Out of 150 registered for the prior event, you might say I’m pretty far down the list. That statement would be mighty generous, as the person above me was driving a shifter kart. On the plus side, last time I looked those karts sold for more used than I paid for ye olde G-body. Then again, the “JB” class is for 8-11 year olds. So, there you have it, I was slower than an elementary school child. Totally not bitter about that.

Not to be discouraged by being beaten by a human being who has not yet discovered algebra, I focused on the fact that I had managed to pick up 15 seconds from my first to last run, and that I was really competing within the other drivers in the Classic American Muscle class. Sure, I was 12 seconds off the pace of the leader, but that gave me a goal for the season, which is to narrow the gap between myself and everyone else.

Much as I know that improving the driver is going to net the largest gains, I couldn’t go without a few small upgrades. Seeing as my car came out of the factory minus the F41 handling package, there was no rear sway bar to be found. To the rescue came my buddy Steve, who for $25 hooked me up with a rear bar from an SS, along with the oh-so-crucial spacers that are needed to keep the lower control arms from crushing when bolting on the bar. I also sprang for $8 worth of new hardware from the parts store. Sometimes you have to splurge a little.

Here we have the aforementioned stock lower control arms, which luckily came predrilled for a rear sway bar. The bar itself isn’t very effective compared to a rear sway bar that is bolted directly to the frame, but I’m making incremental upgrades before spending $$$ on an aftermarket piece that may end up being too much bar.On a side note: As crappy as the rubber bushings are, unless you’re going to invest in a set of upper and lower rear control arms that fully articulate using a sealed helm joint or similar, I’d avoid “upgrading” to poly bushings. Poly will bind, and binding is bad for any sort of handling application that involves a four-link. 

10 minutes of work later, and BAM: Rear sway bar. Guaranteed to help lower my lap times or put me off in the woods. Either one is equally likely.

Keeping my modifications limited to things that I knew (Well, hoped) would only benefit the car, I also sprung for a modified Chevy Astro van steering shaft to replace the worn out rag joint-equipped steering shaft that came on the car. Nearly a bolt-in as-is, the Astro van shaft have a U-joint at either end, the top one needing to be pulled and rotated 90 degrees before being welded back in place. Being a factory part, it’s also designed to collapse in an impact, which saves me from any painful Steve Irwin impressions. These can be picked up in most junk yards for short money, but given that I was in a time crunch I paid $70 shipped for one that was fully prepped and painted.

Similar to the Jeep steering shaft that Brian installed in Buford, the shaft is nearly a bolt-on, with only a tiny bit of grinding needed on the column end in order to clear the bolt that tightens the upper end. Hard to tell from the photo, but we’re talking millimeters.

There we have it! Nice new steering shaft in a greasy and undercoating-soaked engine bay. While the steering shaft did get rid of a good amount of play, there’s still some left in the box itself, even after adjusting it. With the “Slow:1″ steering ratio, I’m not going to waste too much more time with that box and will upgrade to a 12.7:1 box from a 16” wheel equipped third-gen F-body in the near future.

So there we have it. A few small modifications, a 5 AM wake-up call, and I was out on the track.
Notice the painters tape holding my $20 DIY magnetic lettering in place. Note to self: Next time don’t leave them curled up a ball in a plastic bag for weeks, you big dumb jerk.

Seeing as my buddy Phil was too busy racing his own car at the event and I was unable to find anyone crazy enough to stand on hot pavement for hours to take photos of a G-body in trade for a fast-food lunch, we’ll have to stick to GoPro footage for all of that tire-melting G-body action.

Before getting into how the Monte CarSlow performed, I want to focus on a few cars that show the diversity at an autocross event. Let’s start with the car that was parked beside mine, which just happened to be owned by a guy who lives the next town over from me. Sure, a Miata at an autocross is in no way a rarity, but I’m digging this one because it’s function over form and has money spent where it’s needed. Paint? Who needs paint?

At the other end of the late 80s/early 90s spectrum was this ’89 Porsche 964 Carrera 4. Not the typical vehicle that we show on BangShift, but it sure did look nice parked out in the sun, and looked good dodging some cones as well.

Ah, now we’re on to the more eclectic stuff. Don’t let the look of this ’84 Diesel Jetta fool you, it hauled around the course like you wouldn’t believe, rolling coal the whole way.

Modified old British sports cars? Yeah, there were one or two of those as well.
This ’73 Triumph TR6 was laying down some serious lap times while nailing the hardcore racer look to boot.

Parked just a few cars down was this ’65 Triumph TR4A.

This bad boy was stripped down and ready to race.

No frills, all motor. Raw horsepower isn’t the name of the game here, but power to weight is.

One last side note before continuing with our regularly scheduled programming: I found out that Mazda has a program that will pay out actual cash money for placing in certain regional and national events. Think I could slap on a few stickers and convince GM to pony up some cash for my 27-year old Chevy? Something tells me that they’d be more likely to pay hush money to stop me from showing up at more events…

Not surprisingly, these 320 treadwear Falken All-seasons performed to the best of their ability, but are not exactly designed for autocross duty. That’s a good amount of rubber that I’m pushing from the edge towards the center of those front tires. The fair amount of understeer and my less than skillful tackling of those sweeping turns probably has something to do with that.

Although I love me a spicy chicken sandwich as much as the next warm-blooded American, I need to stop eating crap food for lunch during the break. The laps after lunch were much slower, some of which I attribute to wolfing down 2000 calories worth of obesity before strapping myself back into the car.