Quote:
Originally Posted by 78F350
Awesome project. The Texas Gambler 500 is in your neighborhood. Have you considered it?
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Thanks. Looks like fun but converting back to a street legal car would be a hassle.
In preparation for my first race, I switched to some Yokohama tires I had thinking they would grip better than the Hankook rs4's I had on at the previous test&tune. I also added some down turns to the exhaust in attempt to quiet it down some. Everyone at the test&tune said it was fine, but I thought it couldn't hurt.
This past weekend was my first official race with the boxster. My friend who races autocross decided to join me as I told him how fun it is. He's been racing on payment for years and has had no experience on dirt before. He was excited to try it out but was apprehensive about driving a car he had no knowledge about on a surface that was just as foreign to him. He went out first and did badly. I went out and was horrible. The car couldn't get any power down. As soon as you touched the throttle, the back end would try to swing out. It was like drag racing on ice with bald tires. I had the air pressure set at 50. I was told at the T&T that you typically want to run high so you don't lose a bead. I believed it too because I saw a car lose a bead at T&T and it really sucks. Not only does it mess your run up, you have to get out of rotation to fix it. Hopefully you can make it to a place to fix it before ruining the tire. Another bad thing about losing a bead is that dirt gets crammed up in there and can keep the tire from forming another seal. I won't say it ruins your day, but losing a bead sucks. Well it turns out that too high sucks too. It took us three runs each before we had the tires low enough to where we got decent grip. By his 4th run, my friend was at the top of the pack and had the fastest round of the day if he didn't hit the last cone. My 4th round was embarrassing. I was at the bottom of the pack in the same car my friend was kicking butt in. In my defense, this was the first time I've officially raced a car. For the last run we had the rear tires down to 28psi. Again my friend went out and nailed it. Now it was my last run. With nothing to lose, I went out and slung the car around like I didn't care if I spun it. I rode every corner like I should have. On my last run I went from the being in the back of the pack to being in the top and it felt great. Run 1-4 I was the second slowest car in in modified 2wd and 4wd. I'm no alpha male who has to be at the top but I'm definitely not comfortable with being on the bottom either. By lap 4 I was very disappointed in myself. Something clicked because I killed it in run 5. Needless to say I was happy that I vindicated my driving ability to myself and others. It kind of sucked that it took us 3 runs to even get competitive.
Because of issues with timing, the track could only let one car race at a time. On a normal event you get 10 runs. The track decided that because people got shorted some runs that at the end of the day people could go run a few unsupervised/timed runs. Basically open practice. If you wanted it timed someone would have to operate the timer for you. I told my friend that I thought I had better grip at the T&T with the rs4's. My friend and I then switched back to the rs4's on the rear to see if there was a difference. With the rs4's my friend would have beat every car there. Even 4wd! The boxster is amazing at rallycross. It soaks up bumps and ruts like they're not even there. Next time I'll get video of other vehicles vs the boxster. Some cars look like they're about to go air born from the bumps, but the boxster makes it look like a paved road.
So my friend had so much fun and was blown away by the car that he wants in on the car. We're going to start racing the car as a team and elevating it back up from it's "Hold my beer" roots. First on the list is wider rear tires. Getting power to the ground is the biggest problem. My friend is more concerned about looks and wants to put fenders and bumpers back on it. We also want to participate at real sanctioned SCCA rally events so I'm not opposed to putting them back on. There's some other plans we have so stayed tuned.
Below is my friend's car to give you an idea of where rally boxster might be going
