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Hey when you coming home?

Tuesday

Oh…

Can I please use your S for the next race this Sunday?

Two conditions

Dont hit any cones and put the Regas on. I like see what they look like.

Done!

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That was a thread between me and my brother a few days before registration deadline for race 5. He took a little vacation to Japan (which, bee-tee-dubs I am really jealous of) and wouldn’t be back in time for it. I saw this as an opportunity to change it up a little bit…

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The night before, I swapped over my Regas from the Civic and it changed the look of the car completely, albeit a little more sunken. That was a good thing – the 45 series tire was beefier and touching the bumpers. Anymore (or less rather) offset and they wouldn’t have fit to airout.

I pulled up to the gate greeted with some wide-eyes.

“Is this your car!?”

“I wish.”

I was kind of nervous. The last time I drove this S2K was at test and tune, but I didn’t take it seriously on the all-seasons and it wasn’t pretty the last time I (seriously) drove another DRIVER’s S2K at autox years ago.

So after getting on the course after my first run, how did it feel?

How about “I had a great f–king time!” as an understatement?

It was by far the most fun I’ve had at autox and I’ve had some pretty comparable “most fun” moments. I was humbled by these small reminders:

1. No matter how experienced, you always will gain experience
2. RWD > FWD
3. The Civic isn’t as fun as I thought it was
4. The S “tail happy” nature can be band-aided
   • (Full Stiff / Full Soft / F / R)
5. Finding the limits of a tire is more obvious in the S

I’m torn. I’m really torn.

On one hand I love driving the Civic. It’s allowed me to progress at a rate unlike before. It’s stable and feels safe. It’s easier to take risks.

On the other hand, the S2k is way more fun to drive. I feel like I’m doing something with the car. It’s a little unnerving with its tail happy nature. It’s infectious and I love it. The Regas look killer on it too… dare I say better than the Civic?

It’s going to depend on my brother if he wants to co-DRIVE. If he’s down, know that we’re going full send! Well… not really… but I’ll have the car much better prepped for DRIVING.

With just air suspension and wheels and tires, I definitely want to figure out how this car handles. It’s a very “squirrelly” car.

To remedy the tendency to oversteer, I ended up adjusting the dampening to full stiff in the front and full soft in the rear. I also needed to raise the front a bit for clearance issues, which put the car in a reverse rake. These were bandaid fixes, but that’s all I could do given the circumstances.

The car felt pretty solid the first 3 runs and I stiffened up the rear about 10 clicks just to see a difference. I ended up almost spinning coming back down the from the McDonalds turn in run 4. The car is too much for the 215/40 RE71R I think… or I could be driving it wrong…

The story with this car isn’t over!