My first supercharged autocross

[kurokoma-kun]

Originally Posted by LtNoogie

KK, please post another thread in the Racing forum about the autocrossing. I can't wait to read what you think about the response, especially coming out of a turn.

OK Noogs, here yuh go Not too many pics to share, I was too busy getting my sh*t together, lol! This was my first event of the year, as well as the first with the new supercharger, so lots of fumbling around trying to remember what to do. For example I drove my first run in my birkenstocks instead of driving shoes, forgot to adjust my suspension settings for the first half of the runs, and repeated the same navigation mistake 3 TIMES resulting in DNFs. I came in 4th out of 6 in my class (STM, which is basically SM on street tires) and 12th I think overall, out of 21.

So, still middle of the pack, about par for the course for me and the Yaris, but the season is just beginning! And experience counts for so much; for example my best time was dead even with a verteran autocrosser in an older stock celica (different class), yet I beat a beginner in a new-ish Evo by two full seconds, go figure. This is only my 3rd season racing, so I'm really still a Novice... I feel sure that with more seat time I'll be able to get some impressive performance out of the Yaris by years end. It's always tons of fun in any case.

Unlike so many of my club's courses this one on Sunday was fairly fast and had one long straight, so it was very nice to have strong acceleration into 2nd gear. Throttle modulation very easy, very responsive at all rpm. To answer Long's question, the car felt very stable going into a corner--I think the little bit of extra weight from the supercharger up front helps--anyway, I felt like could brake just a little later now and still get the same weight transfer to the front tires. Then, powering out of a corner, I felt like it was much easier to get the rear end to slide just a little, then "snap!" back on line.

I wanted to adjust my tire pressures to get the rear end to come around better, but made other changes to the car over the winter, for instance I no idea how to account for the back seat I removed. So I changed pressures several times... a couple pounds lower pressure in back (30F/28R) seemed to get the best balance between break-loose-itude and grip. When this was working, it was fantastic!--when it was not I was spinning one wheel a lot...
Hey, Garm wanna sell me a LSD?