just wondering what happened to the stx crowd at the rome tour?? i want to here the story from the other side of the fence. i wasn't paying too close of attention to what stx was doing, but they seemed to be driving pretty good, so i'm baffled why stx' combined times were higher then sts' combined times. did everybody else do a kc and cone on every run but one?? i know myself i spent most of the second day drifting (overdriving) and left quite a bit of time on the table. was this the case with everyone else??

 

I coned all runs on Saturday but came away Sunday with two clean runs. As for why the times are slower than STS, STS has had a little more time to develop and tune the cars. I just put mine together this year and dont have it setup to the maximum allowed by the rules. Also, the Rome course seemed to suit smaller nimble cars as evident by some of the stock cars times. Give STX some time and we should get faster than STS... I hope.

 

"Also, the Rome course seemed to suit smaller nimble cars as evident by some of the stock cars times"

Right, an LSD helped no one at the rome event. Plus, STX is not as developed as STS since STX is brand new. I too just got my car put together at the beginning of this year and that was actually my first time on concrete with street tires and the suspension setup. Plus, cone issues made almost everyone develop a different strategy.

People are in STX panic mode right now for some reason. Give it a little while and it will develop.

 

I expect STX to engage the afterburners next season. Now that the class has had its 1 year trial run, I expect to see a lot of strong drivers in some very well prepared cars next season. That's not to say there aren't strong drivers in the class already, I'm just saying that the bar is going to be raised next year when we get a bunch more fast cars in the class. I know of at least one Cooper S that will be purchased in the near future by a strong driver and it will be built up to the limit of the rules for STX next season.

 

lsd's not an advantage?? lets see, rome was a tight course with a big turn around. i was getting wheelspin problems in several sections so i KNOW an lsd would have been even faster. and i only have 125hp!!!!!!!!! :D perhaps i'm expecting too much, but i figured with all the similarities between the itr and my car they would at least turn similar times. maybe the weight is a bigger disadvantage then the lsd and hp is an advantage? from what i could tell, the itr's were on a very similar setup as mine.


[Modified by solo-x, 1:17 AM 7/2/2002]