<VV> SCCA Workshop/autocross day

[BBRT]

Fantastic!  Way to go Warren.

Chuck S
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <levair at aol.com>
Subject: <VV> SCCA Workshop/autocross day


> all,
>
> This Saturday we had an SCCA workshop in Indy/ Central Division.
> At these workshops we have seminars on tech inspection, course design , 
> safety registration, car prep. Suspension, etc.
>   I did the tech inspection portion.
>  I used my race Yenko Stinger for the tech example and also a MIni Cooper, 
> Neon STR4, and an Lotus 7 Clone.
>  The students just couldn't get enough of the Corvair. The wanted to sit 
> in in and were fascinated by the engine and it's location. It also looks 
> very Nascaresque racy. This was great publicity for us.
>   Sunday I took it to the Columbus air port for my first autocross of the 
> season.
>   The lying weatherman promised 50 deg. and sunshine.
>  It was 40 and dreary, but the racing was great. We got 6 runs on a 
> reasonably fast course.
>  I went there to test some theories on autocross gearing setups.
>  I took my own advice to students and really went for it on my first run 
> to determine ultimate cornering speeds. I was embarassingly all over the 
> track and very sideways---but I got people's attention---old, cold slicks 
> on a cold track and a very peaky race track engine.
>   But I got successively better until I turned the fastest time of the 
> day!.
>   There were about 20 or so students there from an engineering college 
> with their class project R X7 race car and 5 drivers.
>  Again they were simply fascinated by the Corvair. they just couldn't get 
> past the very unusual engine and the cars supposed underdog reputation.
>   I had an engineering student passenger ( babes also) on every run.
>   They were astonded by the speed of this car like their grandmothers 
> owned.
>   We now have Corvairs burned into the minds of a great number of young 
> people.
>  The only thing better would have been several more Corvairs--you know who 
> you are.
>
> Reminder: there are two autocross schools in this area.
>  FortWayne , IN first weekend in April and Columbus IN First weekend in 
> May.
>
> Transmission research: If you insist on running a peaky track engine , you 
> must have a gear close to the one you're running in the straight portions 
> to shift down to , to prevent the bog I experienced coming out of slow 
> decreasing radius turns.
>   Whether you want to admit it or not; autocrossing ,unfortunately ,has 
> become very much dragracing out of slow turns. Shouldn't be, but is.
>
> Warren