Last weekends Auto-x School, Highlights Options

[awd4kicks]

As some of you know Krisj144, Natedogg66, Jbone and I all attended an auto-x school held in Rantoul last weekend. The first half of saturday consisted of a caravan from Altorfer in East Peoria to Bloomington and from there to Rantoul Aviation Center. The local SCCA solo II regulars put this event on and acted as our instructors. I can't say enough good about the event, their teaching methods and the fun!

We got to drive with an instructor for the last half of Saturday. It was cold and windy, but it was still a gas. Satruday night we found a Super 8 in Chambana with the help of Mr. Netter. A little food at Bob Evans and we were off to jay-walking and drinking (In that order). It was a great time, mingling with interesting people and listening to Kris sing songs like the beloved 'Denim trench coat'! JBone and I didn't get to sleep until about 3:30AM as we sprung ahead into daylight savings time. Sunday came early, but we were there and ready to go. Even though the weather was CRAPY that didn't stop anyone from getting in as many runs as they wanted.

The instructors were nice enough to leave the corse exactly the same as it was Saturday, so we got plenty of time to learn it. I only made about 3-4 runs and I felt good about each one. DANG, that stuff jacks you up!

...end of the course, your adrenalyn's pumping, your mind is racing, remove your foot from the firmly planted accelerator you mash the brake! Peering over at the time clock you see that you've just better your last time by about five-tenths of a second...YEAH!!! Fist out the window...screaming your incoherent jubilation at your co-rider who thinks you've jsut lost it! What a blast!!

Listed below is the fastest times reported by each driver from Sunday. On a side note all these times are right from the drivers themselves and do not take into consideration cones hit or the course being followed perfectly. DSMCentral made a great showing of power, driving ability and certainly noisy, awd burn-out launches!

Time - Cii Member name - Car

45.2XX Paco EVO8 -Professionally engineered
45.611 Goodee Neon -ACR? + Instructor
45.7XX Hellswindstaff CRX -Swapped and modded
46.0XX Shady Prelude - H22a modded
46.19X krisj144 1G DSM -Modded to the teeth
46.413 Max Diesel Civic -Modded?
46.764 awd4kicks 1G Talon -Well Modded;)
47.149 Benny Z Civic -lightly modded
47.176 Hammer V8 RX7 -Swapped in torque
47.732 Forcus Focus -Stock
47.7XX Natedogg66 1G Talon -Mucho Drag racing mods
48.111 TurboTension Stealth -Big turbos
48.4XX JBone Focus -lightly modded
48.6XX Demigod 240 -drifting action
49.02X dnace Civic -Bens car
49.2XX Triad WRX
50.245 Hopeless... Civic -Hopelessly Stock?
53-54 Remaining 15-20 cars.

Assuming there were only a total of 32 cars, this puts the average time roughly at 49 seconds. Suffice it to say the first eight cars have some sort of suspension tuning from the factory or an aftermarket set-up of some kind.

As I see it, this simply proves that the DSM which is a straight line MONSTER, has an incredibly balanced arsenal of performance characteristics. I mean, look at the cars at the top of the list. All the DSM's representing, were very near the top when you consider all the people there. Then consider how long it would take for any of the three DSM's to catch and overtake the faster cornering cars on the list.

We have the best of both worlds folks...

I have some picture and some rough looking video, but I never have much luck uploading from this dial-up conenction.

Marcus

[-j-]

Damnit. knock it off....you are just making miss my car more and more.