose S2000s before, but this most were on throttle. This car would do it only on corner entry or right at throttle tip-in, which is hard to recover/control becuase you can't effectively use the throttle to control the slide. The front bar was already maxed out, and the rebound was pretty maxed out as well. The only major change we could really make to the car was to disconnect the rear bar. I've never driven with the rear bar off before, so I was worried how drastically it would change the characteristics of the car and that it may go slower. But with only Sunday morning runs, I was getting desperate, and we removed the rear endlink. Still not sure that I had made the right decision, I talked to several people, who said that if the raw time is there, instead of making big changes, just drive slightly slower/smarter and clean up the runs. We went back to the hotel, and I spent the night trying to decide what to do.

Sunday morning, I decide to reattach the rear endlink and run with the bar. I felt that I could just dial my driving back a notch and clean it up but still be fast enough to win. Well, I was able to pick up some time on the right side, but not nearly as fast as my scratch time on Sat. afternoon. The big dissappointment was the left side. I coned the first run and went slower on the second one. I ended up finishing the ProSolo with my fastest left time set on Saturday morning. My small improvement on the right side was enough to get by Reyenga, who had a disasterous sunday morning. But with only a small improvement on the right side and NO improvement on the left side, Cawthorne snuck by me, edging me out by .084. The biggest surprise of the weekend was Robert Thorne in the heavily modified CR. He had been slower than his codriver all day saturday and was acutually driving second. He finally got a decent right side time and edged out Cawthorne for the win by .157 seconds.

So a few of you had asked about my impressions of the 245/40R17 Hankook RS3. Well, for the ProSolo, it wasn't a bad tire choice. The 255 does actually have more treadwidth, but the 245 tread is a little flatter and sits better on the wheel. Unfortunately though, these tires didn't live up to the specs from Hankook. The treadwidth was not larger than the 255s as the specs had claimed, nor do I feel that they are any shorter than the 255 tires when put back to back. The smaller treadwidth actually wasn't much of a hinderance, and IMO got up to temp quicker than the 255s. This allowed the first run to actually be useful. I do feel that the car took a set slightly quicker and slalomed better on the 245s. At this point, the rears get much hotter than the fronts, so my next setup will be to run 245s front with 255s rear. I think the fast response of the 245s in front with the bigger contact patch of the 255 in the rear will have good results and will be the next setup I try.

The battle in STR was fierce and tight. It was dissappointing not being able to take the win, but I didn't feel so bad becuase the competition was very strong. Plus it was nice to see an S2000 take the win, even if it wasn't mine. The car has since had some major changes and should be faster. Hopefully I have knocked off most of the rust I accumulated during my autox hiatus and will be even faster next time

James Yom

Sat afternoon left side run 1[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Gpwq5u29Yo[/media]

Sat afternoon right side run 4[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryu2uBDtLes[/media]

 

are you going to try alittle toe-in in the rear to try to settle down the rear or what?

 

What about the part where we all got together and voted that my car was the sexiest car there? Didn't see that in your re-cap buddy.

It should be noted that 9th place for STR was only about .9** back overall... that's how freaking close the competition was at this event. Very cool. Also, as a result we had 5 STR cars in the Super Challenge.

 

Uh, I dunno about that part of the event, but IMO there were at least 3 cars that were more sexier than yours

Just this passed weekend, Cal Club had an event where 1st thru 5th was only spread out by .3 seconds. The competition here is THAT stiff. You should come back to the Divisional here at El Toro at the end of June. Maybe you'll do better than 9th this time, but I wouldn't count on it

 

im waiting for 10' to wrap up and ill be added to that list for socal STR with my 06' ap2 . Now if only this ankle would heal itself faster...

 

There are no cars sexier than mine.. You're just lying now. Furthermore, I placed 8th. So already better.

Also, I doubt Cal Club ran the course, then ran a mirrored version, and added the two times together. If they did the difference would be .6 to 5th... so really no different... That's a trick I "invented," that I like to call "math."

 

ANOTHER fast guy in an 06 AP2 in STR! Man, it's just getting tougher and tougher! Hurry up and get better Jon!