Page GT86
Page GT86
paperpaper said:Page GT86
Yet that post pushed it to page 87! 🙃🤣
In reply to AWSX1686 (Forum Supporter) :
luck like this is a skill i have. haha
So this has been a weird, but successful, year; I've been having trouble figuring out what I want to say about it. We won the regional L2wd championship again, and actually would've won the O2wd one too had we entered in that class. Our times are getting closer and closer to the national L2wd cars, beating them sometimes. Sara got 2nd in the L2wd national championship and would've been first if not for mechanical issues. Our notes are better than ever, the teamwork in the car is better than ever, my driving has improved when I'm feeling good... but I'm still not always feeling good. Whatever illness I had for STPR, or possibly some old injuries, or a combination of both and who knows what else still has me dizzy and flulike some of the time- this isn't "woe is me" and I can learn to live with it if there's no solution, but its' been an unfun adventure through the healthcare system and is still ongoing. That's about all I want to say about it right now, honestly, I'd rather focus on the rallying- this sport comes with an amazing support network and friends have been there every step of the way to keep us in the game when I wasn't at my best.
Trophy shelf shows this cars' record thus far, these are all podiums and mostly this one vehicle- this is our 3rd year winning at least one region's L2wd championship:
When we were "on" this year, we were really on in a way that has been rare and hard to access before, and I feel like, more than the actual results, that's the win here- we've found more speed, specifically in my being able to push faster and Sara's ability to deliver notes in a way that not only tells me what's coming, but gives me the confidence to stay in that headspace and keep hunting for places to make time on the competition. Sometimes that's in obvious ways, like braking later, but has come with lots of weird little learning experiences too, like just how important cutting the front end into the weeds a bit can be when things get loose (it's a lot better to run out of grip and slide onto the grippy line, than off of it).
Here's the year this car has had:
Sno*Drift (or Poo*Drift thanks to weather)- 1st in regional L2wd, 1st regional 2wd overall, and 2nd L2wd when you include national:
STPR- 1st L2wd and 2wd overall (primarily by attrition):
Boone- 6th L2wd (the pace was high and I was very on/off for this one):
Overmountain- 1st regional L2wd and overall regional 2wd:
And we had a number of other rally adventures too, with Sara competing in a whopping 13 events and spending a total of over 1240 miles on special stages!
Sara rode with Roberto for most of the L2wd national championship:
We both competed at McCreary, me on a bike and Sara in Kevin's RX7:
Sara rode in Bill's buggy at Sandblast and got an overall stage win:
And we ended the season by crewing/codriving for KJ at his first ever (very successful) rally in the drivers' seat:
So, an excellent season in many ways, even if it was a rougher year in a number of ways too.
Yesterday we took the car to a nice dinner out, a fitting way to celebrate a year that we can hopefully build on the good parts of and come away stronger from the difficult bits:
We're signed up for Sno*Drift so time to make sure this car is ready to go- that other BRZ has been taking up quite a lot of my time:
Installed a set of trusty Blizzak WS80s and put my shovel back in the trunk:
We're getting a little low on snow tires, with only the 4 Blizzaks currently on the car, 2 tractionized but old Blizzaks, 2 good Alphas, and one very worn Alpha that'll make a great spare. This should be enough to get through the event although I'd love some more Alphas- the only option for new ones is currently expensive shipping from europe which I'm not inclined to pay for.
Drove the car for a couple hours and all seems well- always funny how much quicker it is on the snow tires since they're so much lighter:
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:So this has been a weird, but successful, year; I've been having trouble figuring out what I want to say about it. We won the regional L2wd championship again, and actually would've won the O2wd one too had we entered in that class. Our times are getting closer and closer to the national L2wd cars, beating them sometimes. Sara got 2nd in the L2wd national championship and would've been first if not for mechanical issues. Our notes are better than ever, the teamwork in the car is better than ever, my driving has improved when I'm feeling good... but I'm still not always feeling good. Whatever illness I had for STPR, or possibly some old injuries, or a combination of both and who knows what else still has me dizzy and flulike some of the time- this isn't "woe is me" and I can learn to live with it if there's no solution, but its' been an unfun adventure through the healthcare system and is still ongoing. That's about all I want to say about it right now, honestly, I'd rather focus on the rallying- this sport comes with an amazing support network and friends have been there every step of the way to keep us in the game when I wasn't at my best.
Trophy shelf shows this cars' record thus far, these are all podiums and mostly this one vehicle- this is our 3rd year winning at least one region's L2wd championship:
When we were "on" this year, we were really on in a way that has been rare and hard to access before, and I feel like, more than the actual results, that's the win here- we've found more speed, specifically in my being able to push faster and Sara's ability to deliver notes in a way that not only tells me what's coming, but gives me the confidence to stay in that headspace and keep hunting for places to make time on the competition. Sometimes that's in obvious ways, like braking later, but has come with lots of weird little learning experiences too, like just how important cutting the front end into the weeds a bit can be when things get loose (it's a lot better to run out of grip and slide onto the grippy line, than off of it).
Here's the year this car has had:
Sno*Drift (or Poo*Drift thanks to weather)- 1st in regional L2wd, 1st regional 2wd overall, and 2nd L2wd when you include national:
STPR- 1st L2wd and 2wd overall (primarily by attrition):
Boone- 6th L2wd (the pace was high and I was very on/off for this one):
Overmountain- 1st regional L2wd and overall regional 2wd:
And we had a number of other rally adventures too, with Sara competing in a whopping 13 events and spending a total of over 1240 miles on special stages!
Sara rode with Roberto for most of the L2wd national championship:
We both competed at McCreary, me on a bike and Sara in Kevin's RX7:
Sara rode in Bill's buggy at Sandblast and got an overall stage win:
And we ended the season by crewing/codriving for KJ at his first ever (very successful) rally in the drivers' seat:
So, an excellent season in many ways, even if it was a rougher year in a number of ways too.
Yesterday we took the car to a nice dinner out, a fitting way to celebrate a year that we can hopefully build on the good parts of and come away stronger from the difficult bits:
Sorry if its been covered before but whats are you using for lighting ?
In reply to racerboy000 :
The bar in the middle is a Diode Dynamics SS18 spot pattern, then 2x Auxbeam 6" spot bars for medium range cornering light, 2x 7" round floods for ditch/short range, and LED bulbs in the highbeams. I've found that for close up you can use cheap offbrand stuff but for range you need decent optics, Diode Dynamics being the cheapest good ones I can find.
In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :
Thanks
We're signed up for Sno*Drift- little stuff happening before like getting fresh spares boxes (our old ones were cracking and falling apart). These generic bins work great if you make sure the tabs that hold the lid on are good, and tape over the little strap holes that make them not-waterproof:
Replaced the ancient redtop I had in the car- it was cranking a little slowly and I didn't like that. I put in a generic AGM in the stock BRZ size instead:
And drove some more:
More snow, and a couple hours of driving in it. Car feels solid!
Lol, I had the same thought in the outback sport (too good for rallycross beater) thread, if I had a vehicle like this I wouldn't be able to resist bombing around in it everytime it snowed.
In reply to johndej :
I actually usually do a whole thing swapping between my various snow tires, but I don't have anything new this year and am a little short on snows so I want to conserve my precious tractionized tires and retreads for competition.
Busy weekend! While Adam caged our new car, and a group of New England friends helped wire and repair Downey's car, the truck got loaded for Sno*Drift and the car got on the trailer. Conditions in Michigan are looking good and we leave in a couple days:
Congrats on the Snodrift class win!
In reply to Lump :
Thanks! Recap soon but for now here's the spectator corner at Bonfire Alley courtesy of Colin Schulz:
Sno*Drift 2025
Wednesday/Thursday
A nice smooth tow out led to our airbnb, the same as last year, shared with team War Weasel (Dan and Stirling) with a crew of Christian, Robbie, Brian, and two motorsports tech students from Ohio. After years of Sno*Drifts with non-ideal conditions, things were looking good- it was cold but not in the negatives, there was snow but not so much that our car would get stuck, and the forecast throughout the event showed a bit more snow and zero chance of it melting.
Conditions on recce looked as good as we'd hoped, with packed snow and a little ice on a lot of the stage roads, and deep rutted snow with some real banks in the woods, especially where we'd be running on Friday- maybe a slight concern if we were to get stuck, but otherwise just about as good as anyone could ask for. Since we've run this event several times before, we mostly got to reuse and mark up old notes, although obviously the surface calls change from year to year, and a few corners actually changed in severity since they sort of depend on how the roads are plowed.
Colin from Rally.Build lent us a tractionizer (absolutely terrifying device with spiked rollers) and we made some of what Christian referred to as "medium rare tires" with it- I didn't anticipate actually needing many extra ice tires with the snowier conditions, but when you get offered this rare and strange a piece of equipment you really have to take advantage:
Given the deep snow ruts on Friday's stages, we opted to run Alpha Verity snow tires in the back (so we could dig out if we got off the line) and grooved some tractionized Blizzaks for extra steering up front- I've found that cuts around the tire like this seem to be noticeably helpful, while cuts across I generally can't feel at all in the car.
A bit of video review of the notes, dinner from chef Robbie, a diversion for a dog eating one of my socks, and we were off to sleep for the long day ahead.
LOL, I remember tractionizing a bunch of tires at an "Ice*Drift" until like 3am... doing one at a time for like a half hour each...
Sno*Drift 2025
Friday
We slept in as much as we could before heading out to recce a couple missed stages- the schedule for the day would take us past midnight so we tried to match that appropriately. More video review, some final checks of the cars, and a bunch of anticipation filled up the afternoon, and around dinner time we headed out to parc expose in Lewiston (Romulo Chagas photo):
Tire choices throughout the field were highly varied, with the leading cars mostly running chunky Dunlop 56-R snow tires but much more variety as you moved down the order- everything from tractionized Blizzaks and X-Ices, to Alphas, to wildly cut street snows and even a few ancient AO34s in the mix. We talked to rally friends, tried not to freeze, and mentally prepared for some interesting driving. Our plan of attack was basically "maximum clean pace" with the intention of avoiding spins or getting stuck if at all possible, while still not running too conservatively- we had several 4wd cars starting behind us, since the start order is based on speed factor which includes plenty of gravel events, so going too slow would definitely result in some sketchy passing.
As the sun set, cars left parc and headed to the woods- no snow was falling, so visibility would be good, but night rally in the snow is always challenging regardless.
SS1, Sage-Vondette, started off with a familiar spectator section before winding off into the woods, and had a lot of deep rutted snow- and as soon as we got moving, we were experiencing the most grip I've ever had on snow! It pretty quickly became apparent that that grip wasn't available everywhere, but it was present in enough places that we could really push and only had to back off where things got tighter, or in spectator sections where things would inevitably get polished as everyone spun the tires and showed off. We ran an unimpressive midpack time here, but were feeling good and didn't quite get caught by the awd car behind us- we let them switch in the next control since we were seeing headlights by the end, though.
SS2 was Blue Lake-Halberg and it was pretty similar to the first- lots of bouncing around between the ruts and trying to find a line where the snow wouldn't pull us anywhere we didn't want to go. Another midpack time was the result, and I was still working on building confidence that the car wouldn't jump out of the ruts at high speed (or at least, not enough to immediately pull us into the weeds).
Driftonfilm photo:
SS3, Agren-Hunter, was where things really started to click- this one was much icier and more packed than the others, our notes were great, and I was feeling good sliding the car around in 4th gear at higher speeds with a little more room to maneuver. We managed the 3rd fastest 2wd time here, although our regional L2wd competition Russel Senior was flying and continued to put a bunch of time on us.
SS4 Orchard-Shoreline was really fun, combining the best aspects of the stages prior to it with tight rutted woods sections and a packed, smooth, wider lakeside road. Our times were yet again midpack but I was feeling good, the car was working, we were nailing the spectator corners, and overall it was just plain going well.
Back to service where the car needed nothing and we just ate some food and continued to try not to freeze. Dan and Stirling were scooting up the order away from us, but we were holding our own in 2wd and had settled into a decent spot in the order where mid-stage passing would hopefully be unlikely. 5 gallons of fuel went in and we were off for that same loop again.
SS5 was Sage-Vondette again, and we pushed a bit harder but so did everyone else, and while the ruts had gotten deeper and the outer banks a little bigger, the road had also gotten icier anywhere that cars had pushed snow off, so things were pretty interesting. Russel went off somewhere, so we inherited the regional overall 2wd and L2wd leads, and moved into 3rd 2wd overall when you include the national competitors.
SS6 Blue Lake-Halberg had even more varied grip levels, but things were really clicking at this point and we managed them well, and from here onward we managed to run the fastest regional 2wd times for the rest of the night- national 2wd competitors were still faster, notably Santiago, Cyr, and Nykanen, but they were also all pushing enough to have mistakes and spins here and there and were just managing to get away with them. Maybe we'll try that next year, this time was about staying consistent and feeling good.
Romulo Chagas photo:
Our second pass of Agren-Hunters for SS7 was just wonderful- clipping inside banks at the apexes, tapping the outside on exit, sliding comfortably the whole time; exactly what we wanted.
SS8 was Orchard-Shoreline again to end the night, and yet again things felt great and went well, although we were definitely beginning to push the rutted woods sections enough to have a few scary moments when a wheel would climb out of the ruts at one end or the other.
Back to the house, cars checked over, and sleep.
Sno*Drift 2025
Saturday
Another cold parc expose and we would be starting on the road right behind Santiago in the other BRZ- he's done this rally a zillion times and is always good to watch, in fact we'd spend all day making start line road position choices based on what his car did as it launched (slowly, because unstudded tires on ice and rwd) in front of us. Parc was crowded as usual for Atlanta and just about everyone seemed to be having a great time (Christian Laprad photo):
We'd get a bunch of stages in daylight this time, which was welcome because snowfall that night would definitely make driving with the rally lights a challenge. For the first two loops, only the first stage would have any real deep stuff or ruts to bounce off of, so we elected to start off with 30psi in the tires and drop it after that stage for more grip on the packed stuff.
As promised, SS9 Old State-Huff had some pretty interesting committed snowy stuff in the woods over blind crests at the beginning, but once it descended out of the trees onto a larger road, it was back to the big, controlled slides like Agren the day before. I had started off wearing some orange glasses, since ski goggles are orange and I figured it'd help, but I found that I couldn't see the sides of the road very well with them and ripped them off and tossed them on the floor before the halfway mark.
Up North Motorsports Media photo:
We dropped the tires to 22psi and headed over to Black River-Camp 30 for SS10. Things were a bit icier here but felt great, and I think it was here that we had our first trip over 100mph too- pretty scary on ice, but with enough room to slow down you just have to trust the notes and know that you can brake from that speed just like from any other... gently. From here, for the rest of the day, we generally ran the fastest regional 2wd times but somewhere between the 5th to 3rd fastest overall 2wd time when you include the national guys.
Then it was SS11 Mills-Meaford, a similarly wide and packed/icy thing but with good camber on most of the corners- this one went really well, we felt great, and got this awesome drone shot fomr Adam Bachi out of it from the spectator corner:
I remember seeing the drone whizz over the roof and thinking "better not mess this one up!"
Back to service where the car yet again needed nothing- we considered swapping to tractionized tires all around, but with the snows on the rear we were able to better take advantage of the unplowed stuff at the edges of the road and the setup was working so why change it. The car didn't even need fuel, and soon we were back off for that same loop again.
SS12 Old State-Huff again, was noticeably icier but still felt great- we had found a groove in terms of speed vs risk and didn't have to deviate from it unless we wanted to. Page break here since the media embed above seems to be messing with the post format.
Sno*Drift 2025
Saturday (continued)
Romulo Chagas photo:
On SS13 Black River-Camp 30, we kept the same general pace but really pushed that fast section- we saw 101mph, but also the shift light in 5th gear, which means the rear wheels were doing something like 115mph!
Somewhere in this mix, we had a lovely moment on a transit with Dave Matheson's Talon in front of us, both of us weaving to feel out the grip levels, just sliding around on an empty road in the middle of nowhere having a great time. The fun in rally isn't always about the stages or the times, sometimes you just get to take it all in and have silly car experiences with your friends.
Then SS14 was Mills-Meaford again, much icier than before, but still super fun and controlled. The snow was definitely falling pretty consistently at this point, but since there was still daylight it was a non-issue.
Another Romulo photo for good measure:
Back to service, where Robbie aired the tires back up to 28psi for us since the stage ahead had some big ruts to contend with. We ate some food, 5 gallons of fuel went in the car, the Ohio kids were sent away early to go spectate, and we were off into the now-dark woods of Michigan for SS15, Shoreline-Sage Creek.
This stage combined the rutted sections of Orchard, with the wonderful but now quite icey Shoreline, and some new sections with a little mix of both and higher speeds to boot. Things started off pretty interesting, with the snow making visibility in the dark difficult- we'd actually have to switch the rally lights off once speeds got above about 60mph, which meant I couldn't see any real detail but I could at least sort of place where the next corner was; then under braking I'd switch them back on so I could actually see what was going on in the next corner in terms of snow and pick a line.
Nearing the end of the stage, things got even more interesting- we had a "car ahead" warning on the rallysafe approaching a hairpin, and we slid around it to find Santiago's car just leaving after a spin, and chased him for the remainder of the stage. This was fun but pretty sketchy in spots, with the snow off his car adding to the visibility issues we spent a lot of the faster sections with just the lowbeams on and trusting the notes and occasional glimpses of taillights ahead. Tons of fun, mild amounts of terror, perfect rally blend.
Then a long transit where we experimented by unplugging the long range lightbar in the middle of our LED setup- this seemed to work well, cutting down on the blinding hyperspace effect but still allowing for more visibility than the lowbeams.
And after a lot of following barely visibly taillights through the woods in beautiful, sparkly, dense snowfall, we arrived at Bonfire Alley. If you don't know about Bonfire Alley, here's David Evans with a brief window into that world:
Dropped tire pressure to 22psi for the anticipated ice, and snapped a last stage selfie:
Then off, into blinding snow, with flares, lasers, bonfires, and a couple people with honest-to-goodness flamethrowers lining the road. We nearly slid off in one corner, but it worked out and the spectator corner felt great with just a little inside berm clip and a little outer bank bonk. If you see no other reason to go to this rally, go for Bonfire.
Romulo Chagas photo:
and Colin's video again:
Down from there to the finish, and with a moment of sadness as we saw Matheson's Talon off after the finish boards, having exited the road and climbed a 10ft berm but luckily stopped before the trees.
We did it! Transited back, met with friends, we won regional L2wd, overall regional 2wd, and the Krowlikowski Kup for the highest placing married couple, and Dan and Stirling got 2nd in L4wd too!
Took a picture with the trophies and Robbie and Christian, went back to the house to eat pizza and tell stories. We finally got a real, proper, snowy Sno*Drift and we made the best of it:
I have never really seen snow before, aside from the occasional flurry up north, but attending an event like this seems like such a blast. Glad to hear the BRZ did well!
In reply to Paris Van Gorder :
Sounds like a great field assignment for next year!
Great showing! Sad to miss it this year, conditions looked awesome for once.
Bravo from the wing works!!!
Do you have a route / map of the stages for sno*drift?
I have passed throgh the Mio / Atlanta / Onaway area up to My uncle's place on Lake Huron once or twice. I loved the drive, but it was in Summer of 2010. I want to get a sense of where the route takes place.
Super cool stuff!
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