Apr - May 2001

April 15, 2001

April marked the opening of a new season of racing and the debut of a new location for our races. Unfortunately we were forced to leave our runway site and move to a smaller parking lot about a 1/2 mile away from the previous location. The delays in getting the approval for the location forced us to abandon the regular 2nd Sunday and race on Easter Sunday instead. This limited participation to 62 drivers.

The small location also limited the track size forcing the designers to lay out a small, twisty course. My first reaction was "I'll never leave first gear" I was right! I drove entirely in first and in one section chose to hit the limiter instead of going for second since it would only be for a fraction of a second before I needed 1st again. The usual fast cars were running in the low 30s so you can imagine my surprise and delight when my first run produced a 29.163. There was very little waiting between runs and the next two came up at 29.037 and 29.009. I was really pushing to get a 28 and was rewarded with a 28.838 on my last try.

Remarkably these times were good for 2nd overall in raw times only .394 out of first place. Another surprise was the PAX placement. In PAX indexed times I was 2nd to Reid's Type-R Integra, a mere .061 from the overall win in PAX. See the full April results here

May 20, 2001

It's easy to get spoiled. We were definitely spoiled at our last autocross location. The size of the track and the extra speed it allowed made the weekend an exciting high speed (by autocross standards) thrill ride. Our new location is too small to provide the flexibility to design challenging and long tracks. Ok, we can make some technical tracks, but run time and speed are still missing. In an effort to remedy the run time problem, we designed a track that would allow for two laps of the track per run. This created a different challenge for the participants because you had to keep track of how many times you went around, as well as learn the same corner at different speeds. The first turn after the start line was taken at a much lower speed when approaching from the start of your run. However, it was taken at a significantly higher speed on your second time around as you came flying through the sweeper (the series of pics on the right). As is becoming customary, Fran went in the first heat so she could input data in the later heats. We would be facing some new competition in AS as we were joined by 3 M3s, a Porsche 968, and a pair of Audis. Her first run seemed a bit tentative and only produced a 78.673. This placed her behind two of the M3s but ahead of the Audis. Her second run was a big improvement, 5 seconds off her other time at 73.668 moving her up one place. She coned her third run for a 75.860, but saved her best for last. This was a 73.192 and this had her sitting right behind the Porsche and one of the BMWs in third in A Stock. I was running in the second heat, so I knew what the times for my class were. On the first time out I netted a 68.593 to take first in A Stock. My subsequent times were all slower and I don't know about you, but I always feel like I left "something on the table" when that happens. On the bright side, I was over 2.5 seconds ahead of the closest competitor in A Stock and only .487 off of the fastest time of the day. So for the second month in a row, I was 2nd overall in raw times. In PAX, I finished 3rd behind the Type-R and a Street Touring Audi TT.

Maybe it's the track layout that allows me to drive in the power band all the time, or maybe it's the tires getting stickier, or maybe I am actually learning the car better but let's hope this string of good finishes continues! See our full May results here.