Autocross | 365-racing.net Blog

Over 50 people travelled nearly 2000 miles for this event. To help, to spectate, and to support. We are extremely thankful to all friends, family, supporters, and sponsors. No way in hell could we do this without you all!

Now, onto the trip, which really started a long time ago, but we’ll start it on Wednesday, which is when I flew into Las Vegas. We arrived late in the day, so we didn’t have much time to do anything. It was cool to walk into the Stratosphere and immediately see a bunch of people wearing the RSMotors T-Shirts.

Thursday morning we walk to SEMA. SEMA is HUGE!!! If you ever have the chance to check it out, I strongly recommend it. There is SO much to see its mind blowing. Most of today was spent checking stuff out, getting registered, few interviews, and then a nice evening of dinner with the Race Ramps crew. Following dinner, we found a crazy Limo driver that took us to all the best places. We even found Ron’s favorite casino game. We found ourselves crawling into bed around 3am.

Friday- Late morning. Get breakfast, and head back over to SEMA for the Optima press conference. Walked around some more, met with the awesome QuickTrick people, then geared up for the SEMA cruise to the after party, SEMA Ignited. Thousands of people watched as all the SEMA cars left the show.

And a few pics from SEMA Ignited:

After the after-party, we went back to the hotel to get a good nights rest. Well some of us did.

Saturday- The competition begins! We were split up into 2 groups. One half does the Speed-Stop challenge while the other half does the autocross. Halfway through the day we flip-flop. I wont go into the details for all of us, that’s too much typing. If you want all the details, you’ll just have to join us next time.

Pictures from Saturday’s Autocross and Speed-Stop.

After Saturday, came Sunday, which is Road Course day. We got 4 sessions to put down our single quickest lap.

All in all, this experience was awesome. Cant wait for next year.

Full Results: http://www.optimabatteries.com/index.php?cID=2952

In-Car video of the Road Course:

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Honda really did build an awesome car. And what better event to take this car to than Optima’s Search for the Ultimate Street Car.

As some of you know, this S2000 (also nicknamed “Ice2k”) has been driven hard by a few of us. Eric got some serious hang time, Mike plowed it into a rock of ice, Shane and Kirsten went through a few snow banks, and Andy’s done most of the above. This car has also been the “training” car for many and has been used for driver development. It truly is driven hard and driven 80 miles round trip to/from work daily. It loves every minute of it.

So when we heard Optima was searching for that Ultimate Street Car, we figured we better participate with the best street car we know of.

The week prior, we gave the S2000 all the missing attention from the past year. New windshield, radiator, A/C system, newer shocks, Hawk brakes, new RS3 tires (borrowed from Mike), some new fluids, and to top it off, a new front bumper. Oh and let’s not forget its first ever coat of wax.

Friday at noon Eric and I departed Stevens Point and headed to Michigan. Dodging some traffic jams in the Chicago area brought us to MIS in just over 8 hours. After a trip to one of the most interesting taverns I’ve been to, we called it a night.

Saturday Morning- For some reason we found ourselves at a car wash. I don’t know what this was about but Eric tells me the judges like a clean car. After spending too much time at the car wash, we drove to Michigan Speedway which was a really far 2 miles away. Instantly upon our arrival we felt a bit out of place in our cheap little Honda. Got the car through tech and received our mandatory sticker pack.

First up, Speed-Stop Challenge. This was a 300foot drag race followed by a 180 degree turn-around and a 3 cone slalom with a box at the end. You must stop inside the box without overshooting it or the run becomes a DNF. The best I could muster in the S2000 was a 15.0. This was good enough to secure 2^nd place.

Next was the Autocross. I felt much more at home here and was able to pull off the 1^st place win with a 31.5 run.

There was also a Design & Engineering competition, which I pretty much failed at. The Honda did have all required street car amenities but lacked any creativity due to its almost bone stock-ness. I scored pretty low in this.

The last competition of the day was the Road Rally. This was a 60 mile trip to the Lingenfelter private collection. It wasn’t a difficult competition but it’s one that can ruin everything if you don’t make it there before the deadline (or get pulled over by the police). We made it and received full points here. Then we ate next to millions dollar cars.

Sunday, the BFG Hot Lap on the road course. This is what it really came down to. In order to win the Vegas Invite, I needed to secure a 1^st place on the road course. It wasn’t looking to good either as I only had 200hp to work with on a very open course with several big straights where the power could be put to use. I spent most of the day driving as hard as I could, reviewed data to find any lost time, and taunting the competition. In the end it was a very close battle but I was able to sneak out with the 1^st place win on the road course with a 1:29.96.

So, it seems like the 365Racing crew will be making a trip down to Vegas in November along with some of our good friends of the RSMotors racing department. We are looking forward to trip!