sho_bc
Dragonboater
first off, HUGE thanks to shomesomesho and genesho for the incredible deals that added up to the car looking like so:
so on to the day... started out with light drizzle and a few puddles on the course. now, Fred has said that these tire are the suck in wet, but compared to the all-seasons i'd been using up until today?
how do i know? well, it was a fairly open course, but still requiring some technical driving, and my first run was faster than cars that are normally a second or two or three faster than me, running their rain tires had in their first couple of runs. and my runs only got better each time. these tires did AMAZINGLY well (for me), and all throughout the day, i couldn't stop loving how much more grip i had through the course.
I was having trouble getting around some of the cones, and was losing (or gaining, however you want to look at it) a couple seconds there during my first set of runs. i was in the first heat, so I hadn't had a chance to watch other people run and see their lines.
in the heat after mine, the 3rd car to run lost it BIG time, and went off the driving pad, through a chain-link fence/fence post and into the mud between our driving pad, and a runway of the neighbouring airport. well, that obviously put a huge kink into the smoothness of the day. took an hour to make sure the car was movable, yank the car out of the mud, and make some minor adjustments to the course in an effort to keep the speed down in that area. we got back under way without further incident for the rest of the day, although lots of people were slipping and spinning out in the same section for the whole day, myself included (more to come on that).
so, after getting some advice on lines, during my second heat, i cut 2 full seconds off my time. Now, i also have to give a bit of credit to the weather, which let up and stopped raining, and the other 2 heats before my second which made the driving line a lot less wet. haha but still, MUCH faster through the course.
my 2nd last run got me down to 42.1xx, and i knew there was some time to be made up. on my last run, i pushed harder than i'd pushed before, and the car was SPECTACULAR! it felt so incredibly fast throughout the whole thing, until right at the very end, coming out of a c-box into the final slalom (3 cones and then cross the finish line) with a tad too much speed... lost control off the 2nd cone, ate the last cone and spun across the line.
with the loss of control and the spin, i still made it across in 42.2x seconds. i think without the slide, i could have made it a mid-41 second pass, easily. the FTD was a high 38 second run from an STi with azenis, coilovers, a hugely aggressive alignment and a very skilled driver. so i think to myself, "not bad, alex, not bad" 
but my overall impression of the day is what a HUGE difference the wheels and tires (i'm assuming its the combo of the wider, lighter wheels, as well as the tires) made over the slicers and crappy all-seasons. man, it was FUN to go fast. i can't wait to try them out in the dry.
photobucket isnt' letting me upload any more files for some reason, so it'll be a bit until i get the videos put up on youtube. and then i'll post the one of me spinning out.
so on to the day... started out with light drizzle and a few puddles on the course. now, Fred has said that these tire are the suck in wet, but compared to the all-seasons i'd been using up until today?
how do i know? well, it was a fairly open course, but still requiring some technical driving, and my first run was faster than cars that are normally a second or two or three faster than me, running their rain tires had in their first couple of runs. and my runs only got better each time. these tires did AMAZINGLY well (for me), and all throughout the day, i couldn't stop loving how much more grip i had through the course. I was having trouble getting around some of the cones, and was losing (or gaining, however you want to look at it) a couple seconds there during my first set of runs. i was in the first heat, so I hadn't had a chance to watch other people run and see their lines.
in the heat after mine, the 3rd car to run lost it BIG time, and went off the driving pad, through a chain-link fence/fence post and into the mud between our driving pad, and a runway of the neighbouring airport. well, that obviously put a huge kink into the smoothness of the day. took an hour to make sure the car was movable, yank the car out of the mud, and make some minor adjustments to the course in an effort to keep the speed down in that area. we got back under way without further incident for the rest of the day, although lots of people were slipping and spinning out in the same section for the whole day, myself included (more to come on that).
so, after getting some advice on lines, during my second heat, i cut 2 full seconds off my time. Now, i also have to give a bit of credit to the weather, which let up and stopped raining, and the other 2 heats before my second which made the driving line a lot less wet. haha but still, MUCH faster through the course.
my 2nd last run got me down to 42.1xx, and i knew there was some time to be made up. on my last run, i pushed harder than i'd pushed before, and the car was SPECTACULAR! it felt so incredibly fast throughout the whole thing, until right at the very end, coming out of a c-box into the final slalom (3 cones and then cross the finish line) with a tad too much speed... lost control off the 2nd cone, ate the last cone and spun across the line.
with the loss of control and the spin, i still made it across in 42.2x seconds. i think without the slide, i could have made it a mid-41 second pass, easily. the FTD was a high 38 second run from an STi with azenis, coilovers, a hugely aggressive alignment and a very skilled driver. so i think to myself, "not bad, alex, not bad" but my overall impression of the day is what a HUGE difference the wheels and tires (i'm assuming its the combo of the wider, lighter wheels, as well as the tires) made over the slicers and crappy all-seasons. man, it was FUN to go fast. i can't wait to try them out in the dry.
photobucket isnt' letting me upload any more files for some reason, so it'll be a bit until i get the videos put up on youtube. and then i'll post the one of me spinning out.
