Yesterday's Autocross season opener with the new setup

went....well, can't really tell. Since last season ended, the Subaru has gone from STi springs to Racecomp Yellows (330#) and from stock shocks to Bilsteins/GTWorx. Also a stage 1 tune. Also swapped full-tread RE01-R's in 225/45/17 for Shaved Yoko AD08's 245/40/17 on 15lb 17x8 wheels that won the DC region STX class last year (on someone else's car, of course).

At this first event (BMW car club at Waldorf stadium) I did manage to widen the gap between me and the guys who I usually am close with. So that's good. On the downside, the national STU champ, the DC area STU champ, and the DC STX champ were all present with much more complete-built cars and I was about 4 seconds off the pace of the fastest of them (all in STi's). So baby-steps. I felt faster than usual (or more out of control) but these tires in particular will take some getting used to for sure.

Results were finally posted. Josh Luster, the STU national champion, had FTD for the entire event, and in my class (X2) him and 3 other drivers too top-4 in the class in Subies (co-driving two of the fastest autocross STi's in the country. Jon Moon, the usual top dog at NCC events, took 5th about 2 seconds off the real fast guys. I took 9th about 4 seconds off the top guys, which I consider pretty good in a field of 20 cars for this class. I did manage to beat ALL of the Mazdaspeed3's, Cobalt SS's, and SRT4's, which is always a goal for me.

Other cars that beat me were an RX-8 on r-comps (grr), a 370z (also on r-comps I think), and a Porsche GT3. Being within 2 seconds of a well-driven car that costs 5x as much as mine makes me feel better :)

The real upside is that I'm now almost 2 seconds faster than two cars that I was head-to-head with last season and use as benchmarks, and gained a second or so on Jon Moon, the class leader. So the new tires, wheels, and suspension are making a difference.