I settled on the Nitto NT01 as a reliable r-compound for Mod class in the generally dry conditions in Socal.
I guess my only wet tire fallback right now is the Dunlop Star Spec, but they discontinued any sizes that would work for me beyond what I have laying around. Not a great wet tire anyway.
I am curious about the Maxxis RC-1 Victra coming out in 275-35-17 at the end of the year. I had a chance to chat with them at SEMA 2014, and they seemed optimistic that the aspect ratio would benefit my car.
Cage
We caged the GD at Pierce Motorsports. Jim’s guys have done many well-known Subarus; so, they were the obvious choice for me. As usual, I just copied the design used by Jager Racing.
Suspension
After a lot of frustration with my KW setup, I picked up Feal Suspension as a sponsor. I now have their coilovers on both my cars and have been fine tuning the ride height, corner balance and alignment. I’m looking forward to playing with different springs rates on the cars in 2015 and working with Feal to cook up a new camber plate design that will solve a lot of problems for the GD and GR chassis not currently addressed in the market.
Weight
Speaking of suspension, I picked up a set of scales. I also have been gutting the car and adding carbon fiber to improve my power to weight ratio. The GD is now under 3,200 lbs with driver and a half tank of fuel. Sadly, my love of cheeseburgers keeps us above 3,100. GR is around 3,500 lbs
Autocross
I tried my hand at an autocross event, but I do not think I will be going back. It was a lot of waiting for a 40 second lap. Still, it was pretty cool to drive on an active runway in Camarillo with planes landing at one end.
Presentation
I’ve been cleaning up the car little by little: reapplying vinyl bits, scraping out dynamat, updating driver pieces. I am really trying to get the car down to what I need and nothing else. Eventually, some rewiring may be in order.
Friends
As always, the car community continues to be my favorite circle of friends. We have had some good times this year; although, admittedly, we always seem to wind up spending a lot of them on our backs. I think SEMA 2014 was the only time we were not fixing something.
