IMSCC 2013 Results – Day Three: Fuel Economy & Autocross

The third day of the Import Meet Street Car Competition was broken into two categories: Fuel Economy and Autocross. A quick reference guide for the competitors can be found here.

Photos by Ryan Cutuli and Nick Poirier.

Going into day three Johnny and his R34 held onto the lead followed closely by Stu in his Toyota Supra. With only two events left in the competition they both understood performing at full capability was critical.

Watch IMSCC 2013 Quality, Fuel Economy, & Autocross on YouTube.

Fuel Economy

Since the autocross portion was being held in Bremerton and most of the other events were in the Seattle area the 1.5 hour drive to the autocross track was the perfect way to measure the fuel economy of each car. A Shell station in Redmond was picked as the starting point for this portion of the IMSCC. All of the competitors were required to use the same pump to fill their cars until the nozzle clicked. Seaport Petroleum filled all of the E85 cars using their mobile pump which had a similar shut-off mechanism.

After each car had been topped off the trip odometer was reset on the control vehicle and the group departed for another Shell station near Bremerton Motorsports Park. The rules were open for the drive there. They were allowed to coast and draft behind other cars as long as they didn’t fall behind the group. In an effort to keep the aerodynamic drag down a few cars opted to keep their windows up even though they didn’t have AC in their cars.

The trip from Redmond to Bremerton was mostly freeway driving, but some city driving was mixed in at a few stops along the way. The total distance traveled was 80.6 miles.

Once the cars arrived at the second Shell station they were topped off using the same method and the total distance traveled was divided by the amount of gas it took to fill their tanks. This gave a MPG figure that was used to compare the cars.

Since E85 is less energy dense than gasoline all of the cars running it placed at the bottom of the group. The highest horsepower car, the Supra, came in last place with 15.5 miles per gallon which earned Stu 5 points for the event. The only E85 car to get over 20 MPG was Nathan’s Evo with 21.8 miles per gallon (18.8 points).

For the gasoline cars, the R35 GT-R, LS1-swapped RX-7, and 240SX all had mileage in the 20s with the RX-7 and 240SX having the same MPG. Both of these cars received a respectable 31.9 points when converted to the IMSCC scale.

Katie’s WRX and Mark’s Galant were considerably more fuel efficient and managed to break into the 30s. Katie received 47.6 points and Mark received 44.5.

The clear winner was Guillaume in his boosted Honda Civic. Of all of the drivers in the group he was the only one that didn’t resort to fuel saving tactics. Despite this he still managed to travel the 80.6 miles with a little over two gallons of gas (38.4 MPG). This earned Guillaume the maximum of 55 points for the event.

Click here to read about how the points were determined.

Autocross

The final event of the entire competition happened to be one of the most interesting. The autocross part of the IMSCC was held at Bremerton Motorsports Park in Bremerton, Washington. Bremerton Sports Car Club made special accommodations for the nine IMSCC competitors and placed them in their own run group for the afternoon session.

Prior to the start of the event, most of the competitors understood the importance of the autocross portion and knew that it would determine the final standings. Each of them spent time walking the track and most of them elected to work the track rather than have one of their friends do it for them. This allowed them to watch where other drivers were making mistakes and use it to their advantage later.

The method for determining the winner of the autocross event was straightforward. Each competitor was allowed to have four runs but only their fastest time would be used to determine the IMSCC autocross points.

The 240SX and Supra performed similarly on the autocross course. Both had an abundance of power that helped them in the straight section but were traction/experience limited elsewhere. Just like the drag racing portion of the event, Steve’s tires appeared to be holding him back and he may have ran better times with R compound tires. Marshall (the driver of the Supra) was fortunate enough to have traction control to keep the car composed but it was his first time ever autocrossing the car. Steve in the 240SX had a time of 63.613 seconds and Marshall’s fastest time was 63.096 seconds.

Katie in the WRX made up for her performance during the drag racing night by doing very well on the autocross track. Despite being significantly underpowered compared to the rest of the cars, she placed fourth with a time of 61.323 seconds (93.9 points). She was also the only driver to complete all four of her runs without hitting a cone or missing a gate.

Two of the competitors struggled to learn the course and didn’t have a single clean run. Mark in the Galant and Jake (the driver of the R34 Skyline) missed at least one gate every time. Missing a gate was a huge penalty and added 10 seconds to each of their fastest times. The R34 Skyline ran the slowest time of the day with a 77.596 (10 second gate penalty included) earning Johnny 10 points in the event overall. Mark was about three seconds faster with a 74.565 second time. Mark received 25.6 points in the autocross category.

Matt in the RX-7 had multiple clean runs but couldn’t get his time closer to the rest of the group. His fastest of the day was 66.994 seconds which converted to 64.7 points on the IMSCC points scale. Nathan performed well with his Evo in this part of the competition and received third place with a 60.789 second time (96.6 points).

The battle for first place was intense with only 0.6 seconds separating the two fastest cars. After two out of the four runs were completed, Quentin in the R35 GT-R was in first place with a time of 58.764. Guillaume in the Civic was running fast times but was struggling to keep them clean. On his third run of the afternoon he managed to complete a clean run of the course in 58.197 seconds. This time moved him into first place and gave Guillaume the maximum of 110 points. Quentin received 107.1 points since his time was so close to Guillaume.

Click here to read about how the points were determined.

Final Results – End of Day Three

Performing poorly in autocross hurt Johnny in his 2000 Nissan Skyline GT-R substantially. Getting only 10 points in autocross moved him from first place to third place.

Guillaume in his 1995 Honda Civic placed first in both fuel economy and autocross which increased his points by 165 putting him into second place. This was a huge jump in standings considering he was in fifth place at the end of day two.

Photo courtesy of Ishii Motor Industries.

Stu and his 1997 Toyota Supra managed to place well in nearly all of the events with the exception of fuel economy and power delivery. This consistency earned him the first place trophy and a set of brand new tires from Falken Tire.

IMSCC 2013 Final Results

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