Barber's Motorsports Museum was having the Annual "Historics" Festival last week end, with races of vintage cars, in particular Lotus. I went on Sunday morning to see the cars, and there were some great ones, my favorite being this all aluminum Lotus:
There were three Lotus Super 7 there, and Danny Wilson's won the race in it's category by half a lap:
But mostly, I wanted to try my hand at the Autocross, something I had never done before...
The course was set with cones at the "Proving Grounds", which is much better than on a parking lot. It even included a banked turn:
It's basically a succession of tight turns, and the only straight line is at the departure.
There were a couple of young guys already there with an old souped up Mazda Miata when I arrived at opening time, and they had already set a time of about 43s on the course.
One of them took me around as a passenger, and I immediately realized these guys knew what they were doing, very fast and very smooth. I knew right away I couldn't touch them. And my first try at the course was pretty pitiful at 53s, even though I felt I was going fast... But then again, I had never done Autocross before.
I did a total of 10 runs through the day at 10 bucks a pop, 6 alone and 4 with passenger, and by the end of the day got my time down to a "decent" 49s, still a long way behind the best 42 s of a red BMW Z3 and the 43s of the old Miata... I believe the car can do better, but the driver needs to practice.
Mary, Todd and Charles came to the track around 1 pm, and they each got to ride with me.
Charles shot some pictures of the car from the sidelines:
and he even shot a video of the ride:
A set of very sticky racing tires would probably help, something like the Hankook Ventus or the Toyo Proxis:
But these could only be used on the track, and therefore would require another set of rims. When I do a Google search , thousands of ugly rims pop up, and I wonder what the hell is going on and what awful taste the after market rim buyers must have. Where is simplicity and restraint, everything is flashy and busy. I would be very happy with a plain black rim like this if I could find it in a 4 bolt pattern:
One question of course if I am going to get a new set of racing wheels is: should I go to a 15" rim and a wider tire in the back?
One big problem though is the unusual old British pattern of 4 3.75" (used by the MG F and Rover Metro). That will make it hard to find a rim, especially one I like...
An option may be to use an adaptor.
There were three Lotus Super 7 there, and Danny Wilson's won the race in it's category by half a lap:
But mostly, I wanted to try my hand at the Autocross, something I had never done before...
The course was set with cones at the "Proving Grounds", which is much better than on a parking lot. It even included a banked turn:
It's basically a succession of tight turns, and the only straight line is at the departure.
There were a couple of young guys already there with an old souped up Mazda Miata when I arrived at opening time, and they had already set a time of about 43s on the course.
One of them took me around as a passenger, and I immediately realized these guys knew what they were doing, very fast and very smooth. I knew right away I couldn't touch them. And my first try at the course was pretty pitiful at 53s, even though I felt I was going fast... But then again, I had never done Autocross before.
I did a total of 10 runs through the day at 10 bucks a pop, 6 alone and 4 with passenger, and by the end of the day got my time down to a "decent" 49s, still a long way behind the best 42 s of a red BMW Z3 and the 43s of the old Miata... I believe the car can do better, but the driver needs to practice.
Mary, Todd and Charles came to the track around 1 pm, and they each got to ride with me.
Charles shot some pictures of the car from the sidelines:
and he even shot a video of the ride:
A set of very sticky racing tires would probably help, something like the Hankook Ventus or the Toyo Proxis:
One big problem though is the unusual old British pattern of 4 3.75" (used by the MG F and Rover Metro). That will make it hard to find a rim, especially one I like...
An option may be to use an adaptor.
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