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I've been out of the game for a while, so I thought I would reintroduce myself. I'm an autocross junkie, and a convert from the AWD world. I started autocross in a heavy, slow 2001 225 Audi TT. The more I learned, the more I realized it was a terrible autocross car. So I sold the Audi and went on a search for a Lancer Evolution right when the X came out. That led me down a path of mods and fun for a few years, and in fact I'm still an Admin on evolutionm.net, a sister forum to CF.
After 3 years of racing the evo, and discovering that the new X platform was at a disadvantage to the prior IX platform on an autocross course, I grew bored with the car. That's when I took a drive in a friend's C5. The RWD bug bit me hard. It was such a different animal - significantly harder and rewarding to tame on a course. So I started my search for a C5, and eventually ended up buying a C5Z from a CF forum member. The first year of racing was very humbling. I went from a consistent top 6 PAX finisher to outside the top 10. I loved every second of it. In year 2 and 3, I was finishing top 4 despite having to go to SSP (now ASP) because I couldn't fit in the car without an aluminum seat.
I was having an incredible time, but in the last event of season 3, I had an oil problem that starved the engine in a sweeper and caused a spun rod bearing. At the same time, my wife and I had been going through infertility issues for 6 years and were faced with our last option of in vitro if we wanted to have kids. Unfortunately the engine cost, plus the $20k for in vitro was more than I was willing to dip into our nest egg, so the car had to go. Luckily a friend and co-autocrosser was interested in the car, and he bought it to repair and run. That gave us enough money for these:
Going from 0 to 2 kids overnight was a hell of a shock. It's been an excellent trade thus far though, I'm having a blast with them. In the mean time, I needed something to autocross. E36 328's had been moved to GS, so I thought I would give it a shot. Picked one up with 180k miles on it, bought tires and some used koni's, and ran it for 3 years.
The car was actually quite fun. It had excellent balance and loved to make expensive cars with lesser drivers envious of my times. I hate the open diff though, and didn't want to stick any money in it because I wasn't keeping it long. Sold it last year for a little more than I paid. At that time, I made an agreement with my wife that half my bonus this year could be added to the money from the BMW to buy a 350z. I didn't really want one, but it was really the only option in my price range to stay RWD and have a shot at competing at a higher level. I've searched since last summer, and couldn't find the right car for me. Then I spotted this 2002 Coupe w/ 96k miles at a local dealer who is almost always $3-4k over market price on all their vettes. The price was $5k under book. Something had to be wrong. I called, he told me the paint wasn't the greatest, and I was on my way to the dealer 2 hrs away.
He was right, despite no accidents on the record, someone had painted the car and did a bad job. It's a 10 foot car, because once you get closer you notice a couple creases and lines here and there. The interior has a few classic early-2000's GM era broken plastic pieces here and there that I will be replacing in due time. But when I started it up and drove it down the road, everything ran as smooth as the day it left the showroom floor. I went back, mulled the paint telling him he said the paint wasn't in good condition, not that it had a shitty paint job, and offered him a price $1500 under list. Sold. So here she is, my not-so-pretty autocross car that was had for the price of a '03 350z w/ 150k miles. I'll be waiting for my savings to replenish before I throw on some koni's and new tires, but in the meantime IT'S GREAT TO BE BACK IN A VETTE!
TL;DR Bought another vette so I can stop blaming my kids for making me sell the last one.
Thanks for all the warm welcomes. The kids got their mother's looks, so I can't claim much responsibility there (thank God). The car is coming along nicely. Fixed some electrical issues, the high pressure power steering hose is getting replaced today, and I'm budgeting for some goodies next season.
For some reason, the previous owner put in an Eibach rear bar and left the front stock, which seems counter-intuitive to everything I have been told about making RWD cars handle. I'm going to replace it with stock, sell it, and buy a front bar unless someone can shed some light on why I would stay with that setup (SCCA BS class only allows one bar swap).
07-13-2017, 10:01 AM
Re-Intro
