It’s a good thing for me that Mr. Pechin didn’t show up last Sunday for the Kansas City Region of the Sports Car Club of America (KCRSCCA) Solo Event #10 held at the Metropolitan Community College Blue River Campus’s Precision Driving Center. I stunk it up!! Fill with confidence, or more accurately overconfidence, I went out to attack what I thought was going to be a fairly straightforward circuit. Dan Wheeler, the Event Chair and course designer for Event #10, created a very deceptive layout with elements that forced you to compromise your entry points and how much speed you carried into the turns. The layout required a far greater mastery of car control than I possessed, and I only had two clean runs out of five attempts. Needless to say, my results suffered greatly. Had my fastest run of the day been clean, I would have been close to where I finished in Event #9, but taking out three cones in the process of setting that faster time demolished any hope I had of being anywhere near competitive. A faster car, better tyres, and a beefier suspension will help, right? …eh, perhaps not. Best to work on the driver before working on the drive, and learn to extract more info during the course walk.
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In addition to the surprising nature of the course, the temperatures also provided a challenging aspect to the course. During the later heats, the bright sun and warmer afternoon temperatures allowed the tyres, and especially the r-comps to begin to work properly. Temperatures for Heat 1 were still in the 40s and grip was at a premium!
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There’s nothing like seeing a Monte Carlo SS in a controlled four-wheel drift! Glad I was running Heat 3, but it sure was fun watching Heat 1. Not everyone was able to control their drifting and lack of grip, and there were a lot of drivers who found themselves pointed the wrong direction in their first couple of runs.The low-grip will prove to be great practice for next weekend as the club enjoys its first rallycross event down in Garnett, KS. Be sure to listen to the podcast live tonight on ETV Live, as Shaun will be coming down to co-drive my Focus. We’ll finally see who’s best on the dirt! Should be some great trash talk this evening.
Photos from KCRSCCA Event #10
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