So I was yapping with Matt on the phone Saturday night and he asked if I wanted to join him at Fontana for the Hotchkis NMCA AutoX. There's so much to do on the car before I start running on the track I turned him down and hung up a few minutes later.
I thought about that for about two minutes and dialed him back and said I'll seeya there! What could go wrong?
We met up at about 8:am and set up. The PS steering assist was still very erratic, along with being notchy and slow to respond so we jacked up the car, unbolted the cooler and pulled a bunch of parts out of the way to get it to lay sideways and zip tied it to the core support and sub. We then yanked out 5 degrees of steering stops and called it good.
Sidebar - Fontana was rocking today. Exotic cars in one section, sports cars running the big track, karts on another and drag racing plus our AutoX. Pure awesome. The NMCA racer crowd is loaded with very cool people and the Hotchkis hosts couldn't be more accommodating.
Anyway, we finished wrenching about the time the drivers meeting started. Then they launched the run groups. Matt was a co-driver for a few sessions in a different run group and we tried to tune as we went.
The course was pretty technical for the first 3/4 with a slalom and chicago box right before the finish line. I found the car to be very touchy on the throttle and real tight. I had spoken to Ron Sutton the night before and he gave me a few tips and a shock tuning guide. Then right after lunch Ron gave me a call for some refinement tips. Thanks Ron, you're the man!
As far as results, I learned a bunch today. First, AutoX is a tough sport, Second, I suck at it (four DNFs?). Third, Matt is very good! Matt's third run in both my and his car put him in third place for most if not the whole day (two diff classes). Matt sacrificed his track improvement runs to help with my car. If I didn't say it enough, thanks again Matt!
Also, the car and driver have a long way to go but it'll get there. I ended up taking about four seconds off my time during the day and about two seconds behind Matt (35.8 vs, 37.6), which is a mile in AutoX. Oh, and I see the merits of a quicker rack and 15" steering wheel.
All in all a great day. Probably the second most fun thing you can do in your car!
