Honda-Acura.net - Drove Chris Shenefield's STS Civic

This past Sunday I attended the NEPA Region SCCA. It was held in the mall parking lot of the Lycoming Mall about 1.5 hours north of Harrisburg.

The morning started off brisk actually more like freezing since it was 50 degrees in Lancaster when I left and 35 degrees at Lycoming Mall.

About 30 people showed up for this event. Chris had a co-driver (Eric Simmons) driving his 2002 National winning STS Civic Si.

The course started out with 4 cone slalom, into a big right hand sweeper, into a 3 cone slalom and into a u-turn which connected it right back into the 4 cone slalom, through the big right hand sweeper, into the 3 cone slalom again, and then to the left around an offset cone to the finish line.

The sun popped out around 11am/12pm. I was the first car off (and got 2 reruns due to timer error. We got 3 runs in the morning and 4 runs in the afternoon. Fun runs were $1.

Competition was tough especially with Chris and his co-driver Eric Simmons driving the National Champ car. After the morning runs I was down to 30.7 and in 2nd place about .3 seconds behind Chris.

Afternoon I was able to get down to a 30.4 but of course I coned on that run. Chris got down to a 30.2 and Eric edged me out with a 30.4 (I think).

We did fun runs and I asked to drive Chris' Civic (as did about 5-6 other people). I did 3 runs in his car. My first run out with no effort I got a 30.2 =) Next run I got a 30.1 =) =) And my last run I took a passenger and ran a 30.2. I know I could have run a 29.xxx if I had one more run =)

The difference from his car to my car was amazing. Where I was putting 110% into my car to get that 30.4, I barely broke a sweat driving his prolly putting about 85-90% effort in the car. Plus braking in his car I would wait 25-50 feet later than my car (2100'ish lbs. versus my 2600'ish lbs). Steering was so quick and fast that you could still be on the gas and steering. Suspension was also very very stiff and the camber on the car really helped it too. I didn't experience any tire lock up when I got on the brakes hard, and entering the sweeper tha car felt really stable, whereas my car had a hint of rotation.

Even though there was no cam switch over like the DOHC VTEC the car really had alot of pull thanks to the lighter chassis.

Overall I can see alot of people snagging up these cars or what's left of them =)