Originally Posted by
cockerpunk
oh man, delivered a CRUSHING 1.1 second smack down yesterday in class.
Context:
if you didn't know, yes, my trolling and trouble-making does extend into real life. and it is particularly annoying to this guy in our club named charles. he is a heart or brain surgeon, can't remember, the point is he makes a fuck ton of money. and instead of going club racing like i would if i had that kind of money, he still "enjoys" the poor mans autosport: autocross. i have my reasons for why i think he does this, but he does, thats a side conversation. charles is no well liked in our club.
anyway, charles and i do not get along. mostly because i am an unconventional person. i do things because i enjoy them. while Charles tends to be directly by the book, at all times, and cannot fathom why one would do anything other than the established handbook. im sure this makes him a great doctor, as when someone is working on my brain, i'd really prefer them to be using the book as strictly as possible. but it also means that me, being the musing, silly, and far more intellectually wandering me cannot understand one another. i get drunk and wonder about the nature of adhesion and friction in a pneumatic tire for example ... he interprets this as me trying to think my way into better driving, or picking better tires, or something like that. in reality, i just wonder about these things. no real relationship to how competitive my car or driving is, its just interesting to me. see also: the elastic spring theory of the static to dynamic friction transition. anyway, i dont actually dislike him much, i know i am weird, and thats fine, but it just grates him like no other. he cannot understand that anyone is unlike him, or could think and process differently than him etc etc.
anyway, we have had several quite public blow ups over the years.
so this year, with 2 of my best friends with FI miatas, and me with a swapped spyder, we all fall into a class called super street modified. the SCCA rulebook IMO correctly is biased against HP, and if you do anything real to get any real power upgrades to your car, it puts you into a wild class. super street modified is one such class. SSM cars are running 2 inch ride height, massive areo, 10 inch wide hooisers, springs 2-5x stiffer than even stiff street suspension ... a true SSM car is serious business. its a solid 30 grand build.
so we came out and said this spring, hey, we are gonna run in SSM this year, but we are gonna agree to run street tires, not hoosiers. this essentially limits SSM to a fairly reasonable class. we call is SSMG, for super street modified gentleman's agreement.
anyway, so we overnight tripled SSM class sizes as there are tons of folks who have these kinds of cars, they wanted more power, but are not willing to destroy there car into a true SSM car. average event attendance in SSM went up from 2 or 3 cars, to 10-12 for every event. SSMG has been a smashing success.
back to charles ... charles thinks he is a phenomenal driver. and really, he is quite good, won national level trophies a few times, he is no doubt talented behind the wheel, that combined with his financial position and he makes a tough opponent. he can just bury you in new tires, upgrades, rebuilds etc.
anyway, so he catches wind of the SSMG thing, and seeing a great opportunity to smack me down a bit, builds a monster.
keep in mind the average SSMG car is:
2100-2300 lbs
150-210 bhp
streetish aftermarket suspension
stock LSDs or open diffs
7.5-8 inch wheels with 225 wide tires
the monster charles builds to compete in SSMG:
2400lbs
400+ bhp built turbo motor
full double adjustable prepared level suspension (car arrives on a trailer)
9s in front, 10s in back
OS giken diff (~3 grand right there in just a diff)
the zebra is a monster. absolutely insane. i also just was talking to him about it, and they found some metal in the sump, so he just on a whim had the whole motor rebuilt last month. you know, cause charles. and he has the resources to toss 5 grand at a motor just cause there are a couple of shavings in the oil.
anyway, first event, he beats me by about 4 tenths, but the car wasn't working that great. second event, car breaks down. so he brings his 997.2 porsche GT3 on hoosiers ... and i beat him by 3 tenths. third event, he shows up with a nissian GTR, track prepped, with hoosiers, and i lost to him by 80 milliseconds (coned away a 5 tenths faster run). we both missed the 4th event of the season, but this weekend at the 5th event, the monster is back, after all this work was done to it. and then i commandingly laid the smack down on him to the tune of 1.1 seconds. he had one run that was about 3 tenths off my pace, but he coned it. so even if he was clean, he could not have won.
so, i have no idea on what is gonna happen next. i honestly did not think i could beat the monster when it was working properly. but then i not only beat it, but pretty legitly dominated it. with his wealth, and with what he has already brought out to beat me with so far this year ... i have no idea what he is bringing next. could literally be anything. anything on 4 wheels, with almost anything done to it.
i mean the troll in me has to laugh. im happy with my car and my driving, and trying not to humble brag, but it must just be grating in such a perfect trolling way to have beaten him or come close that often and with such a cost and performance differential. as a good troll should, it makes me giggle.