Went to a not-all-that-wet autox in Chattanooga yesterday cause I was all in a funk having not driven in a while. An hour and a half drive in the rain, with a car with no A/C or radio, makes for a bad way to wake up. Good news, only about 40 cars show. Yay! Bad news, this is Chattanooga, and they don't start until 11:00 anyway, so it'll still be all day. Oh well. Was leading SM by a couple seconds all day until a WRX with a claimed 280+ wheel horsepower pulled a fast run out of his *** and nudged me out by less than a tenth. I figure that I have about 90 horse at the wheels. I spent less than 3k on my car. This is supposed to make me feel better, but it doesn't. Rats.

 

And why not?

Was this the same blue one that runs at turner? I heard (from another wrx guy) that that dude in SM is making 300+ hp easy.

 

No. This one was Silver. Saunders' (the blue one) is fast too. Don't know what kind of crank HP you have to have to dyno 280 WHP on a 4WD dyno, but my guess is that it easily exceeds 320.
I lost basically because I was already strapped into the car and had forgotten to bump down the tire pressures in the front.
-And the car still doesn't rotate, AFTER all the time and effort at getting the rear down to less than and eighth toe in. Aligning a solid rear axle sucks.


[Modified by madhatter, 2:25 PM 9/23/2002]

 

Always makes me smile when I show up to a Corvette autocross and people are whining that "Oh no it's that Honda guy again".

Guys with their Z06s keep asking do I have a turbo on this thing to get such a fast time?

 

its great to see that people realize HP doesnt mean EVERYTHING... it still matters greatly, as you'll see on tracks with longgggg straights

 

He, I wish there were some Vettes and Camaros and whathave you with 400hps showing up so that we could pick on them. We only get the tough crowd around here in CRXs, Civics, Miatas, Rabbits etc...

 

The funniest thing is we all get made fun of when we show up. "Who let the ricers in" or "Why do they let this underpowered imports to our autocrosses"

Then we stomp on everyone and they all come up to us afterwards trying to find the turbo or other reasons why we kicked butt

 

Hehehe. Its funny when the scary stuff is all under 100whp.

 

my region held an autoX for the kitcar club last weekend, and I helped set the course up....while we were waiting for them to show up (they said first car off at 8, didn't show until 2!!) we all took turns running the course (about 4 of us). I set the fastest time, and when the kit car guys came I told them what the fastest time on the course was so far, and pointed to my car and said 'I did it in that' and they all kinda snickered! The only kit car to beat it was a lotus7 that is autoX'd! HP ain't **** in autoX

 

Bro I drive a 115Hp Civic DX, I feel your pain.

 

Chris, I looked at your times compared to some of the other classes there, and your little SM Civic beast kicked some serious butt! Sorry to hear you didn't end up at the top of the heap. Hopefully you got rid of some of the joneses from not autocrossing for a while...

 

Wife and I were staying at a B&B in Gatlinburg last week, and met a couple from IL. The guy claimed to be the head knocker for some Ford performance club. The car he was in a was a semi-tricked out Mustang "Cobra" convertible. Touted 500hp and blah blah blah. He mentioned that he tracked the car occasionally, and I asked where. He mentioned some track in his general area, but the telling comment to all this was "where we whoop some Honda ***". Now why would the owner of a 500hp Mustang feel the need to even mention a Honda as being something competed against and defeated? Why not a Porsche? Why not a Corvette?

As much as I feel he and his ilk might publicly hold Hondas in somewhat low esteem, the fact that he would make such a statement lays testament to a grudging respect for them.

And this isn't meant to be an "us vs. them" post. I just found the incident amusing.

 

This post is quite sad, I expected a lot more from the people in RR/AX forum.
Honda drivers should know more than anybody else that autoX is not about power, weight and handling and of course skill is far more important. But hey, if you need to brag about (almost) beating higher horsepower cars in a 2nd gear parking lot in order to pump up your ***** size, then go right ahead, whatever does it for you.
This really is no different from the drag **** "I 0wnz3d a mustang y0" posts

right. pure luck, Im sure skill had nothing to do with his run. real mature.
for all you know he could be a beginner or novice.

And it takes 2k to get a WRX to 280 whp. even less if you ghetto tune it DSM style

Look man Im sure you are a great driver and everything, but why pull this crap?
I beat a viper, an NSX, and a couple Corvettes this weekend but what is the point of bragging? Its a feaking autoX

Evan
-who has gotten beaten by many a honda

 

Actually, I have run against him in my own region several times, and know him enough to know that on longer courses he is fast. This was a tight lot. I was 1-1.5 seconds ahead of him the entire day, and was thinking that there wouldn't be a problem with getting beaten. I was basically lamenting my own lack of skills and preparation to run well.
So bite me if you have an issue. This is an open forum.

 

It's just friendly banter. I'm pretty sure if you go on any board you will see the typical I beat this type of car or that.

I bet the WRX guys say I out autocrossed or out road raced a "xxx" type car. Get a grip and chill out in a corner or something.

 

Really, who died and made Evan king? Seems like a lot of nothing to get your panties in a wad over... Can you say "over-reaction"? Good! I knew you could.

 

If you don't think HP plays a part at all on ANY auto-X course, you're demeted. Last local event had 1 90 deg turn, into a chicago box, into a WIDE slalom, wide 180, wide slalom back, another 180, drag strip back, 180 and another wide slalom to finish. It was a VERY HP based course. In my borrowed 3G GS Integra, i ran the slaloms at WOT. Faster cars hit bottom-middle of 3rd. On courses like that, the more HP of a car, generally, the better it will do. There's times driver skill and tight handling just can't make up the time lost to wide open courses.