Autocrossing...

[anderson@msai.mea.com (David Anderson)]

Any of you guys out there race your GLX?

I just starting auto-xing a month or so ago, at a "Test-n-Tune" event - pretty
much a for-fun thing.  Yesterday, I attended my first real event.  Brought home
a 3rd place trophy in NOVICE class!  I was quite pleased, this being my first
"real" event.  Unfortunately, that means I can no longer race in as a NOVICE.

The only things I've done to my car are remove the snorkel from the top of the
airbox, and replace the filter with an ABT filter (similar to K&N, but
supposedly flows even more).  Oh, and I'm using Dunlop SP SPORT 4000's instead
of the GA's.  (Advice:  The 4000's are much better than the GA's, but there are
still much better options.)  My car's a '95, by the way...

Anyway, I was talking to another guy at the race, who runs in his '95 GTI VR6.
 I hear he pretty much always wins his class.  He's upgraded the shocks to the
Bilsteins (HD, I think), and added the Brosal exhaust.  (He's still using stock
springs, since replacing springs moves you up into a harder class...)  But, he
told me that, when he first bought the car new, he autocrossed it, and it was
great - felt tight.  But, he said after about 16k miles, the shocks were gone -
had gotten really squishy.  I was wondering, has anyone else noticed anything
like this?  I just recently started auto-xing, so I haven't noticed if they've
softened up in the 41k miles that I've accumulated....

Oh, on the way home from the race, on an "unnamed stretch of isolated highway",
I decided to see what I could do.  On a straightaway, I quickly got up to
100mph.  I think the wind starting really becoming a factor then, because it
seemed to take much longer to get to 120mph.  But, the car still felt stable -
just a little floaty.  By then, I decided my headlights didn't reach far enough
(it was at night), and I was in the middle of the woods passing numerous "DEER
CROSSING" signs, so I decided to slow it down back to sane speeds.

But the VR6 sure sounded good at 5500rpm in 5th gear!

Just wanted to share,
Dave
anderson@msai.mea.com