First 2026 Autocross: Class Victory at THE ROCK!

The NMS #77 wins the B Street class from four other drivers!

After such a grueling winter (hey, we DID get some snow this year!) here in South Carolina with no autocross events since November, it was finally time to start driving some Autocross events! My first competition was with the Triad Sports Car Club in North Carolina. This was their first points competition of the year, held at the Rockingham Raceway's "Little Rock" oval right next to the big oval. 

Course map from the Little Rock. Don't hit those orange cones!

Competing in the B Street category, NMS brought home 1st in class over four other drivers, and placed 42nd overall on PAX and 51st on RAW time, out of 127 drivers. The TRIAD club ran a nice event, with everyone getting four runs on the day. With such a large field, we were split into four driving groups, and I drove in the LAST group. 

This was my favorite car to watch, a GMC SYCLONE! They made less than 3,000 of these bad boys in 1991-1992! If you need a 280HP turbo truck, get one!

This made for a long day, with about a two hour drive to get there, watching the 1st group from about 10:30-11:45, then working on course about noon to 1:15. For the third run group I watched some driving and then got my car ready, and then finally drove in the last group starting about 2:20. During my driving group we had just a little bit of rain, but I don't think it slowed me down at all. 

Another B Street car, Porsche Boxster. 

In the B Street class we had a Porsche Boxster, a Toyota Corolla GR, a Toyota Supra, and a novice driver in a Corvette at his first autocross. Since the Supras come in 4 and 6 cylinder, I think it's the 4 cylinder in BS. The drivers in 2nd-4th were REALLY close, with best times of 49.837, 49.850, and 49.983. With just over a tenth of a second covering three drivers, it was close! Good thing the electronic timing system goes down to the thousandths of a second!  

Toyota Supra in B Street. 

With only four runs I tried to go fast on run #1, and then speed up from there. Run two was quicker, so that felt nice! On run #3 however, I overcooked one turn and missed the next gate, so that run was a DNF or Did Not Finish. HOWEVER, the Autocross Karma kicked in, and I was told that the timing system had glitched and that I would get a RERUN! Ah yes, auto-crossers LOVE getting a RERUN, because it throws out your last run for some reason beyond your control, and give you a do-over/mulligan! That meant that instead of only one more chance to drive, I had two more! More is better!

My helmet got a new sticker! In red, a 2026 sticker from the Triad Sports Car Club. 
Remember, each sticker adds 5 more Horsepower!

OK, on my NEW run #3 I dropped some more time even with a few wet sprinkles, and then on my last run (also just happened to be the last driver of the day, so just maybe if the course was getting faster, then that's where you want to be!) my time was even faster. Having other cars in my class was a great incentive to keep driving faster, although looking at all the times now I can see that my first run was enough to win the class. 

Final standings in B Street after 4 runs. The Toyota in 2nd and I got reruns, so 5 runs for some of us. The Corvette in 5th was a Novice driving his first event, so you can see he dropped a HUGE amount of time. Not counting my run 3, I was happy to improve on every run. 

WAY over there is the main grandstand at THE ROCK, Rockingham Speedway. This view is from the LITTLE ROCK oval where we auto-crossed. 

For the first event of the year, even the long day of waiting for those 4, I mean 5, drives made for a fun day. Sure enough, it was rainy on the drive home, but I caught the start of the NASCAR race in Vegas on the radio too! Well, I guess that explains why there weren't any NASCAR talent scouts watching us autocross!

The Triad Sports Car Club put on a great event, here's their website on the trailer that holds all their cones, loaner helmets, timing equipment, etc. 

One really GREAT thing that Triad does is actually WRITE DOWN the class driving and working assignments so that you can see when you are driving, and when you are working on the course. With four run groups, this makes it easy to see.