This year I didn’t do much to the car in terms of mechanical mods but just maintenance. The tie rod ends were looking pretty rough with the passenger side nearly snapped so a set of tie rod ends from Mazda for a 93 LE were bought and easily put in. As a result the steering is much better and the 93 LE rod ends also eliminate much of the bump-steer lowered cars endure. With the Kumho XS’s almost at the wear bars I decided to sell them to pay for the mounting and balancing of my new Toyo R1Rs. Throwing away good ST tires that hadn’t been corded yet would have been just as bad as pouring out half a beer in the sink.  WASTEFUL!!

Car looks much better in “beastmode”. Chris Mayo is behind the wheel in this pic.

This test and tune would not only serve as a yearly reunion of my racing friends but also as a reunion of the old car club I was in during high school. My friends Vlad Dulgarov and Sean Brady were entering their Hondas. Vlad’s been one of my best friends since the sixth grade and always had jobs that had him working weekends or cars that wouldn’t have been fun to autocross but now he had a weekend off and a 2003 Honda S2000 to play with. While this would be Vlad’s first time Sean Brady used to autocross with me in his 1996 VW Golf GTI when I had my Camaro…and hair. Then Sean joined the Army National Guard and has since seen two deployments including one to Iraq as well as constant training since he’s earned the rank of Sargent. 

The morning of the event I dropped off the supplies I picked up and the Test and Tune was off to a start. We divided the 50 something participants into two groups and while one worked the other ran their cars. I skipped the first two runs riding shotgun with Sean and Vlad to help them with the course. They didn’t need much help though as Sean hasn’t missed a step since his last autocross in 2006 and Vlad took to it like a duck to water.

I finally got to hop into my car for my first run and cranked up Crazy Train by Ozzy Osborne on the stereo. The first run was magic. There’s a reason Toyo 195-50-R1R’s are on the fastest ST and STS cars at the Solo Nationals. Usually the first run on a set of new tires is just to scrub them in and they’re not 100% yet. With the Toyos they were amazing from turn 1. I’ve never had so much grip in this car. My first run tied the fastest runs of my STS competitors and my 2^nd run passed them up. As the day wore on Scott Krzastek and Tim Russell passed me by but not by much.  

With only one mechanical failure being an E36’s exploding coolant expansion tank the event went extremely well.

That evening I ended up finding a co-driver in Chris Mayo. The Honda he was going to drive decided it wasn’t going to stay in any gear for long. Not being one to take no for an answer and being happy about my progress in Call of Duty and wanting to quickly get back to it I told Chris to just drive my car.

Alan Grantham’s new nickname is “wildman” …do I need to explain why?

On event day for the first points autocross of the year I discovered a problem. It wasn’t really a problem for anyone else but me. The course was almost the same as the day before with few alterations. I’m one of those guys who are fast within the first 4 runs and after that everyone closes distance and I usually get passed.  My problem is that I become a creature of habit out on course and take the same lines on virtually every tight corner even if it’s a bad one. I’ve got to get past this and learn to change things up significantly each run.

First up out of our group was Sean who would be running in the second run group while my brother Justin, Vlad and I would be working the course. Sean heeded our warning of not making us run to pick up cones and drove brilliantly in the stock suspension Civic lifting one wheel in the air in corners just like he used to in the Golf. Considering he had only spent $300 on the car and a little over a grand on the CRV motor, GSR trans and 14” Dunlop Star Specs the car did great finishing with a 62.7 which was good enough for 4^th place in the TIRE class and would have put in in 5^th in SMF. I advised him to try the TIRE (tread wear 140 and above) class though as the top 3 cars in that class were running R-comp tires.  TIRE was won by Eric Stalcup in a 2011 WRX posting a quick 61.80 with Chris Belsky in a close second with a 60.4 in an Evo IX and Adam Flint’s ’06 STI with a 59.27. Now I know what you’re thinking…Dave you’ve got that finishing order backwards! Actually the TIRE class finishing order is judged by PAX time with every class these cars would have originally been in having a different PAX (or vehicular handicap value) it’s possible to have a seemingly upside down finishing order. This serves to make SMF a fairly even playing field for those who don’t want to shell out big bucks for race compound tires. The PAX times for Stalcup, Belsky and Flint were 50.74, 50.97, and 51.33 respectively.

Sean’s driving abilities haven’t missed a beat but he’s dealing with a little more body roll than the rest of us….ok alot more!

Meanwhile in SMF (Street Modified Front Wheel Drive) Jim Rimel’s 89 CRX on 15” Hoosiers with a 56.945 held off Justin Crenshaw’s radical turbocharged Scion XA’s 57.710. Close behind was Daniel Wendel’s 86 CRX which would have been a contender for 1^st place but kept hitting cones on virtually every run.  With come cleaning up this class could be a shootout between two very fast CRX’s. Michael Hastings Mazda 626 finished 4^th with a 60.1, Christopher Salzman’s Aerio 5^th with a 63.4 and Rodolfo Ros RSX closed out SMF with a 66.3.

Yes that is a front mount on an XA…and yes it's fast.Daniel's getting the 3 wheel motion on. Car was seriously quick.

In regular SM (Street Modified) STI’s ruled the field taking the top 3 of 5. Justin Mathews blazed ahead of the pack in Kyle Aichs’ ’07 all black STI with a 56.86 with David Lonnquest 2.44 seconds behind with a 59.30. Right on David’s bumper…or rather a nose behind was Kyle Aichs’ with a 59.31.

Justin Mathews and Kyle Aich's are driving what looks like the ultimate badguy STI. Badass car!

After Sean’s run group Nikki (my brother Justin’s girlfriend) and my co-driver Chris. Nikki had no practice from the day before but also showed no rust cracking off a quick 62.28 lap in Justin’s old blue Miata. Chris had a bit of adapting to do as although his ride to be at the autocross was a turbo civic; his usual rides are Camaro’s of the 3^rd and 4^th generations. Chris had never driven a car that had so little power and so much grip as my Miata. Chris adapted brilliantly though and cracked off a 60.02 which made all of us in STS a little nervous. Chris would end up finishing 9^th of 10 in STS although one could argue he actually finished 8^th because 8^th was an incorrectly classed BMW. We’ll get to the STS knife fight later.

The CSP cars were running all day due to the rental status of the Blue Bullet and Redbull, Lynn Comb’s and Mick Seal’s respective Miatas. The cars ran brilliantly and the results showed it. Lynn’s ’99 Blue Bullet took 1^st place in CSP with a 57.35. Mick Seal’s ’94 Red Bull Miata was only a turn signal length behind with a 57.38…they were 0.02 seconds apart. A little over a full second behind Mick was his co-driver and BRR-SCCA Equipment Trailer hauler Tim Windle with a 58.46 for the the Red Bull. Jason Combs took 4^th with a 58.84. Newcomers to the class Dylan Fitzgerald (’93 Miata) and Joe Hemphill (’95 Miata) finished with a 59.73 and 60.13 respectively. Dylan got the wheel tire deal of the year when Mick Seal sold him his old set of Diamond Racing steel 13×9’s with Kumho V710’s for $50. Joe also got a great deal on other 13” wheels with newer Hoosiers.  It’s a win-win for the boys at OASOB motorsports (Lynn and Mick) as they’ve made a few bucks on some old parts and boosted their competition by helping out some competitors.

Dylan got a blazing deal on these 13" CSP wheels and tires and put them to work!

Steffen Clark in his 84 Colt and Ryan Hansbarger found themselves lonely of competition in their classes this year for the first event with Steffen in DSP against himself and Ryan in FSP in the same situation. Steffen kept the Colt on 3 wheels for a majority of the course setting a fastest time of 57.746 which put him in 16^th overall Pax and 13^th overall for his raw time (overall meaning of 84 total entries in the entire autocross). Ryan added a limited slip differential to his 92 S10 burning both the truck’s rear tires past the finish line with a 63.023 putting him 66^th overall in Pax and 65^th in raw time overall. Not too shabby for a pickup truck on 300 tread wear street tires! Ryan’s brother Dylan Hansbarger also came out to Verona in his ESP Mustang knocking down a 67.268. With more seat time and a few mods he might be able to give his brother a run for the money!

Vlad and his S2000 did great on their first autocross.Jake and Chris were doing what they do best…killing old tires!

STS has an epic lineup this year. Due to SCCA rule changes the second gen Toyota MR2 has gone from STR to STS which had previously been just a battle of CRX’s and Miatas (although our region is essentially all Miata). Tim Russell, previous ES and STR champion is now in STS. Brock Clayton, multiple time FTD Pax competitor is also making a fulltime STS effort although for the time being he’s driving borrowed cars having thoroughly fragged a piston in his 93 Miata in the fall. Joseph Banks who has been within a fraction of a second of winning multiple events would be splitting his STS car with Brock this event. Scott Krzastek, the reigning STS champion was back driving the genesis of the Blue Ridge Region’s STS class in his 90 Miata. Scott’s Brother Ryan has been blazing fast on many occasions and now has HPDE training from VIR and Summit Point. My brother Justin, former ES champion and previous STS winner would be tough to beat. Andrew Jones brought his Miata shod with some less than ST-spec tires but had been improving a lot since last year. Of course then there’s me but it’d be egocentric and narcissistic for me to brag about my previous two STS championships…and it would also be foolish because I spent most of last year getting my ass kicked after switching to Kumho XS’s. Almost anybody could win and practice had the field bunched together. It was a tough battle the first two runs with the running order shuffling several times. After that it became clear it would be down to Scott, Brock or Tim. With one last all or nothing run Brock took the win with a 57.04 also setting Fastest Time Pax. Scott came in second with an ultra-close 57.196 which also put him in second overall in Pax. Tim closed out the top 3 in STS with a 57.965. Joseph Banks came in 4^th with a 58.301, Justin Lingenfelter 5^th with a 58.409, myself 6^th (^%$^#^!) with a 58.465, Ryan Krzastek 7^th with a 59.413, Stephen Tuttle came in 8^th in his miss-classed BMW with a 59.969, Chris Mayo was 9^th with a 60.027 and Andrew Jones closed out STS with a 61.364. Now for frame of reference to this class’s competitiveness and speed, 6 of the top 10 Pax cars were STS cars (YAY I at least made the top 10 pax)! Brock and Scott scored the 6^th and 7^th fastest raw times of the day as well. The top two STS cars were actually quicker than the CSP cars (STS cars with R-compound tires). Even 5^th place STS Justin Lingenfelter would have finished 3^rd in CSP. Mind you CSP is full of great drivers too! It’s crazy how fast these STS cars have become and is a testament to how far ST tires have come.

Scott drove the snot out of this thing and ended up in a very respectable 2nd place in class and overall in Pax.It's the best VW ever, a Formula Vee!! Glen's is technically a solo vee but close enough!

The Morgan is back and better than ever! Tom's 65 Morgan is now in SSM with slicks and a few toys under the hood.

With 84 registered competitors I didn’t even begin to scratch the surface of this event in its entirety but focused on the biggest classes and those of my friend’s Sean and Vlad who I hope I’ve addicted to motorsports. There’s a lot going on if you read the results at www.brr-scca.org . For instance if you read carefully you’ll notice that a stock 1997 Dodge Stratus driven by Samuel Reiman beat two Ford Mustangs with one being the new 2012 GT. To borrow and modify a phrase from an awesome Al Pacino football movie, “At any given autocross anything can happen.”

Very often I find myself trying to recreate the feel of a car with my words and I get the sense that I am coming up short on my end. I write then read, then re-write and re-read, you get the point… What I am trying to say is that when a car speaks for itself as much as this one does and then you add in the fact that I have never personally encountered this car, well you can imagine my struggle here.

The cars power source is a freshly built vr6 with a ported and polished big valve head sporting 42mm intake and 36mm exhaust valves that move the appropriate gases where they need to go. Some Schrick valve springs were installed with lighter mk4 INA lifters as well as some 268 Dougherty racing cams. This is all managed by a Megasquirt ECU which was dyno tuned on 94 octane and put down numbers of 200 whp and 184 lbsft, gotta love it! The exhaust escapes through ported and polished exhaust manifolds and out the back via a custom 2.5″ cat back exhaust with a Flowmaster muffler which I’m sure sounds amazing. Power is then put to the ground through a rebuilt tranny with Peloquin LSD and the gears are selected using a TM Tuning short throw kit.

The interior features a nice mix of OEM Volkswagen and aftermarket bits like the pairing of the 16v GTI Recaro door cards to the Momo steering wheel. The driver and passengers sit comfortably in VR6 Corrado front and rear seats and engine vitals are displayed through a custom Revolution and VDO gauge setup. The exterior of the car was painted Hot Rod Satin Black and the engine bay received a covering of Dolphin Gray from a 1964 356 Porsche after it was semi-shaved. OEM euro bumpers reside on the front and back of the car held on by OEM euro rebar and a GLI rear spoiler brings the exterior together out back. 16v fender flairs and a 16v front lip coupled with the badge less grill and smoked single round headlight conversion really gives this car a menacing look as it stares you down.

Rokker coilovers bring the car down to earth and a ABD 25mm front sway bar, Autotech 28mm rear sway bar, and poly bushings all around keep the car tight. The rear brakes were converted to disks and Wilwood Dynalite calipers with 11″ G-60 rotors were swapped in up front. The coupe rolls on 15×8.5 Schmidt TH Lines with white lips that have 195/45/15 Toyo Proxes T1Rs wrapped around them.

This car is a fine example of what a VR swapped MK2 coupe can be and I’m sure Taylor hated parting ways with it but sometimes you have to make way for new projects. Till’ next time folks, keep cruisin’ and take a minute to visit Ill Motion…

               By the time the final points autocross of the season came only 5 classes still had championships in the air. My class, STS, had long been decided upon Scott Krzastek’s winning streak. Scott was so far ahead that he could afford to miss an event in the STS class and elected to lend his car to one of the CSP title hopefuls, Pete Johnson. The classes of contention were CSP, F125, SMF, ST and STU. Being out of the championship I focused on a different goal.

                To add to the season points championships there was also the College Challenge aspect of the event. Madison Motorsports, Liberty University, George Mason, VCU and the Car Club at Virginia Tech battled it out and the top three pax scores of each school were to be averaged for their scores.  In the spirit of trying to win or improve the College Challenge for JMU (aka Madison Motorsports) I hired as my co-driver former Madison Motorsports President and fellow Miata racer Jake Theiwes.  The idea was for both of us to make back to back runs and heat up the Kumho XS’s and we would run fast times.

Mother Nature had other ideas….

                The morning of the event was cool and the lot at Verona was soaked with rain and drizzle that lasted almost till 9. Unfortunately, Jake had to leave early and was forced to run in the first run group…in the rain…on Kumho XS’s which aren’t exactly the tire of choice for wet weather autocrosses. Jake drove like a champ though and even held onto FTD for a short time. As a matter of fact before he left during the middle of the first run group he was in first place overall. After he left the sun came up and the rain dried up as the lap times went down. I elected to wait until the second group with the rest of STS to run the car and give the engine a little break.

                Within STS upon Jake leaving Ryan Krzastek, STS Champion Scott Krzastek’s brother, took first place with an incredible flying lap before he too had to leave early. Nikki Jamison then upped the pressure by running a lap only a second behind Ryan in her boyfriend Justin Lingenfelter’s car. In the second run group it was down to Justin and me in STS to get our laps in. Justin’s laps were unbeatable. His margin of victory was 1.9 seconds over second place…which was me. This was Justin’s first win in STS and I couldn’t have been more proud.

                CSP was a battlefield with there being only six tenths of a second between first and fifth place. With the points championship being between Tim Windle and Pete Johnson with Pete leading Tim was 4 points behind and needed a solid finish for himself and for Pete to have a bad day. While it was close and Tim finished well in third place, Pete was not far enough behind in fifth place and clinched his championship for the year. Scott Krzastek surprised everyone in CSP and showed them exactly what kind of competition we’ve been facing in STS by winning CSP in his underpowered 1.6 Miata on Pete’s 225 Hoosiers. Just a tenth behind Scott was Ray Schumin in second place and five hundredths behind Ray was Tim in third.

                F125, aka the FTD Karts, featured a showdown between Juan Jaramillo and James Newman with Jisu Kim entering the mix. By the time the tire/engine smoke cleared (gas/oil mix) James took the win by only 7 tenths capping off a great season against Juan. At nearly every race the two were less than a second apart . The top 3 kart drivers also took the top 3 overall fastest times with James in first, Juan second and Jisu third. James was even fast enough to take the fastest overall pax time of the day. While many might dismiss their performance and speculate that anyone in an F125 kart could outrun all the cars…well they would just be wrong. The course comes at the driver at eye level almost faster than an F1 race track but without comforting straits and there is no real suspension except the driver’s lower spine. These guys are tough.

                SMF saw an absent Jim Rimel clinch the title by 1 point when Michael Hastings finished an impressive second in his 92 Mazda MX6 to Bruce Crow’s developing 96 Civic DX. Bruce had endured a lot of teasing by Miata drivers for switching to the Honda camp but finally scored a win against one of his leading tormentors…me. He got me by six tenths although if I wanted to be a whiner about it I could mention that I was in the second run group in cooler wet conditions and he ran later when it was dry and warm but I will not complain…ok so I just did. WHATEVER!! Joking aside the car is coming along well considering Bruce has only had it for a few months and it’s still using its original 1.6 single cam engine.

                In ST Chris Perera’s 91 Civic Si put in a solid victory but second place Kip McLaughlin’s 95 Civic was able to outrun the other two drivers and take the overall points championship.

                For last year’s college challenge the results were a bit muddled and hard to tabulate in a fair manner with some schools only being represented by one or two drivers but this year the schools all showed up in force with at least 3 or more and some cases many more drivers. Results were tabulated by average of the top 3 drivers highest pax scores of each school. With a two-second lead and average pax time of 53.27 Madison Motorsports took the win with Liberty in second at 55.97, George Mason in third at 58.96, VCU in fourth with a 59.49 and Virginia Tech in fifth at 62.99. Madison Motorsports top 3 drivers were Kyle Cookmeyer, DJ Fitzpatrick and David Lonnquest. It was an awesome event and will only get better as the years continue.

We rolled in fashionably late the day of the show and the lots around Dash Motors and Performance were already packed with a wide variety of autos. The mischief crew really knows how to rope in the exotics and the big horsepower crowds one last time before winter sets in.

Everything from slammed European rides, crazy swapped powerhouses, one of a kind exotics, bikes, and full tube chassis racers were in attendance for the viewing pleasure of the seemingly endless crowd of spectators. If this event gets any bigger they may need to relocate! Live Entertainment was provided by LJ MTX & DJ Jon Deke who were on point all day.

This show has yet to let me down and I strongly suggest you attend the next event if you’re down for having a good time with other enthusiasts. The Mischief.tv crew and Dash Motors and Performance know how to put on a show… Check out MegaMeet.org for future events!