Autocrossed it:
It's something I've wanted to try for a long time, and a friend told me about the
Emerald Empire Sports Car Club in Eugene that hosts autocrosses several times a year. He couldn't come today, but loaned me a helmet and magnetic numbers. A Tony and Jimmy's suggestion, I put a couple of marks with white shoe polish on the front tires to see how far the tires leaned onto their sidewalls.
Here's the course map:
In the grid:
I gave my camera to a couple of spectators and asked them to take some pictures of my run; I think they did a decent job. The top picture is from the slalom past point 1.
At the starting line:
Tight turn before point 2:
OK, so she leans a little. Tight turn just past point 2 where you can really step on it as you exit; here's where the Northstar excelled:
Going into the inner loop past point 3:
Tight turn on the inner loop:
Slalom before the turn past point 4:
Approaching point 5:
Last slalom before the finish:
Finish line:
I had a blast, and will definitely do it again. For a two-ton, FWD luxury touring car, the Seville acquitted itself pretty well. More than once, I was introduced as "that crazy SOB who autocrossed a Cadillac." And when they were announcing all the times and class rankings, when they got to my name, the announcer said, "Oh, yeah, the Seville. That was fun to watch." Several people said they thought it was pretty cool somebody would take a car like that on an autocross track dominated by Miatas and WRX/STIs.
However, I did
not have the biggest car there. There was another guy running a '66 Cutlass convertible with an Oldsmobile 350. It had been lowered and had big fat tires, plus he had put in a faster steering box, and it had at least one run under a minute. I think my fastest time was 61 seconds, but I missed a gate, which tacked on 10 seconds. Like golf, autocross has a handicap system, so my adjusted best time was 59.15. So while I was slower overall, I was not the slowest car/driver there.
As to be expected, the majority of the cars there were Miatas and Subaru Imprezza/WRX/STIs. Most of the Subarus were modified, and a number of the Miatas too, but a lot of them were stock. There were several early 70s Datsun Z cars, plus two early 70s Datsun 510s (which have a great reputation in the autocross world), a couple of Mini Coopers, a couple of Rabbits, a Scirocco, a Beetle Turbo S, several Mustangs and Camaros and a Pantera. One Camaro5 SS. Also a '67 Corvair running four one-barrel downdraft carbs on the flat six.
Novices were encouraged to ride along with more experienced drivers, and I took full advantage of that. I rode in a '94 Mustang GT with Cobra suspension bits, a '71 Datsun 510, a '81 Triumph TR7 with the Rover neé Buick aluminum V8, a Mini Cooper and my favorite, a '67 Sunbeam Tiger with a Ford 289. That Sunbeam could really hang its tail out.
As for my own runs, I went in too hot a few times on my first run; the tight sweeping turns past points 2 and 3 were where the Seville would plow the most if I went in too fast. Exiting those turns, the Northstar would scream like a race car engine. I found the car (or maybe it was me) handled the slaloms better with less plow, and as long as I backed off the throttle and didn't touch the brakes, I could go through them pretty fast.
I talked with the guy who was taking pictures, and he showed me a couple of the ones he got when I was going through that turn with all the body lean. He said considering it was my very first time to autocross and what I was driving, I did pretty well.
The most important thing is I had so much fun. I have a better idea of what my car can and can't do and what I can do as a driver. On my way home, I intentionally took my favorite back road roller coaster route and worked on braking before the curves and probably went a little faster than I have before.