Autocrossing an SUV

It’s taken me a while to get around to sifting through the 450-someodd photos from last weekend’s Auto-X event. I took the Tiguan again, and now I officially have to find another vehicle if I want to continue. The big Tiggy is just, well… too big. Yes, it’s built on the same basic platform as the GTI, Golf, Jetta, and Passat, but it’s kinda taller, and kinda heavier, which leads to some significant body roll in transitions. Technically a crossover vehicle, it kinda fits in the ‘tall station-wagon’ or ‘short-SUV’ category.  At 3500+lbs advertised curb weight, it’s also a good bit heavier than most of the cars I was running against.  It’s got good springs and shocks, and with the 17″ rims, the tires aren’t too squidgy either.  Plus, with the 200hp turbo 2-liter under the hood, it’ll get out of it’s own way pretty well.

We had 5 timed runs in which to post our best possible time for the course. The tech inspector noted that the car was in perfect running order, but he was still hesitant to pass me because of the CoG being so high. “If you lift a tire, no more runs.” “Okay.” Given the nature of the beast, you have to get on the brakes in a straight line in order to get it to turn anyway, so I wasn’t too worried about lifting. I ran the following times: 98.403 (+2sec for 1 cone), 96.384 (clean), 92.383 (clean), 90.607 (+4sec for 2 cones), 89.678 (clean). My times consistently dropped over the course of my 5 runs, with of course the occasional cone-murder. My final run ended with a “Yeah man, you lifted a tire down on the left-hand end of the course, so you’re done for today…” Which means I had officially run as fast as the Tiguan would go. Thankfully it was on my 5th run and I managed to break under 90 seconds for the course.

Here’s a picture from the slower middle section of the course, just before the left-hand kink leading onto a flat-out section:

Funny part is, there is actually less body-roll on the Tiguan than there was on a couple of the other cars (the Pontiac Firebird for example), but because of the height of the Tig, the tech inspector was appropriately more concerned.  It’s mildly aggravating that with the exception of the hoods-up tech inspection pic, and the parade lap prior to my runs, there isn’t a single picture of me running on the SSCC site.  Possibly just the photographer not shooting my car, or them being worried about someone saying something about allowing a crossover to run. Here’s my take: I think they run a very well organized event.  The new guys who showed up got good instruction, and some of the fast guys would even ride along with newbs to point out how to run the course.  However, being ‘non-standard’ attracts attention, and in my case possibly not the right kind.  Whatever.  Here’s the bottom line: I was the fastest guy in the Novice class.  Other entrants included a ’93 Mazdaspeed6, a ’95 Trans Am, a ’06 Mazda RX-8, a ’05 Honda S-2000, and a ’07 Nissan 350Z.  I also ran faster than everyone in the street tire class (prepped), to include a ’03 Mach-1 Mustang, a ’99 Miata, and a ’91 MR-2 Turbo.  Granted, had the MR-2 not spun out on his last run, he probably would have beaten me by at least 2 seconds.  I’m not slow.  Of course putting lowering springs on the car moves me up into the street-touring class… rrgh.  Maybe I can find an old beater Golf or Rabbit to commute in and thrash once a month at the track.  Cheapest adrenaline fix I’ve found thus far (cheaper than going fast on the street because there’s no worry of a ticket!).

I’m going to bring Amanda’s camera to the Feb event (or maybe my birthday camera if I can manage to find the one I want..), but alternating between my point-n-shoot SD850IS and SPC Duenas’ Nikon did pretty well.  Duenas was the one driving the MR2, and the kid’s fast. He was faster than I was on every single run for 1-4, and had finally run the 3-cone slalom the correct  (read: fast) direction for run 5 when he spun out heading through the last gate before the timing clocks.  Like I said earlier, had he not spun out he would definitely have beaten my 89.6.  Check their site out at Https://www.sierrasportscars.net/ to see the complete list of times.

Here’s a couple shots of other cars killing cones, which I just find cool:

This one’s especially cool, as he clipped the edge of the cone with his front tire, but it hadn’t rotated over yet, so it appears to be levitating next to his car:

Full picture set and the onboard video from my fastest run are posted over on the 10 Jan 10 Autocross page linked on the right.  At some point I’ll organize the pages link posts, as I’ll eventually get enough stuff over there to justify it.  But for now, I’ll just let them all sit wherever they fall alphabetically…

[warning: stream of consciousness rant ahead]  I really do think if I wasn’t in the military I’d be up to nefarious [expletive redacted].  I saw “The Hurt Locker” this weekend, and I understood the main character’s situation at the end of the film better than I think most would.  Some of us are just wired differently.  Given a little time and effort I could be really, really good at this autocross stuff.  I just don’t have the time.  Same as I don’t have the time to do a bunch of things recently.  Kinda makes me aggravated that I waste 10 or more hours of my life every week commuting back and forth to work.  Even if I only used half of that time productively, that’d be a lot of guitar practice, or extra PT, or whatever.  Life is entirely too short to spend 11.1% of your waking hours driving just to get somewhere (vs driving for the sake of driving).  Days I ride the bike it’s not so bad, at least on days I get out early enough I can ride home ‘the long way’. There’s only so much ‘battery recharging’ I can manage to cram into a weekend, and it seems to never be enough.  Holiday weekends have been stopgap measures, but at some point I’m going to have to just power down for a while. Well, enough bitching.  I’m going to bed.