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Well gang, Today was my first experience at Solo2 autocross. The event was held in Hialeah (Miami). Steve (Transio) came by to see the car and it was nice getting to meet someone from Elise Talk in person.
First let me say that the response to the Elise was very, very positive, I spent the whole day answering questions and doing PR for Lotus (I'll be sending LCU my bill for PR services on Monday
) lots of people excited about the car and about its light weight, good looks, etc. and all day there were people checking out the car, people looking at the suspension, people asking to seat in it , people asking about price, etc, etc.
I also found autocrossers to be a very friendly bunch of people, overall a very positive first experience and some even knew about Randy and his Elise (Sorry Randy but I can't remember the name of the guy but he drove a Miata).
I ran with 27 PSI front and 31 rear on my standard suspension ( Thanks Stan for the pressures) and I did 4 runs. I was placed in SS and the field was pretty tough, 13 cars in SS with 5 or 6 Z06s, 1 Viper GTS, 1 Porsche GT3 and a couple of other Corvettes, there was no novice class. I was pretty nervous before my first run and must say that I didn't even come close to the cars limits all day long, I had a hard time to get the car into the cams because I didn't have enough time to look at the tach and I still don't know the car well enough to know it by "ear" especially with a helmet on, and only on my 4th run did I finally get into the cams. Overall the car was great and it will take me a long while to get good enough to even think about messing with the standard suspension and settings. I ended the day with my best run in 44.047 seconds wich was around 6.5s (an eternity!) behind the SS winners who were also the fastest runs of the day (Richard Breecher was the overall winner and Hector San Nicholas was the second place finisher in both SS and overall). The track layout was definetelly favorable to high power cars with a lot of straight sections and really only one trickier turn but overall I could've pushed the car a lot harder, braked at lot later, carried more speed into the turns, etc. Unfortunatelly at the end of the day one of the fastest drivers of the area lost control of his brand new WRX STI and hit a tree, I think its going to be totalled as he slid sideways into the tree and the car clearly had the frame bent in the impact ( brings home the danger inherit in motorsports!). Anyway overall a pretty good day but a bit too long ( got there at 7:30 AM and left for home around 5:00 PM and the trophies hadn't even been given out yet) for my taste for the amount of driving so I'll have to think if I want to do it again in the future, so for now my plan is to do some DEs and track days with the car in the future.
First let me say that the response to the Elise was very, very positive, I spent the whole day answering questions and doing PR for Lotus (I'll be sending LCU my bill for PR services on Monday
) lots of people excited about the car and about its light weight, good looks, etc. and all day there were people checking out the car, people looking at the suspension, people asking to seat in it , people asking about price, etc, etc. I also found autocrossers to be a very friendly bunch of people, overall a very positive first experience and some even knew about Randy and his Elise (Sorry Randy but I can't remember the name of the guy but he drove a Miata).
I ran with 27 PSI front and 31 rear on my standard suspension ( Thanks Stan for the pressures) and I did 4 runs. I was placed in SS and the field was pretty tough, 13 cars in SS with 5 or 6 Z06s, 1 Viper GTS, 1 Porsche GT3 and a couple of other Corvettes, there was no novice class. I was pretty nervous before my first run and must say that I didn't even come close to the cars limits all day long, I had a hard time to get the car into the cams because I didn't have enough time to look at the tach and I still don't know the car well enough to know it by "ear" especially with a helmet on, and only on my 4th run did I finally get into the cams. Overall the car was great and it will take me a long while to get good enough to even think about messing with the standard suspension and settings. I ended the day with my best run in 44.047 seconds wich was around 6.5s (an eternity!) behind the SS winners who were also the fastest runs of the day (Richard Breecher was the overall winner and Hector San Nicholas was the second place finisher in both SS and overall). The track layout was definetelly favorable to high power cars with a lot of straight sections and really only one trickier turn but overall I could've pushed the car a lot harder, braked at lot later, carried more speed into the turns, etc. Unfortunatelly at the end of the day one of the fastest drivers of the area lost control of his brand new WRX STI and hit a tree, I think its going to be totalled as he slid sideways into the tree and the car clearly had the frame bent in the impact ( brings home the danger inherit in motorsports!). Anyway overall a pretty good day but a bit too long ( got there at 7:30 AM and left for home around 5:00 PM and the trophies hadn't even been given out yet) for my taste for the amount of driving so I'll have to think if I want to do it again in the future, so for now my plan is to do some DEs and track days with the car in the future.
