well, over the weekend, i decided to join a friend of mine, and go to a local SCCA event. ( http://www.scca.org/ )

as he explained it to me, its a cone course laid out in an abandoned airfield. all you have to do is follow the cones as fast as you can. the fastest time of the day (FTD) gets a small cash reward, pooled together from the registration fees (the more participants, the higher awarded).

here i am, following a friend in his Taurus SHO, thinkin, if the rest of the field is like him, i might stand a fair chance. afterall, its friggin kansas, right? we pull into the site, and i already knew i lost.

the field had about 10 corvettes, the oldest about 97, 98 maybe. 2 firebird / trans am - one is heavily modified, with nos. besides an alfa romeo spyder (an older style, maybe late 70s, early 80s, and some mg that ive never seen before (the cones were up to his window), that wraps up the rear-wheel drive. oh...except for a Honda S2000 on racing slicks.

the rest of the feild is civics, crx's, focus', neons, miatas, etc. they ranged in skill level from very factory on radial street tires, to a neon with almost no exhaust, custom suspension / steering, turbo moded, and the only thing inside the car is the drivers seat and a roll cage. great. i think the only cars even near my weight, was *maybe* the taurus, which stuck out like a broken toe, and there was an audi. however, the audi was a TT quatro, so that doesnt count lol

well, after 'teching' the car, which is just a race-ready inspection (leaks, loose items, secured battery, etc), they sort us into classes. im #46, in STS class (street tire stock, i think). well, there were 4 'heats'. a heat, is just 1 parade lap with everybody, then everybody starts in order of their number, 30 sec apart (which was fine, the course was short enough to where 30 sec was pretty much half way thru).

unfortunately, the only picture i can give you guys, is of the taurus SHO. to help each other out, and since everybody takes a part, there is 2 things to actually do during the event. 1 is race, the other is 'work'. basically, you place yourself strategicly in some part of the track, and when somebody pegs a cone, you run out and replace it, and notify the time keepers of the penalty (2sec/cone). this is a friend of mine on the course. he was unable to take a photo of the volvo grinding around cornerns, because, he was 'working' while i was racing, and they wont allow cameras on workers, a saftey thing. [&o]
i know the quality is poor, but it was actually pretty far away, and my hands were shivering. it was 38*F and raining. the rearwheels were having a hell of a time keeping it straight and getting a good time.


the average time was about 58 sec around the course. slower than 60 sec, your slow. faster than 55, your fast. the FTD was 50.??? in fact, by .. of course.. the S2000. very close to him, with 50.??? was an acura awd.

out of the 4 runs i did, 2 of them went DNF (did not finish). this means i went off course somewhere. most DNF's were somebody didnt see the turn, and sailed past it, or went outside of a turn, or spun out, etc. loosing control doesnt disqual you instantly, but to stay in , you have to enter the track where you left. by the time you got this accomplished, the run was already blown, so there was no point. my first run was 66.?? sec - i pushed it, but not hard, never done it before, was tryin to learn the car/course. the 2nd run, was 62s. im fine with the car, the course was still odd. the last 2, i flew past a corner before i relized it >.< i think i could have dropped it under 60 sec, had i not made my own path thru the cones.

all in all, for $30 non-member registration, it was kind of neat. my car had about 800-1k lbs on the rest of the field (except the audi, but that dont count - the damn thing wasnt even registered for street legal use, it was built for this crap). im N/A, with street tires (falkens, but not racing, just performance).

i like to think of it as
1) i had the FASTEST VOLVO
2) i had the FASTEST WAGON

[8D]


for more info on SCCA Solo II ( the cone - course )
http://www.scca.org/Solo/Solo2.asp?IdS=00F0BD-7196960&x=050|030&~=

on the left nav bar, hit Solo

 

sounds like a lotta fun. bet noone expected a volvo to show up haha. i was checkin out pics of ur car a little while ago...WHERE DID YOU GET THOSE LIGHTS?? they are insane.. did u get them from EST?

 

Cool glad you had fun.

 

You participated in an auto cross event. I have been competing in SCCA, BMW CCA, and Porche events for 20 plus years. Your auto is running against autos of the same class and so who cares if someone shows up with a vette? I run BMW's which regularly beat the vettes as it is all about handling and as you have heard....."BMW, the ultimate driving machine". The fun you will have will eventually get you in trouble as you will next buy a set of track tyres and from there you will modify to track prepared and then to a modified class! It is a disease! Your Volvo WILL compete against similar autos and so your driving skills will also improve and then you are hooked! Have fun!
REG

 

S70turbo1999 -

i got em at www.vptuning.com - im not sure if they're the cheapest you can get, but they have a few things for an s70 i believe - also look at
https://volvoforums.com/m_21871/tm.htm

 

Re title of your post-did you realize that your friends SHO was Yamaha powered? bj

 

lol, yes, hence the irony >.<


he actually has the ford oval swapped out for the yamaha badge, on the front

 

thanks for the link flame. ill think ill start savin up 700 for the DOT jewels haha its gonna take a while...

 

............and the sad thing is.............Volvo is going with a Yamaha engine................. Didn't work for Ford...........probably won't work for Volvo. That engine had a ton of problems!
R