SCCA Event 4/25/2010 Auto Cross Part II

So the other cost I mentioned will be in the area of tires.

In this event I just ran with my street tires 255/50 ZR 16  BFG GForce Sport and stock rims (only chrome). There was a lot of tire spinning and some smoking.  The surface of the track was…well lets just say less the optimun..ok…fine…it was horrible.  (You could toss in a few cuss words in front of horrible and you wouldn’t be over dramatizing.)  It was black top, cracked, uneven and there was grass and weeds growing on the far end. The tires looked rough when I finished the 10 runs.  Too many more events (this was the second auto cross on these tires) and I think I’d have to replace them.

So that really means that to protect the street tires and the chrome rims, I really ought to have an other set of tires and rims.  Now you are talking money that many of us average guys aren’t going to spring for.  This is true for vette owners..tires are not cheap for the older vettes. Not so for my co-worker running his Civic, they are reasonable. 

Take my C4  the tires and the Wheels are uni-directional.  Not unusual for tires, but my 1984 C4 rims only go one way and are labeled left front, right front and the same for the rear.  I do have the original set of rims that I will eventually restore to the factory aluminum and clear coat, but right now they would for auto crossing.  But the rubber can run upwards of $700.00 and if I put racing rubber on it, according to SCCA rules it will change my class.

The last cost is the “I broke it cost.”  They could be just about anything on a car that’s racing.  Anything mechanical, brakes (oh..they will wear out a lot faster in auto cross…or at least the way I do it!!!!), undercarriage,  right down to the dreaded “cone damage”. (yeah…yeah….I know you aren’t suppose to hit them…I know the object of the race..but man did I kill some of them ‘good’..no doubt!!!)   I did no damage to the vette but I did see a Evo that took out a portion of his front air dam.

In fact the vette performed flawlessly, only problem was the driver.  I’ll get to that next blog.  You’ll laugh and I’ll give you my times and points and we’ll talk about PAX times and classes.

Thanks for reading.