Just got home from the Bristol National tour and had an absolute blast. A huge thank you to Chris Kunkel for both letting me drive the bat [PooPoo] crazy J2 "Jeep" and also being a great team mate throughout the competition.
The venue was the Bristol Motor speedway parking lot. It is high grip asphalt with lots of elevation changes and bumps.... Lots of big car braking body hurting bumps. Most of the speed was limited by how much of a beating you were willing to put your body though. There were about half a dozen cars with suspension failures, but fortunately the jeep held together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVNJn8qOuR4We started the weekend with the 2 day Championship tour. On the first day right before we were about to run (as in already in the car ready to go) it started raining, it only lasted about 10 minutes but completely flooded the course and no one had time to put on rains. As you can see from the video it was a lot of fun. We then had drying conditions and Chris and I went faster on every run but both coned the last runs. Day 1 Chris was in top spot by 0.1 seconds and I was 4th, about 1.1 seconds back.
Day 2 Chris and I ran very similar times, I set the fastest clean time in class which was enough to move me into the final trophy spot (3rd) only 0.157 behind Craig. Chris took care of business and won the class.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVjmbUMRpjkOn Monday we did the Match tour which is basically a Champ tour in 1 day. We did over 1300 runs in a single day which meant very quick drive changes and very little time for the car to cool which took it toll on the car. In the morning session I had great times on my 2nd and 3rd runs. The tires were getting really greasy due to the quick changes and Chris got a DNF for his 2nd and 3rd leaving him on his 2 cone first run. I finished the session with about a 1 second lead.
In the evening session I put down a great first run on cold tires. I think the rest of the class were then all pushing really hard to catch me resulting in lots of cones and DNF. With the heat and quick driver changes we were really struggling, my 2nd run was really quick and I had the fastest non kart time for the event but unfortunately tagged a cone. I also cooked the tires and boiled the rear brakes. Chris took it easy for get a clean run to build from. I was up on my previous time by half a second on the final run but the tires got too hot and I think the rear brakes were starting to drag a little and I spun the car. Chris skipped his last run to save the car. I finished with a 3.6 second lead on the class for my first National tour win.
I quite like this whole arrive and drive thing. Chris and I discussed a list of things to fix at Dixie and at the next event they were all done. We created a new list at this event and I'm sure Chris will take care of them again. It much easier then doing the work yourself. The car itself was great, the power is amazing and the car felt neutral. The worst thing we had to deal with was the extremely bump course.
I still have some improvement to do as a driver, I sat on a cone in the Champ tour and lost 1 second to a cone in the Match tour. I was really starting to get a feel for the car though and getting really confident. Between us we won both competitions and a set of tires for Nationals too. Again a big thank you to Chris for the co-drive and I look forward to seeing what this car can do on concrete at Nationals.
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2015 & 2016 EMod Florida State Autocross Champion
2013 & 2014 DSP Florida State Autocross Champion
Scrap Metal Build Log
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