ER Challenge Cup Event #1 (2-27-2005)

[Kestrel]

Sweet!

Yeah, I believe you, general default, and Jon W. would have been in the money quite a bit last season with those payouts. Heck, I think I might have gotten a ten spot or two. Of course, we'll have to see how the new PAX Index effects us. Sure, STS and STX got hurt, but STU got way better (think Gabby's WRX STi if he decides to modify if like his last one), and those pesky FMods got a nice kiss as well...

[Kiliwizz]

I'll be there. complete and utter novice, in my very stock 96 miata! I've spent all the time my wife will allow making sure it's mechanically sound, no flashy stuff.

Question - for newbies like me, do they care that I've done an imitation RB intake? If they do, I can take it off and go back to stock, but it drives so much better with it on, I'd rather not.

[rjosey8385]

I don't know much about RB intakes, but I'm assuming it's like a cold air or mass air (Iceman-type) intake? They're okay with that....as long as you don't try to run it in stock class. If you want to run stock (this is only an issue at SCCA or ER events...I don't think the other clubs distinguish between modified and non-modded cars), the air filter needs to fit within the stock air filter box and the tubing running to it must be the OEM-type tubing (no chromed stuff where there was plastic before, etc.) I had an issue with this one in the past

[Kiliwizz]

Well, since everything else is stock, and people in non-stock classes will have spent lots of cash on many shiny additions, I think going back to the stock box is a better idea or I'll be outclassed - not that I expect to win anything on my first visit! Oh well.

[rjosey8385]

If you've haven't autocrossed before or have very limited AX experience, be sure to run in the Novice Class for your regular runs.

[Kestrel]

Kiliwizz, if putting back in the stock air filter is a simple job for you, I'd do it and run NES ("N" for novice, ES for your stock class). Otherwise, I'd just leave your car as it is and run NCSP. Like you said, you are not likely to win the class anyway, and since it's your first event I think it's more important for you just to be there and drive what you are most familiar with.

Be sure to read the two “articles” referenced in this thread, have your car in good working order, and look for the "Miata Area" when you arrive ...

[POS Racing]

Don't forget Kiliwizz if you can meet us at McD's in the AM, it is always good for a pre event laugh!

I-20, exit 418, McDonald's is on the south side of the Interstate. It doesn't open until 7:00, but onething and I will almost certainly manage to get there at 6:55, no matter how hard we try to get there at 7:05...

If you get there early, there's air (cheap, not free) across the street at the gas station.

[TurboDuane]

I expect to be there as well in the '97. Hopefully I can give those in SM2 a little competition this year with this car.

[OzCop]

Or leave the intake on it and run STS 2. In fact, if you decide you like autocrossing, you have the perfect starter car for STS 2.

[OzCop]

Ahhhhh man! Tailchaiser gave me an avatar an it looks like my own MSM!
THANKS!!!!

[Kiliwizz]

Decided to take intake off - it's only a 30 minute job. People in STS will be running with considerably bigger budgets than me... whereas in stock, everything is more equal!

Will try to make Maccy D's at seven, but that is REALLY early for a Sunday morning...

Does anywhere know of a cheap alignment shop in Fort Worth? If it's more than $50, the wife won't let me have it

[Kiliwizz]

Well, it seems that even $35 is going to be too much to afford. Will have to wait for another day when I can afford to go

Sorry lads, have a good day out and I hope I'll be able to make an autox one day

[altiain]

Woohoo! What a day - we had a pretty good showing with 13 or 14 Miatas today, even with the cold and threat of rain. The course was fast, fun, and long (80+ seconds), and the weather held all day, even gracing us with some sunshine in the late afternoon.

POS won E Stock - actually, he slaughtered E Stock, beating Mr. Stewart by over two seconds. Tailchaser took 2nd in Tire, Mark52 won CSP, the General won C Stock (suprise :P ), and I was able to beat lugnutjon out for 2nd place in CS.

Best of all, we had four Miatas (and five members of this forum ) in the RapidePax top ten! Congrats to Kestrel (9th - way to go, man! ), lugnutjon (6th), General Default (3rd), and OzCop (7th) - way to go, guys!

[tailchaser]

Don't forget that 5th place in the PAX for altiain...

Robert J. also showed some impressive skill with a run 2 seconds faster than the winning time in E Stock in his STS2 car. Looks like street tires are treating him right!

[sammm]

Congrats all around to the MME pilots!

[onething]

Glad you guys had a good time and did so well!

[Treibenschnell]

Congrats fellas!!! Very nice!!

I can hardly wait for the next run... :)

[POS Racing]

We also had a couple of new folks make their Autocross debut yesterday!

Kilwizz decided to give it a go, and did a great job for his first time out to play autocross! Looked like he was getting the hang of it as the day went on! He had a second place finish in Novice, so not a bad start!

The lovely Mrs. Monkey with the help of Ataim and Speedracer (AKA-Monkey) also decide to give AX a try yesterday! She did a great job and won her class! :monkey:

[Kestrel]

It was a pretty interesting day. The CS battle between General Default, altiain, and lugnutjon was intense until the General laid down his first sub 86 second run. John B. and I languished well back from those three. At the end of the day, the Stock Miatas beat just about every other car out there -- including the Corvettes -- on a course that favored power as it had a number of long straights, and not much "technical" stuff. ES was fairly close all day until POS unleashed all those 88 ponies on his last class run and smashed his competion.

A few other interesting items:

• - Even with this being the first event, out in Mineral Wells, cool/cloudy February day with rain threatening, we still had about 115 drivers (185 registered, with probably 70 PAX runs). That's a pretty big turnout!
  
  - ER is still plagued with minor PC/Computer problems. We bought a brand new laptop (a Compaq... that's part of our problem ), did a fresh load of Windows XP, loaded the latest version of AXWare, and still had the PC crash twice ... once just before we completed registering all the participants. That little "present" caused us to re-input just about every participant, and delayed our start by probably 45 minutes or more. We also continue to have Print Spooler problems, and simply cannot communicate with the dot matrix printer -- the one that prints out the time slips.
  
  - The revised PAX Index seems to have helped the CS Miatas out quite a bit. Relative to the STS ans STX cars, CS now seems to be in pretty good shape to earn money in the ER Pax runs. As proof, I'll point to the fact that even I managed to take a few dollars off of them (a first for me...)!

All-in-all, a pretty good day... and an event that ran fairly smoothly, except for a few [nagging] computer problems...

[channelmaniac]

Hey Kestrel,

Go into the system BIOS setup on the laptop and change the parallel port mode from ECP to Standard. That should fix your printing problems.

Dot matrix printers and enhanced mode printer ports don't get usually get along.

Raymond