Last Autocross Sunday Preview

NMS Abarth visits the garages at Charlotte Motor Speedway

Here in Virginia the Tidewater Sports Car Club holds their final autocross event of the year this Sunday. I will not be able to compete, so here's how things look right now for the club championship. Over 200 drivers have competed in at least one event, so you can see where it's to your advantage to compete in as many events as possible so that you score more points.

However, there is a column of PAX points and then the next column of PAX With Drops. The championship is decided by not all 9 events, but only using a driver's best 7 events. The events that don't count are "dropped", so right now even a driver with 7  or 8 events is only getting their PAX with Drops score with two events subtracted. If that sounds a bit confusing, don't worry about it, because it will all be added up for good after November's event.

Pos.	Driver	Pax Points	Pax W/Drops	MAR	APR	MAY	JUN	JUL	AUG	SEP	OCT
1	Thomas Bleh	596.57	596.57		100.00	100.00	96.67	100.00		100.00	99.90
2	Doug Keiler	676.58	589.77	86.81	95.77	98.29		97.99	100.00	98.82	98.90
3	Jeff Schmidt	771.45	587.91	88.22	95.32	99.15	99.57	97.46	99.27	96.30	96.16
4	Stephen Fehr	581.89	581.89	96.51	98.56	91.50	100.00	97.05			98.27
5	Anthony Mester	675.32	580.71	95.40	94.61	97.56	97.95	95.59	97.86		96.35
6	John Anderson	580.58	580.58	94.43	97.93			94.59	98.04	98.46	97.13
7	Keith Kasmire	762.17	575.67	92.79	93.71	95.88	97.27	94.17	95.97	97.11	95.27
8	Chris Parsons	570.07	570.07		92.86	94.42	96.34	94.88		95.15	96.42
9	Peter Florance	651.26	566.79	84.47	94.04	88.41		94.51	98.29	95.65	95.89
10	Neal Davis	658.72	566.77	93.13	91.95	95.49	93.27	94.66	96.03		94.19
11	Melissa Fehr	746.27	566.46	94.52	94.63	87.94	93.84	91.87	93.79	93.93	95.75
12	Logan Stillman	647.78	564.68	83.10	84.60	99.15	96.44	93.57	97.33	93.59
13	Jim Ewing	564.06	564.06	81.38	93.61	94.88			99.10	96.84	98.25
14	Brian Wells	563.95	563.95	94.17	94.02	96.20		93.03		93.10	93.43
15	Keith Maples	741.52	561.30	93.88	89.26	92.27	95.63	92.04	96.51	90.96	90.97
16	Robert Nixon	733.02	555.76	91.32	88.31	88.95	90.32	90.51	95.83	91.65	96.13
17	Brendan Long	640.14	555.44	86.10	94.05	93.66	98.56	88.55	94.52		84.70
18	Mike Thorpe	724.39	553.89	90.40	87.02	83.48	95.20	91.01	93.37	91.79	92.12
19	Brad Anderson	631.97	553.20		91.90	88.42	78.77	90.28	96.64	91.51	94.45
20	Scott Brubaker	553.01	553.01	90.02		90.37	93.54	92.70	94.78		91.60
21	Andrew Carr	624.74	552.46	72.28	91.49	89.82	94.55	91.13	94.01	91.46

Sitting in 16th with one event to go means that some of those drivers right behind me will pass me up, and I'll likely end up in 20th or so. That's a pretty good improvement over last year's 29th place, and hits my target of 20th for this year. After Sunday's event, each driver's top 7 events will count, so even though I'll miss one event, I've already got 8 events completed, so I'll still be competitive in there somewhere. 

Dropping my last two events will mean not counting November (0 points anyway), and dropping my worst event, which will mean the 88.31 points from April's event. I'll end up with 644.71, which is a pretty good improvement of over 12 points better than last year's 632.53. Since those 12 points are over 7 events, to me that means I averaged 1.71 points more per event this year. That's not a huge improvement, but considering it was in the same car, I think it's not bad. Maybe another improvement next year will get me into the top 15!