My First Auto Cross

[GT98]

I was invited to attend an autox over at Englishtown Motor Speedway park by friend of mine. I had a great time even though I found out that I have horrible driving skills I need to work on a couple things . Anyway my best time around the corse was 40 seconds, but an instructor took me around the track one time (first time ever driving the car at that) and pulled down a 37 second time. My buddy who has the same car as I ran a best of 37.2 seconds and came in second in the Novice G stock class. He had experance already with driving since he has a race prepared Fiat 124 and has driven other race preped cars.

Heres a photo of me in action LOL

[Dr Mordrid]

Fiat 'eh? I used to run a 1970 Fiat 124 in rallies and a Fiat Dino for street fun

Dr. Mordrid

[Tempest]

Nice to hear you had fun! Also nice to hear that those few seconds didn't annoy you too much, especially if the other guys had more experience than you. I've seen a couple of people that have ended their "civil track days" with scratched roofs...

Fiat 124 eh? Most of those go here by the "Lada" name, 'cause they're made in Russia. I've owned one, practised driving with it... Used to drive a '72 Escort RS 1600 too. My dad was one of the people who in their leisure time built the local motor stadium from the ground up, so I've had more than my share of motor racing and everything associated...

But hey, maybe you should show your friend and get a Fiat 126 for training. In the cheapest racing classes here they tune those up to 150 HP Rear engine, rear wheel drive and short wheel base - if you learn how to drive one of those, you can drive pretty much ANY rear-wheel driven car (okay, so the Focus isn't one)...

[ZokesPro]

GT sounds like fun!

One of my buddies is a security guard and on tuesday he's going to be watching over the Shannonville Speedway where they are going to be holding dozens of exotic sports cars and he's guarding the keys too. I don't know why they are letting him hold the keys but it just means that we will be able to have a ton of fun in the middle of the night!

[Dr Mordrid]

My Fiat 124 was an Italian made Sport Coupe and not the sedan. It was a blood red with a built 1600cc twincam (not standard timing, of course) four cyl. side-draft carbs, 5 speed, Abarth exhaust etc. etc.

Dr. Mordrid

[Tempest]

Originally posted by Dr Mordrid
My Fiat 124 was an Italian made Sport Coupe and not the sedan. It was a blood red with a built 1600cc twincam (not standard timing, of course) four cyl. side-draft carbs, 5 speed, Abarth exhaust etc. etc.

Like this: http://hometown.aol.com/Fiat124Coupe/home.html ? That's a significant difference to the standard matchbox...

Frankly, the Escort I drove probably wasn't a real RS 1600, but an Escort Mexico with a 1600 cc RS engine. It belonged to a friend of mine, and I drove a few rally-style tarmac events with ít (didn't do too good). Driving a friend's car is never quite the same as driving your own, I was goddamn scared that I might wreck it

I've owned an Escort 1300 myself too, but that was a 1974 model and pretty badly beaten up even when I got it (yeah right, that's what they all say)... Drove it on the track for fun for a few months until the engine gave up, then sold it for a few euros.

Edit: Curiously, I've never owned a normal road car... Only "training" & rally cars. I currently don't need a car, neither could I afford a decent one. But if I want to borrow a car, my parents' profession guarantees that there are vehicles available. They're a couple hundred kilometers away though, so that's not something that I can do on a daily basis.

[Dr Mordrid]

Significant difference indeed. Here's a dual Weber carb setup very similar to what mine had;



That baby could fly, but the Europa I drove for a friend was more "exciting" in that its mid-engine made it -feel- a bit twitchier as compared to a RWD car. Nevertheless the Europa did stick to the road even if it did make the driver reach for his "mediacation" once or twice

It certainly was nowhere near as evil in turns as a De Tomaso Mangusta (what was??), but then the Mangusta had those @#$@$$%^#%$ rear axel "instability" and vibration issues

Dr. Mordrid

[KvHagedorn]

That's a cute little car there, Scott.. where's the windup key?

[GT98]

Originally posted by KvHagedorn
That's a cute little car there, Scott.. where's the windup key?

It doesn't have a wind up key...it has a couple hamsters inside of it I really had to kick the crap out of them to move the car good that day.

I get ribbed alot about the car...esp since I had Mustang GT before getting this, but I was pleasently suprised at SVT Focus after I got it. It has just about the same power on the road passing people as the GT, but its a hell of a lot more confertable to drive then the Mustang and has tons more room in it

I was checking out the results of the race that day and there was a guy there with a 2001 Roush Mustang GT (Aftermarket prepped) and he only ran .75 a second faster then my buddy did that day, with car that has almost 100 more HP then he does