Six Calgary Sports Car Club members and near twenty Vancouver competitors made the trip down to the Seattle area for the SCCA Bremerton National Tour event. The event consisted of a Test ‘N Tune on Friday afternoon then two days of competition on Saturday and Sunday.
For the Calgary contingent, we (at least me) were not exactly going down to bring home some hardware. The trip was for experience and to witness the level of competition and event organization the SCCA could bring. We were not dissapointed on either count.
After being 2 seconds behind on a 30 second course setup for the Test ‘N Tune on Friday I confirmed my sneaking suspiscion that I would not be dicing for first place in my class in the coming days. The CSP miata that soundly trounced us (the eventual class winner) was prepared to the nuts and it was obvious that our stock 1.6 shod car was giving up just a bit of horsepower, weight, and tire. The car didn’t exactly put the ‘Street’ in ‘Street Prepared as it rolled up in a beautiful enclosed 14’ trailer with a nice ‘Miata Speed’ mural on the side. As he flipped various switches on the dash while trying to start car it was quite apparent that the no soft-top, no air filter, starts at the throttle-body intake, 1 inch ground clearance car, Go Kart passenger seat had not seen a public street in quite some time.
In the end I drove 800 miles for 7 minutes of seat time and my biggest competition was again my co-driver Reijo. Starting Sunday seperated by only 0.02 seconds, we traded 4th place til the last run on where I got the win by just over half a second. In the end however, I was nearly 2 seconds back from 3rd, more then 3 seconds back from 1st and it could have been alot more but for the cones mashed by the 3 drivers in front of me.
Me getting raped aside, the course was great and the event was a real spectacle…definitely worth the trip. The grid was layed out and numbered with chalk. You were assigned a numbered spot for the weekend and you always parked in the same spot when in grid. Furthermore, you gridded and ran with your class. In the pits you would see all the hot cars for each class lined up together and they would all run one after another. The SS line of Corvette Z06’s and the BS line of S2000s were particulary obvious. I very good idea both for competitors and spectators I believe.
The SCCA has a dedicated timing truck that any would make any local SWAT team control center feel inadequate. A DJ spun tunes during the breaks and full time commentary was available for every run group. They would announce each cars run time, their improvement (or not) compared to previous runs, what place the run was good for in your class, etc, etc. I case you were too far away from the speaker, they also broadcasted this commentary out on shortwave FM radio so you could tune your car stereo and catch the action from the pits.
After each run group completed you did not leave the grid, you were in ‘impound’ where anyone was free to thoroughly inspect your vehical and protest if need be. Once released, most cars could return to the pits but any class with a specified wieght minimum hit the scales to see if they meet the class limits.
Course was fun with interesting elements. Really gave a couple of great chances to put down some power…really gave me a chance to dwell on my new found inadequacy in other words. I have never really thought of low horsepower as being a big handicap. Thing is, at this level of competition, you can’t count on out driving anyone. Everyone’s car handles great and everyone is great driver. Even if I didn’t put a wheel wrong the whole event, I don’t feel there was any chance that my car could have turned the times within 1second of the winner. Everyone can drive and everyone is prepared to the nuts, you have to get the right car under you and drive every run like you want FTD.
As a result of the weekend I have decided that Street Mod 2 is the SCCA class of choice and I fully intend to be behind the wheel of a force fed little bastard by next season. To be competitive in SCCA CSP would mean injecting big money on maxing out power with many rules to adhere to. SM seems much more relaxed with an almost ‘anything goes’ mentality. SM and SM2 were the two of the biggest classes and is definitely a popular, up and coming class. If course, winning is Street Mod without a few hundred Microsoft stock options would be just as impossible but it would definitely be more fun big torque from a SC would be blast for drifting.