EvoJoeRacing: Season Opener Results

[EvoJoeRacing]

Hey Guys,


This past weekend on Saturday May 7th was my first Autocross event with the new setup. Man this car drives COMPLETELY different then last year. For those who dont know, last year I competed on the stock MR suspension, stock 6 speed and drivetrain and stock turbo. This year the car has the new STANCE XR coilovers compliments of Touge Factory, a TRE stage 2 5 speed Evo 9 tranny with Evo 8 3rd & 4th gears, TRE built transfer case, TRE 12 way max lock rear differential compliments of Jon at TRE and a new Tomei Arms 7960 turbo. It was a fight to get the car done before the race and man was it close. Tach Motor works spent long hard hours installing the suspension, transmission, transfer case, rear differential, new turbo setup, rebuilding clutch and a ton of other miscellaneous parts that needed to be installed. I have to give my thanks over to Lucky, Steve and especially Dwane over at Tach for putting in the tremendous effort to get the car done on time. Needless to say they pulled it off just in time. I was able to bring the car over for an emergency alignment on Thursday. I need to thank Alex and team over at Performance Motorsport for taking the car on such short notice, installing all the Whiteline products and setting up the cars suspension in 1 day! I got the car back and delivered to Tach Motor Works and as i pulled in the car was immediately strapped down on the dyno Friday night at 10pm to be tuned on E85. With the race at 8am saturday morning, Espec worked his magic and gave me a killer tune. We kept things conservative and safe making 380hp at 26lbs. The car looked and felt amazing! Got a solid 5 hours of sleep and then off to the race.

The race was held by the SCCA New York region at Nassau Coliseum. For those who dont know, this parking lot is pretty much like a rally course. Its old rough pavement with cracks, dips, bumps, sand, glass, debris, you name it, its there. What an awesome place to test out the new stuff! New York SCCA has an interesting way of grouping classes together. They group all the stock classes together in one group and call it Stock, all the Street Tire classes in another group and call it Tire and all the Street Prepared and Street Modified classes in another group and call it Street Prepared. Then they use a PAX system to scale the lap times of each class in that group and give placement based on that. Unfortunately, the Street Modified class i run in has probably the WORST scaling multipliers which definitely hurts.

Our group was selected to run first for the day. As usual, I stage towards the back of the pack so that the first few cars can "clean" the track a little bit and I can see where people are getting jammed up on the track. The course set up was in my mind truly awesome! It was about a 55 second course designed by Randolph Petschauer and was a really fast open course with wide slaloms, sweepers and long straights. For a small parking lot this was fast! The ending though was a bit rough as it was very tight and slow to allow for a slow finish. Well it was next to be released and it was time for the first run with the new car. I wanted to push the car hard on the first lap to see how she handles, check her limits and just see how she reacted balls out. The tires were cold and the pavement was still a bit slippery with the sand but I wanted to see what she can do. Out of the gate the car pulled hard. This tune by Espec really gave a nice acceleration and quick response on the Tomei turbo. There were a few turns before the First test obstacle, a slalom. I hit the slalom pretty fast and WOW, the STANCE suspension and alignment made the car feel like it was on rails! Response was insanely quick and the car snapped hard into position with no tire squeal, understeer or oversteer. It felt perfect. Next up were a few high speed turns, and again i was blown away at how well the suspension handled at higher speeds. The car felt solid and balanced. I knew I could push her harder. Coming out of those high speed turns was yet another slalom. This time I took it a little faster and set up so that on the second to last cone in the slalom i can get on the accelerator early for a hard pull on the straight away. Well i set up perfectly and punched it. WHOA! The TRE diff locked up and the back end stepped out! DAYUM this thing is aggressive! It kind of caught me off guard as i wasnt sure what to expect but i was EXTREMELY impressed! I ended up loosing it a little bit and creamed a cone with the back end but didnt spin out. Luckily FueledMag was there covering the event to capture it!





So after i got control and got back into it, up came the wide fast left hand sweeper. This is what i dream of on an autocross course! I took the turn perfect and just after the apex i got hard on the throttle to really feel this rear diff. The back end of the car stepped out and i was able to use the accelerator to steer and pull me through onto the straight away. This diff is amazing! Ive got some great videos of me exiting this turn and laying down some serious rubber as i was getting used to her. Well i finished my first run and recorded a time of 54 seconds +1 cone (pictured above). Thats a 54 second lap with the slight loss of control. I was pumped! I knew this course was going to be a fun and fast day!


We got 5 runs in the morning and about 8 runs in the afternoon. I was loving the car! She felt awesome and i honestly couldnt have asked for a better performing vehicle. This is actually set up perfect for the way i drive. Well it turns out that I didnt have any clean runs for the day. I ended up hitting cones on every pass.



That hurts but i took this event as a learning experience with the car that i had not driven in 5 months and first time with the new setup. But, there is a huge light at the end of the tunnel! My fastest time of the day was 48.999 seconds with a +1 cone. That was a killer time! With the 2 second cone penalty that gave me a 50.999 run which was the 7th fastest raw time run of the day out of all 68 cars! Yup... with a 2 second penalty i was still the 7th fastest car of the day out of all classes INCLUDING the pro drivers.






If i didnt not hit the cone and ran it a clean 48.999 seconds, i would have had the 4th fastest time of the day and only .335 seconds behind the Pro Driver in his GT3. Now lets take a look at this! I am only running 255/35 Dunlop Z1 Star Spec street compound tires! All the drivers above me were running Hoosier R comp tires AND they are all PRO drivers! Also, that is only 1.449 seconds behind the Fasted Time of Day which was put down by the Course Designer himself! That to me is worth its weight in gold!


I am extremely happy with the car and the way it handles. I just want to say thank you again to Tach Motor Works, Espec, Touge Factory, Stance, TRE, Performance Motorsport, Spoolin Up, CustomizeMyEvo.com and Unique Finish for making such an awesome car and supporting me this season. And a BIG thanks to Moses from FueledMag.com for following me around this season and taking photos and videos of the events im racing in. I am looking forward to the Video you guys make!


All the photos from the event are posted up on my website, you guys can see them by following the link:

http://www.evojoeracing.com/Photos/2011/index.html


I will also post up the video as soon as it is finished. Next up is the NNJ SCCA and NY PCA this weekend at the Meadowlands on Saturday and Nassau Coliseum on Sunday. Im looking forward to putting up some serious numbers in these 2 events!

Thanks!

EvoJoe

[flyingscot]

well done!

[EvoJoeRacing]

Thanks man! This weekend should be another good one. NNJ SCCA at Giants Stadium in prep for the Pro Solo next weekend

[Wufei]

Congrats man!

[flyingscot]

keep us updated! O0