First event of the season (a Test n’ Tune) was this past weekend. In the week before I’ve had the whole diff apart on the floor and the passenger front brakes apart to change a wheel stud. With my current lack of trust in the car, it was a white nuckled 130km road trip. No radio and the constant chirping from the speed warning chime driving me nuts the whole way.The tires I chose to mount on my new 9″ rear wheels were mere 215/40 Federal SS595. Yes, Federals…and I’d buy them again. More on that later. Needless to say, the tire looks ready to pop off the bead sitting in my driveway and I was about to go slide around a parking lot with my fingers crossed and no spare to get home if the unthinkable happened. To top it off, the huge lip sits an alarming 2″ of the pavement and denting these babies on some crappy road is a constant worry.
Get to the the site, big sigh, take some pictures, walk to course then it’s off to the G-Circle. Q starts it off with some big fatty drifts around the 200ft circle. Top of second gear the whole way and the fastest circle we’ve had a chance to play on. Quite fun My LSD still not installed, I still had fun lighting up the inside rear and putting on a ridiculous smoke show…all thoughts of babying the car gone. Oh well, it was fun. Off to the solo course where at first, both of us couldn’t stop sliding it around the far sweeper. After the lunch break we got a little more serious about grip and pulled some respectable times given our street tires. The Soarer was nothing short of astonishing on the solo course. Not a particularly fast times but I was very impressed with the crisp turn in. No push, period. Hardly a sports car, the car felt good.My tires cost $100 a piece and they felt much more grippy then any other street tire I’ve driven including the AVS ES100 on the car previously. Laugh at the no-name Taiwan tire but at this price and the performance so for they are a bargain and I’d buy them all year.
All in all, a casual event that was alot of fun. By the afternoon Q was really hanging it out on the Test course and circle…but I’ll let him tell his own lies.
Q’s words… Meh… I don’t need to tell any lies.
I went up on Sunday, with drifting far far from my mind. I was gonna set the car up and feel out auto-x on mediocre, skinny street rubber. That changed on only my second lap of the skidpad. The back end just stepped out… and I didn’t want to let up. And so eventually… I was doing full throttle smoking laps (as much as a stock powered 86 can smoke) with the speedometer showing near 90km/h. To my pleasure, just a few laps of this taught me a lot about how to maintain angle. When to countersteer, how much… and finally… how to “saw” at the wheel to create more angle when things look like they’re starting to end. I’m telling you… doing this in a stock powered 86 has nothing to do with throttle control. My foot is flat on the floor 97% of the time! Generally I’m only lifting for transitional work. Not that I’m good… or you should be taking pointers from me. I’m just saying… I’m getting better.
When I finally broke away from the side course, and went over to the auto-x, I couldn’t ditch the sideways mentality. My tight and sure-footed auto-xer, all of a sudden feels like a monster. I can’t make the car go straight. I’m wagging it back and forth through the slalom, finding full lock in the sweeper… surely a lot of fun… BUT NOT FAST! I had in mind, an oldschool 86 video where Tsuchiya, Orido, Akira, Taniguchi and Kawasaki all show down in their home brewed 86’s on some tight 1st and 2nd gear course, for a grip run, and a drift run. I remember Orido’s drift time only being a couple tenths slower than his grip run (which was only beaten by KT himself). I thought that was the coolest things ever. I suppose my idea this year, was to somehow blend drift driving with auto-x. I’m not saying I want to come out and set FTD, or win my class… I just think it would be a great way to improve my driving and ready me future drifting.
So… back to the auto-x. I really only had interest in the times of a few cars. My good buddy Robin Tong (when this guy drove an HS ’86 last year he often beat the newer machinery) in a DC2 Type R on FM901’s, Ryan of course, and then just for reference sake the really fast guys in truly auto-x prepared cars. After the morning I was around 2 seconds back of FTD, a couple tenths up on Robin, and a second or so on Ryan who was complaining about turbo lag and the size of his car. Never sympathize with your enemies… I was legitimately sad. I had expected the two of us to be quite close. Sure… he’s gotta wait for boost to build, but when it does come on he has enough to trounce me. And, the 20 really is a foot and a bit longer than the 86… but have you ever seen a Z06 go through cones? Besides… my 86… being about as low as any 86 can go on 14″ wheels still sits a couple inches taller all around than his mild tune 20. And what else? He’s got double wish bones on all four corners! Real race car suspension. What the hell was I thinking… sympathizing with him. He should have been kicking my ass!
And that’s what he did in the afternoon. In a matter of three runs, he made that car look like Toyota built it for going through cones. Never placed a wheel wrong and set a time that was half a second quicker than anything I would reach. Now he had Robin were 2 seconds off FTD, and I was 2.5. I was furious… Went out again and again… trying to push, and not slide. My goal of fast drifting was over. I didn’t want to lose. But the car kept sliding… I didn’t get any faster.
In the end, I retired back to the other course, where, with Robin in the passenger seat I put together a couple solid sideways runs. As the full course… this was the most challenging section I’ve ever drifted, with a couple tight transitions into the widest corners I’ve ever slid and visa-versa. When it went right, it was perfect, relaxing… I thought about things like getting closer and closer to the curbs, my hands were always in their right place on the wheel. It was control…
I felt better, as Ryan wasn’t doing this… Of course… he doesn’t even have his LSD in yet… As this is the guy that taught me to drive… I fully expect him to be kicking my ass sideways in no time too.
I’ve got some work to do.