Autocross is an exciting and challenging motorsport that is quickly gaining popularity among car enthusiasts. It is a competitive event where drivers navigate a course that is laid out on a large parking lot or closed-off airfield. The objective is to complete the course in the fastest time possible, while navigating tight turns, hairpin bends, and other obstacles.

One of the best things about autocross is that it is accessible to a wide range of drivers. Whether you are a seasoned pro or a beginner, there is a class for you. This means that you can compete against drivers of similar skill levels, which makes for a fair and enjoyable competition.

 

Hello there, long time no see…. Where has SpecFRS gone? Well here’s the story of how my autocross car came to a very sad demise, and a couple of tips for you on how to not have it happen to yourself.

First and foremost: Look into Autocross insurance. Lockton Motorsports provides insurance options that cover cars DURING autocross events, you should definitely check them out. It is very likely that your normal street car insurance policy will NOT cover you, and you asking them if they do may even cause red flags to be raised. I did NOT have autocross insurance on my 2016 Scion FR-S, even though I had looked into it a couple of weeks before the incident, I didn’t pull the trigger (if memory serves, it was like $225 for the year for my car), and would have likely made 2021 not be near as bad as it ended up.

So here we are, it’s 2021 already and you’ve hopefully started autocrossing again. We have had the car out to one two events so far.

The first event was back on April 11th, a few days before we started writing this post (and are just now getting around to finishing). Tom S is codriving with me at most events this year, not sure how many out of town events he will be at, or heck how many out of town events I will be at.

Event 1 So event one. The weekend before the event I decided it was time to take all the rest of the vinyl off (sponsor/series decals) and with that came a load of residue and blemishes in the paint from the removal. 2 days before the event I went down to Detail Garage in Valley Park to pick up some supplies. I grabbed a Torq random orbital buffer, along with a number of other supplies so that I could try my hand at paint correction. I spent Saturday before event one paint correcting the car (all but the back of the rear end). I must say, I was totally pleased with the results. You can see a before and after of the top of the trunk on our Instagram.

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by SpecFRS (@specfrs)

After getting the polishing done and throwing some wax on the car, I swapped the wheels/tires out for the set of brand new Falken RT660s and packed the car up to be ready to head out early in the morning.

The event went well, though the car took some cone damage to the front end. I had removed the racer’s tape that had been holding some of it together, and failed to re-apply it after all the paint correction, I made sure to correct that a few days later. I ended up taking 1st in the class, and 2nd on PAX for the event. Tom was 3rd in PAX and we welcomed a newcomer to the St. Louis region, Juan, also in SSC, into the 7th place PAX spot. Juan is down near Springfield, MO and will be joining us for to liven up the competition this year.

It wasn’t as productive an event as I would have liked, I always prefer to walk away with a PAX win, but Greer in his GT3 put almost 3/4 of a second in PAX time on me for the day.

Here’s some side by side video of my fastest run (left) and Tom’s fastest run (right).

Event 2 Prep for Event 2 only consisted of swapping tires again and the previously mentioned tape work.

Overall the event was sloppy, I had a hard time keeping clean and coned my fastest run (first corner before the start lights). Tom ended up taking the win in SSC for the event. I’ll try to get around to videos for that, not sure when I will!

Autocross Settings from 2021 Event 1 & 2 (same as 2020):

Front Swaybar: Soft setting
Rear Swaybar: Stiff Setting
Front Konis: 0.5 turn from soft
Rear Konis: 1.5 turns from soft
Front Tire Pressure: 30 psi
Rear Tire Pressure: 29 psi

2020, the year that most people want to forget. It started out like any other year, a week into it though I was unemployed, getting let go for the first time in my life (that was’t a bad thing though, trust me). 8 weeks in, the world was starting to wake up to the realization that there was something going on with this virus thing. I was flying to/from Orlando at the end of February. I recall going through the airports thinking that anyone wearing a mask was over reacting, that being said, I wasn’t getting too close to anyone back then.

 

Driver: Chris Hammond
Car: 2016 Scion FR-S
Class: SSC (Solo Spec Coupe)
Event: St. Louis Region 2020 Solo #3

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hanger #scion #frs #ww2 #airport #toyota #86 #autocross

A post shared by SpecFRS (@specfrs) on Apr 15, 2019 at 5:32pm PDT

Where has the time gone? The 2019 season, at least Nationally, has come, and almost gone. The ProSolo Finale and TireRack National Championships are next week in Lincoln Nebraska, and SpecFRS.com will be there. But how did we get there? Let’s look back on the 2019 season.

This post is coming 6 months (maybe more?) too late, but at least it is coming. The 2018 ProSolo Finale and Solo National Championships was a week of ups and downs for the team. The results were mixed across the board in terms of performance with some highlights and some down times as well.

Here we are, January 1st (or 2nd) 2019, and I haven’t done a year in review for 2018. This post will have to suffice, it’ll be abbreviated, 2018 was a busy year, lots of change, lots of excitement, far too much to cover in the 10 minutes I’ve allotted myself for this post tonight. This post won’t cover family items, for those you can check out all my Facebook posts.

Wow, what a week! Last Wednesday I loaded up the SpecFRS onto a borrowed trailer and left St. Louis the following morning to drive to Lincoln Nebraska for spring Nationals, 4 days of racing. The drive out was uneventful, spent it trying to listen to old “The Forward” podcasts, I’m not a huge podcast guy, even though I used to have my own back in the day, but I’ve been trying to listen to Armstrong’s podcast from the beginning, long drives are about the only time I can actually listen to it.

 

With the parts installed on the car, it was time to get wheels and tires mounted/balanced and installed. I also needed to get an alignment on the car as I knew it wasn’t close to the autocross specs that Tire Rack had in their recommendations. So I took my car to the only place I trust for an autocross alignment in Missouri, Solo Performance Specialties.

The tires mounted up nice and easy on the Konig Ampliforms, after I got the wheels with the right bolt pattern of course. They were mounted onto the car and it was up on to the alignment rack next.