SWortham tears it up through the cones (video)

[SWortham]

...well, not really. I was 3rd in my class out of 3.

I went with my Dad and my brother. They both drove my brother's Mazda 6s. It did really well out there with the Racing Beat sway bars. Tharptroy also came out and rode with me the first couple runs.

This was my best run. At the time I still had my Eibach springs & KYB struts installed...

November 20th. SCCA solo2 at Pennington Field in Bedford, TX. Run 4.
http://www.gldomain.com/Elantra/steve-autocross.wmv (video)

I also have some in-car videos and I should be able to upload one soon.

[J-son]

Good stuff,

And you are still just running a cai?

I live in Fort Wayne, In. and cannot wait till next season up here. I have alot of preparing to do and some supplies for the next season to get.

Do you like how the Eibachs hold up in the event or do you think you would rather have c.o.'s?

Cannot wait to see the inside shots! :D

Cheers,
J-son

[SWortham]

Yeah, just a CAI. My car is also not running as strong as it should be. I think I need to change the spark plugs because it's idling a little rough. [breath, here comes the excuses] I also had a problem with my tires. One of them had a leak and they all lost quite a bit of pressure overnight. All I had was a 5 gallon air tank and it didn't go far enough so I was racing on like 30 psi front / 26 psi rear tire pressures.

The Eibach & KYB's did pretty well. I would've seen the most improvement by setting my front camber more aggressively and getting better tires. On top of that I think it'll do even better with the new coilovers tuned properly.

But I also need practice. ;) I could have pushed it harder in some places and taken a tighter line in others.

[LateAPXR]

J-son, I did not realize that you lived in Ft.Wayne. I plan on starting to autox next season myself after I do some things to the car first. I did go and spectate the last one of the season that was at Kruse. Great to see another person here in the Fort. Hope to see you next season on the course.

I hang out primarily on ElantraClub.com. We should get together sometime and maybe work on the cars or something.

[Cypher]

looks good... i haven't checked your other thread are your coilover pics up yet? i like your avatar lateapxr lol

[LateAPXR]

Thanks, that's actually a real shift knob that I have and took a picture of.

I got it off of ebay a few years ago. Supposedly it was an award given to the executives of BMW-NA for a really good year in '97. Whether that's true or not I don't know but either way it's a cool trinket to have. :)

[SWortham]

looks good... i haven't checked your other thread are your coilover pics up yet?
Nope, not yet. I was having trouble uploading from my digital camera.

[Cypher]

aw hurry up i wanna see

[04GTboySC]

nice video dude

[ba_feitl]

seeing that makes me want to upgrade my suspension

Nice Video

[05xd]

Nice vid mang.How long have you been doin auto-x?I've thought about trying it out,just to test my skills

[Vampyrate]

scott i love the sig! it should say: "Keeping EXD fed since 2003"

[SWortham]

Nice vid mang.How long have you been doin auto-x?I've thought about trying it out,just to test my skills
This was my 2nd event. A lot of beginners tend to overdrive the tires. And I did that with my very first run in the first event. Now I've dialed it down and am trying to find my feet.

Competition is tough, but it's a blast. I need a better prepared car and better skills to win in the FSP class though.

[05xd]

My friend runs a 04 Accent in FSP over here.He's been trying to get me into it.I might this spring when the new season starts.That gives me time to get better rims and tires

[ArunSenior04]

That looks like alot of fun.

[KeWLKaT]

sweettttt

i was hoping to see one of your rear wheels lift though :(

[BlackElantraGT]

This is a stupid question, but do you win anything or is there some kind of prize if you win an Auto-x event? If you do really well do you get to compete nationally?

[SWortham]

This is a stupid question, but do you win anything or is there some kind of prize if you win an Auto-x event? If you do really well do you get to compete nationally?
You get a trophy if you win in your class at a regional event. They also gave away a set of tires to somebody at this last event.

They do have national events but I'm not sure how they work.

[tharptroy]

i can vouch for steve's air pressure, it was crappily low

[J-son]

If you show that you can win event you can get sponsors to help with parts to be more competive in your class. BUt I would imagine you would need some contacts and keep some log time and such to get this kind of setup. One guy I spoke with last season told me that his local tire guy would set him up with $400 in tires, this would help alot.
The big thing with solo2 is that you can really test you skills and car legally and have fun doing to. I am guessing that most of the big guys that road race had to start somewhere and sutocrossing was probably it.

off topic: LateAPXR: I will email and pm you! Sound great. My division has team leaders this year and I am one of them. I will get you some info for you.

Cheers
J-son

[paki]

i saw it off a link on ElantraClub.. hell.. i downloaded the thing and its on my desktop. It was beautiful steve.. i regret missing it. Now i will definitely go to the next one :)

[SWortham]

Cool, I'll let you know when we're going next. The next SCCA event is in March. But I may find another club around here to race with before then.

[sleepergt]

hey swortham i take it your part of the scca. which club/region do you belong to..and how much?

[SWortham]

I'm not a member actually. I'm not sure if the membership is worth it if you only do solo 2.

But I register right here:
www.autocross.com/texasregion

I've only gone to Texas Motor Speedway and Pennington Field so far. Registration is $25 for non-SCCA members or $15 for SCCA members.

[Cypher]

whats overdriving the tires? i finally watched the video... looks fun... doesn't put alot of stress on the car? thats why i wouldn't wanna do it

[SWortham]

Overdriving the tires is when you're pushing so hard through a corner that the tires cry out as you slide sideways. There's a point where pushing it too hard actually makes you go slower. Finding that point of maximum grip is somewhere between where the tires are slipping but not screaming for mercy. Or to throw out a technical term -- that's the optimum slip angle.

I probably should have been pushing it a little harder than I did and I definitely would have if my tires were inflated more. You could see them rolling over in the video.

And no, it doesn't put too much stress on the car... just the tires. You're not going fast enough and you're not out there long enough to burn up your brakes or anything like that.

[joehyundai]

why don't you run the car in STS? It's a slower class and will give you a better shot at winning? It looks like your car should be legal for it.... What kind of tires do you run? Most of our locals run Falken azenis of Kumho MX. I read that the new Hankook Ventus is a good auto-x tire, I may replace my potenzas with them next season.

BTW are there any SW Missouri people here? It be cool if I wasn't the only Hyundai in the local chapter...

[SWortham]

Unfortunately, my Tiburon brakes put me in a higher class. And I found out recently that I should actually be in SM. Neither STS or FSP allow big brakes. So basically I won't stand a chance in SM since it also allows much bigger upgrades like forced induction and LSD.

I'm using 205/50-16 Yokohama AVS ES100's. I didn't exactly modify my car with the intent on fitting into a class. Autocrossing was an afterthought. But I'll probably be getting 215/45-16 Falken Azenis RT-615's for my next set of tires.

[joehyundai]

Autocrossing was an afterthought.

I can relate to that - auto trans

[XTRAWLD]

Nice vid!! I have the Falken Ziex's on my car in the summer and they are great, not as great as Toyo Proxes, but they are decent for the money. When I had my coils the car was on rails, with the Eibachs I'm a little scared to push it too far.

[SWortham]

with the Eibachs I'm a little scared to push it too far.
Ahh, go ahead, what's the worst that could happen? Just kidding. ;) I know what you mean, good coilovers seem to raise the handling capabilities up a notch.

[only1db]

Ahh, go ahead, what's the worst that could happen? Just kidding. ;) I know what you mean, good coilovers seem to raise the handling capabilities up a notch.


yeah just a little...hopefully i will have time next spring!!

[SuperGLS]

How did I miss this thread until now? Anyway, Steve, any chance we can get the video as a regular mpg?

[SWortham]

My brother is doing the video editing. So I'll ask him to encode it as a mpg, although I think anyone should be able to play this wmv if you have Windows Media Player 10 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b446ae53-3759-40cf-80d5-cde4bbe07999&displaylang=en) for XP or Windows Media Player 9 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e0175119-9a5b-44c3-b1de-9b2a9aa6cff6&displaylang=en) for 2000. And we'll eventually have the in-car videos up.