May Autocross Report

Happy May! Things have warmed up, the Porsche club met at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island, and I'm happy to say that I matched my best ever PAX placing, taking 3rd overall out of 21 Porsche drivers! The course was on the twisty and fun side, so I think my top speed might have just barely hit 50mph. The nature of the course and the warmer temps seemed to make my Hankook tires much happier than the first two events this year, so 3rd place is even more fun than my previous 10th and 9th. 

According to my unofficial math, this should move me up a few spots in the overall standings, so let's say right about 8th place so far. Here's the link to the PAX results, which should be active for about another month when the next event timing will be on line. That event takes place on June 13th. https://axwaresystems.com/axorm/liveresults.php?op=finalresults&clubname=NYPCA&op2=on

The weather was great, even with a few raindrops during the morning session of 5 runs, but I don't think it slowed anyone down. Then we had 5 more drives in the afternoon when it was sunny and totally dry, so most drivers (including me) managed to go a bit faster the 2nd time out. Here's how my day went: 

      

        Runs 1-3 I started easy around 53 seconds, and kept dropping time (which is a good thing) since I estimated that I'd have to get below 50 seconds to do any good. Runs 4 and 5 finished off the morning and kept improving down to 49.5 seconds. At the half-way point of the day, I checked the live timing on the Axware web link, and saw that I was 4th on PAX. Not bad, but a lot more driving to go.  

(Switch over from driving to working on course again, throw in a PBJ, and we're back to driving)

        The afternoon session of runs 6-10 started GREAT, with what ended up being my fastest time, so let's just say it was warmer/drier and faster out there, so dropping my time into the 48 second range was a highlight! Runs 7 and 8 didn't show any improvement, #9 was feeling pretty good along the way, BUT, after the finish line I turned my head to look at the timing board, and at the same time that I saw a quicker time of 48.880 I ALSO managed to hit a cone (yes, like a knucklehead) which adds a 2 second penalty to your time. Yes, I threw away my best time by making a dumb mistake and not finishing the run through ALL the cones, even the ones after the timing finish line. Oh well, a  lesson to to be learned right there sports fans! After that, run 10 was about a second slower, still under 50, but only the one fastest run counts, so no help there!

RUN AND TIME (Red is fastest)

1-53.762	2-52.870	3--50.543	4-49.628	5-49.505	6-48.939	7-50.250
8-49.867	9-48.880 +1	10-49.815

This video gives you a look at the twisty course, I think this was my fastest of the 10 runs. 

My new helmet gained a Metro New York Region PCA sticker. 
Remember, every sticker is worth +5 horsepower!

TRIVIA TIME!

A lot of auto-crossers will leave the hood open after driving, just to help cool the engine bay, so here's a Porsche Boxster and a Mazda Miata with their hoods up after the last event. Oh, the trivia part is that the Porsche has the engine behind the driver, so, uh, well, he's just got the front trunk (FRUNK) open for some other reason.