It turns out that the most necessary item for a snow autocross is....snow! I recently went to Lime Rock Park to enjoy a day of sliding sideways on a snowy, low-traction autocross surface. Until a short time ago, driving in snow was one of my great joys in life, ironically, due to the relative safety of it - low grip, low speeds, low danger, high fun. But everything has it's limits. Lime Rock has been hosting winter snow autocross days for the past couple of years. Cars and SUVs are invited to turn up and have a go around the paved autocross portion of the track. They even have snow-making! It was something I was counting on when trying to decide what tires to run.
I met up at the lovely hour of 6am with some comrades in RI to build our little convey of trailered race cars and other vehicles to travel about 150 miles over to Salisbury, CT. It was a bit of a raw, cold rainy day. But spirits are always high when headed to the race track. We lost David somewhere around Springfield (he needed a pit stop) but we all made it to the track without any issues. After a bit of confusion about how to get the trailered cars into the track and not over the smaller bridges, we settled into the "chalet" for some food and a bit of chalk talk. We got the expected refresher about traction, weight transfer, and the bad things that can happen and how to undo them. We even got a useful formula - 15GR=(mph)^2. 15 times your grip in G's times the radius of your curve equals the square of your max speed through a turn. Good stuff.
Then we headed out to the lot to get our cars onto the courses. They ran two simultaneous courses which then were linked together later in the day. Unfortunately, there was absolutely no snow. Plenty of rain and standing water, though. The studded snow tires were a highly limiting factor, unfortunately. But the eEuroparts crew was highly accommodating and had some backup cars to drive. The morning was all about following the line and trying to sense grip (there wasn't much). Then we had a fun relay race. We split into two teams of 10 people. Each team member had to run to the Skip Barber BMW M3 (which none of us had ever driven), hop in, buckle up, then take two laps of the autocross track, stop in a stop box, get out and tag the next driver. The total time for all team members, including penalties, would determine the winner. Hitting cones added a couple seconds. Putting wheels off the course cost seconds per wheel (4 off was a 14 sec penalty - ask me how I know). It was chucking down rain pretty much the whole day too. So we got an unfamiliar, rear-wheel-drive, powerful car on a wet track. But it was at least an interesting level playing field. The rest of the day was everyone in their own cars so comparisons weren't as applicable.
Team Providence/Banchwerks put in a great showing and won the relay. We may have won for "having the most fun" too. Lots of brap-brap sideways VWs were seen. The cars all ran well. The V8 small pickup truck was hilarious. Like me, he was on studded tires, but swapped for the only other set on hand - his trailer tires! David's quarter tank of diesel mysteriously became pretty much none almost immediately, unfortunately, ending his fun a little early. The Corvette was going well for a while but ultimately finally lived up to expectations and spun quite a bit. One loony in his BMW 3-series was going mental and having some epic "offs" by going way too hard on the course. He did some serious offroading at times. But he had a smile on his face and he was getting everything the car had and more. Which was exactly the point of the day.
Many thanks to the guys at Banchwerks for passing on the info about the event. Thanks to the crew at Skip Barber for another fun day at Lime Rock. And huge thanks to eEuroparts.com for sponsoring the snowcross season and inviting us to come enjoy a day of driving and warm hospitality. If they have the stuff I need in the future, I won't hesitate to buy from them. Thanks!