JCD

On Friday afternoon a large contingent of the Central Kentucky Region (CKR) left Lexington to invade the Cincinnati Region hosted Cendiv event. We partied like mad with the KYR group from Louisville and arose early Saturday to do battle against the cones and the clock.

As it ended up, the cones won. I wasn't able to follow my single great run on day1 to pull out the A stock win (I actually dropped to 3rd), but I do have a digital trophy to share:

For those of you who have never made it to the Ford transmission plant in Sharonville, OH; I can't really describe it. The Popp courses they run there keep you in 2nd most of the time with one or two places where you have the option to downshift into 1st. On a good day I'll tap the rev limiter in 2nd a few times. On day one of the Cendiv the opening element was a single gate parallel with the course; not the usual three cone slalom, so the way to handle it was to swing to the right a little and dive through at full throttle.

OK, here's where the story gets good. On my 5th and final run of the day, a guy who came up with us for the party asks if he can ride along. Alway wanting to show off my car I tell him to hop the hell in. As we're driving up to the start line he asks: "Do I need to put my seatbelt on?"

I ask if he's ever ridden along at an autocross before, and he says "No." I tell him to put the belt on and hit the CINCH button.

Well, about 5 seonds into the run we dive throught that first gate in 2nd at full throttle and I suspet that's when his autocross cherry popped. The poor bastard yelped (or squeaked). I'd have laughed myself silly had there not been a chicago box coming up at full speed...

Proof: 16 megs Listen to the audio about 5-6 seconds in.

The guy recovered well, he was cheering me on by the end of the run. Either he'll never go to an autocross again, or he'll be hooked for life.

RAFTRACER

Awesome video. Glad you came up and enjoyed yourself..... Finally the world is seeing what a Corvette friendly autocross course looks like. You have video of Sunday ????? I think you would agree that Sundays course was ALOT more Corvette friendly .......................
RAFT decal may be in order , you did really well (especially Saturday). More corner-exit black marks and the decal will be yours.

JCD

This cendiv lived up to my expectations. Makes me wish I could race full time.

Vid from Sunday (16 megs) After a timer problem I got a rerun, so this was actually my 3rd shot at it. I got behind in the chicago boxes and was on the brakes WAY too early/hard on the north end of the course which I fixed for the last two runs, but I couldn't put the rest of the course together (dirty).

What caught me by surprise on Sunday was that tight "showcase sweeper" right after the slalom, I never got the entry speed right.

Yeah, what I remember most about evo school was how weak I am about getting the power down early leaving a turn, I know I'm still not nailing it, but it's harder than some people make it look.

I do appreciate all the help you and Red5 give me, with Larry not driving this year C4's are underrepresented.

talon95

Oh I'm sure we'll see something just like that at nats this year.

Yea right...

Dave G.

Red5

The CENDIV was a blast. And, as usual, Danny threw together a kick ars track for day two. What a blast. My favorite part was the back corner. I flew through there so fast I thought my tires were going to catch fire.

And there is nothing as humbling as running against Danny. I've been setting FTD after FTD lately, thinking I was the big guy on campus. Guess I was wrong.

Oh well, 2nd place in a class where Danny plays is like a 1st place finish in other classes.

acrace

JCD - cool videos. Thanks for sharing. I'll consider that as a souvenir from this past weekend!

Raftracer - fun courses. Challenging courses. Perfect for early in the year - had to look ahead and had to be gentle on the steering inputs. Hats off to Cincy Region for a great weekend.

Red5

Al,

You were running very well this weekend.

RAFTRACER

We could never be that lucky.........Maybe thats why all of us Corvette guys think the SCCA is full of a bunch of p@##ies..........

talon95

Yea, I finally got a Z06 and now we've got that tiny nats site. I was thinking the other day they really need to just run one course on that site, but there's no way to run everyone through.

Anyway, don't want to turn the thread in to a nats site discussion, I watched the videos, that looked like a lot of fun. Wish I had been there. (a bit of a drive from Wichita)

Dave G.

Lawdogg

Nice Video and course. I heard a lot of tire squeel, what tire were you running? It looks like your car turns in well.

JCD

They seriously need to limit the entrants, there's no reason an amature like me should be able to go to nationals just because I have some cash and a week of vacation.

Yeah, that's quite a drive to go to a divisional, but the company's excellent, the liquor flows freely, and the courses are corvette friendly. I'm ready for the next Sharonville cendiv (coming this fall).

JCD

Victoracers, the surface really grabbed well. raftracer told me to put a swaybar and shocks on the thing. Three weeks ago I put the VB&P 32mm swaybar on it and all of a sudden I was good at slaloms. Who knew?

P.S. I'm in a 93 6spd.

talon95

Some surfaces make for a lot more squeal also. For instance, even slicks will squeal somewhat on the HPT site. Really weird.

Dave G.

talon95

Well, I guess they heard you in looking at the new Fasttrack.

Dave G.
Not sure I know of any sites big enough for those events though...

CoolBlueC6

WOW!! You guys at CENDIV created a very nice LONG course. Wish I could have made it up there. I will definitely keep an eye out for future events there.

Eric

JCD

All the cincy scca courses are great, KYR in Louisville puts on some good ones at ft knox.

www.cincyscca.com
www.kyscca.com

the Lexington region is great for beginners, but corvette drivers generally outgrow the small lots...

www.ckrscca.org

CoolBlueC6

Yea, the Ft. Knox events are awesome. The runway set up makes for some good fast courses. We had a Test & Tune here in Louisville (UPS site) this past Saturday. The course was short (but fast). The length didn't really matter. I think I ran 40-44 runs or so

I ran in Lexington a couple of times in the past with my 93 RX-7TT and I think even once with my 350Z.

This is the first year with the Vette. Everything gets to you quicker

The cool thing is that the Vette is definitely harder to drive fast on the auto-x course which makes you a better driver.