May Autocross Report

Expert Camera Crew Filming a Course Walk

Without any fanfare, (because it's not professional racing and we don't really have any fans), here's the highlight of the day from my last run, in which I was trying to go faster, which was OK for a while, but then you'll see the FIAT up on 2 wheels! Not the fastest run of the 6 on the day! 

(video has been deleted)

Cars Lined up for Tech

After a great day teaching at the Novice School on Saturday, Sunday was good-old regular autocross day at the Pungo Autocross Center of Excellence (PACE, it's still funny). We had a good bunch of drivers with a lot of new folks experiencing autocross for the first time, so that made it fun. In the little old slowest-class-in-the-world of H Street, we had 2 entries including the FIAT. There was also a Mazda 3, so with Japan and Italy represented, it was a regular United Nations out there!  Besides trying to win the HS class, I was shooting for another top 10 overall in the PAX time too. The official results say the FIAT won HS, so in addition to that I'm also sticking with FASTEST ITALIAN OF THE DAY! Which as usual means ONLY ITALIAN CAR OF THE DAY! Just to review, here's the list of all the other Italian cars besides mine:

(none)

I happily kept dropping time from runs 1-5, so let's cut to the chase and show you the video of my fastest, run #5. WARNING: May contain driver whooping when he sees his fastest time of the day at the end of this film! Also, the results reveal that while this won the HS class, it was only good enough for 11th overall PAX time out of 61 total drivers, and 24th fastest actual RAW time. For the FIAT, I'm really happy to be in the top HALF of the entire field on actual time, so 24 out of 61 was pretty good.

(Also on YouTube at this link: FASTEST RUN)

For the statistically minded, right now I'm sitting in 2nd for the HS title behind my friend Chris Parsons and his VW TDI.  PAX wise against all 114 people that have driven in either 1, 2, or all 3 events so far, my unofficial math puts me in 18th, which is a few places ahead of where I finished last year. From what I can tell I'm doing a bit better than the last two years, but of course every event has different cars, different drivers, a new layout to drive, varying weather, etc. Remember that the more variables you can mention, the more possible excuses you have handy! On the positive side, the more variables there are, the more places there is room for improvement too!

Beyond being in 18th place, and again using my really bad math skills, if we look at Average Points per event to balance it out between the folks with 3 events and those of us with 2 events, (and the drivers with only 1 event), my Average points puts me in 13th overall. If I can maintain that thru the end of the year, that would be a good jump in performance over last year's 20th or so. Looking at the average is a good judge of where you stand because at the end of the year, only your top 7 events count out of all 9. There's still plenty of driving to do, with one event per month into November, so stay tuned for more math, autocross results, Italian car bragging, and hopefully no more 2 wheeling!

Here's some photos from the day:

Course Walk

Driver Meeting

Driver Meeting

Driver Meeting

Still Lined up for Tech

Objects in Mirror Are Losing

Adam's Nice MR2

Course Walk

User Friendly Course Assistance!