April Autocross Report

Factory Five 818 Launches!

On Sunday April 19th the Tidewater Sports Car Club  TSCC LINK held their second autocross competition of the year, and on a beautiful spring day in Pungo VA, in a field of three drivers in the G Street class, the NMS #77 FIAT finished on the podium in first!

Factory Five Cobra Finishes!

The course was a lot of fun, and the weather was just right for the morning drivers, even though a few drops of rain might have impacted the last driving group in the afternoon. The GS class was made up of yours truly in the Italian Abarth, and two drivers sharing a German VW GTI. During the day I chatted with the other two drivers and enjoyed the chance to meet some more AutoX fanatics! Their car was also driven in another run group by a third person who was a friend of theirs in the Ladies GS class, so as the announcer noted, their VW was the most driven car of the day!

VW GTI = GS Class Competition!

Below you can see the run times from each driver's 4 runs. In autocross, only your one run with the fastest time counts. That's what drives the competition that makes each driver always try to improve whatever times they've set so far on the day.  For me, I was happy to get the first three runs clean without killing any cones, and see each one get a bit faster. On the final run, I got a bit too agitato and molto vivace, and therefore did not get a clean time. Still, my third run was more than a full second faster than the first run and gave me first in GS, and all 4 trips behind the wheel were a blast!

Behind the Abarth you can see spectators watching the action!

Run 1: 49.177 so I end up just 0.139 ahead of 2nd place, so it's going to be a close day!

Run 2: 48.490 improves my time by 0.687, and the gap over 2nd is a bit larger at 0.524, half a second.

Run 3: 48.041 an even faster time knocking off another 0.449, I'm ahead by 0.633 with one to go!

Run 4: 50.683DNF A little extra speed early in the run and I totally missed going around one cone entering a big 180 degree turn,  ending with a DNF, while the other two drivers manage to hit a cone each.  Knocking over a cone officially adds 2 seconds to their run times shown here, so in other words we've ALL managed to blow our last runs! This means no change in the final standings, so it's Italy in first, followed by the Germans!!

Class	#	Name	Color	1st Run	2nd Run	3rd Run	4th Run	Best	Difference
GS	77	Nixon, Robert	Red	49.177	48.49	48.041	50.683+DNF	48.041	[-]0.633
GS	103	Sill, Gary	White	49.316	48.924	48.674	48.827+1	48.674	0.633
GS	310	Smith, Joseph	White	54.843	51.833	51.621	50.129+1	51.621	2.947

VETTE!

Overall, using the PAX multiplier to compare all 92 drivers, I ended up 21st fastest, so that was a pretty good day for me. Comparing the PAX time to all drivers certainly reminds me that there are some very seriously fast drivers out there that are way better than me! While there were 20 people faster than me,  on the positive side of the coin, that also adds up to 71 folks that were slower. That's one fun part of driving, it's a skill that you can always try to improve. Like getting to Carnegie Hall, all it takes is practice, practice, and more practice.

View of the Street Class Field from the Abarth!

Now that we've completed two events, you can find the unofficial points standings on our page for 2015 standings!