June 11, 2000

June’s Autocross was a part of the Aloha State Games; this meant that winners in class would get medals just like the Olympics.  With SO MUCH riding on success this month we decided to “retire” Franceen’s Integra GS-R and have both of us race the Honda S2000.  This would be the first time she would drive the Honda in competition, and only the second time ever on an autocross course.  Naturally she was a bit reluctant, and she voiced concerns that she couldn’t see the front corners of the car well, and that the seating position was too low, and she was worried she would take out a bunch of cones.  She needn’t have worried.

Since our seating positions are so different, and we share the same helmet, we decided she would drive the car first, and I’d take my turn at the wheel in the next heat.  There were 83 racers in attendance this time and all eyes were on her!  Everyone was urging her on, “you’ve got to beat Colin…”  (Thank guys) It was a strange feeling, seeing my car out on the track, and for the first time hearing my car rip by at 8000 RPM!  One of the reasons I wanted her to start driving the S2000 was to learn better car control in a rear wheel drive car.  I watched as she came around a decreasing radius turn, and got the tail a bit loose.   She calmly fed in some opposite lock, and steered out of trouble!  Way to go!  Despite her concerns, she had four clean runs, and stayed consistently between a high of 73.509 and her best of 72.528!  This would get her to 50^th out of 85 drivers in raw times, and 48^th in PAX.  She also picked up 3^rd in A Stock.

 My turn came next.  On the first run, I netted a 69.182, just a bit quicker than Fran’s best time and I guess I got the “you gotta beat her” monkey off my back early.  Run 2 was about 1.5 seconds quicker at 67.586 and was clean though the whole course.  I was on my way to what would have been my best run of a 66.901, but I just clipped a cone just before crossing the timing light.  There was even some question if I indeed hit the cone, or if it was already down.  I sure couldn’t feel it, nor could I see any evidence that I hit it (like scuff marks on the rims or side of the car) but it was later confirmed that I just nicked it, and it even “wobbled” before dropping.  Oh well, that run was now a 68.901 and I had one run to go.   The last run felt good and it was, 67.069 and my best for the day and good enough to win A Stock.  Overall my times put e at 16^th in raw times and 10^th in PAX!    This class is suddenly gotten pretty crowded, with three Porsches, my buddy in his 911 Cabriolet, a 944 Turbo, 911 Turbo, three BMW M3’s, Fran driving the S2000 and Audi TT!

July 9, 2000

July’s Autocross looked like we would have a smaller turnout than we had been having lately.  It just turned out that everyone was a bit late.  By the end of the day, we had over 82 drivers.  With both Franceen and I driving the S2000, we had 5 cars in A Stock.  Like last month, we decided to have Fran drive first, and I would use the car after.  The track design was almost 80% the same as last month, but run in reverse direction.  The track had some pretty good straights that ended in sharp hairpin turns.  With straightaways right after tight turns it rewarded a car that could accelerate quickly off the corners.  This was a bit of a disadvantage for a “low torque” car like the S2000. 

Fran used her usual smooth driving to good advantage as she negotiated her first run to clean 86.551.  Her next run was not without controversy; she was called for a DNF after a corner worker called her for shortcutting one of the hairpin corners.  I was watching the whole run and there was no way she did that.  However, it was a case of their word against mine, and they were on the corner so the DNF stood.  For her third run, she knocked 2.5 seconds off her first run to get an 84.282.  On her last run she made another improvement and cut almost a second off the previous best to get down to a time of 83.492.  This meant the two BMW M3 would just slightly edge her down to 4^th in A Stock.