Setting Baselines

I finally got a chance to take Kay out to her first autocross today. I was initially planning on attending the Porsche club event at Poconos Raceway but opted instead to go to the Philly SCCA autocross at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. It would give me a better baseline as there are lots of good drivers with very well prepped cars that I could use to compare against.

Ready to run - 8-26-2018

One thing I love about the Philly SCCA region is that they're a well-oiled machine and as you might expect the event ran smoothly and we were easily done by 3pm. The downside is that we only had 4 runs. From a competition perspective I'm fine with this but from my goal to get enough seat time to learn a new car, this was a bit limiting. The course was also relatively short and the surface was a bit slippery with a good number of off-camber corners (just the way the site is banked so this was unavoidable).

Philly SCCA Autox - 8-26-2018

In the few runs I did have, I learned a few things:

• You kind of have to keep the Cayman running between runs so that the engine can cool (you can't just "lift the hood")
• As the engine cools, the radiator fans blow an insane amount of hot air out which is great. This air is directed into the front wheel well. 
• Neat feature if you're trying to get your tires warm
• Not so neat when you're trying to keep the tires cool!
• There is a very noticeable difference in Sport mode. The dampers definitely tighten up and the throttle response is quite abrupt. I'll have to get used to this. The throttle is almost "too" responsive which can make modulating tough on slick surfaces. I suspect it's perfect for high grip surfaces though. 
• Unlike the S2000, the Cayman seems to like getting manhandled. You have to kind of chuck it into corners and in slaloms. 
• It puts down power very nicely even without a diff
• It's nice to have torque coming out of slow corners lol

Paddock - 8-26-2018

I improved with each run but was still about 1.2 seconds off the lead coming in 2nd. I'm not overly concerned about position right now though. I definitely had more time out there. The best part of Street class is not having much to tweak so I can just focus on finding time by making corrections in my driving here and there. I had a ton of fun today and the challenge to figure out how to drive this car well is going to be a rewarding worthwhile endeavor.

Setup Notes:
- Front bar set to 3/5
- Tire pressures: 31psi front / 28 psi rear

46qt watertight storage tote in the frunk

Oh, I also got to try the storage tote I got for the frunk to put all the autocross stuff in so it's easy to load and unload and not have to worry about things getting wet if it rains. I got the idea off rennlist from a GT4 guy but apparently, the GT4 can fit a bigger bin. I ended up getting a 46qt watertight storage tote from the Container Store and it's a perfect fit in the frunk. 

LED interior bulbs

I got so used to having LED interior lights on the S2000 that I felt it was weird to have standard bulbs in the Cayman. Unfortunately, a lot of cheap bulbs don't work properly. They either don't fit right or eventually cause errors that some bulb isn't working. I opted to get the kit from SunCoastParts which has all the right resistors on the bulbs to work correctly and swapped all the interior bulbs with LEDs during my "off heat" today and I'm now a happy guy.

Let there be light...LED lights!

I wasn't liking how the silver Porsche center caps from the OEM wheels were looking on the Anthracite OZ Allegheritas so I ordered some grey Porsche center caps from Germany and they look so much better. I didn't take any close up but you can kind of see it on the picture of Kay in paddock.