Well, after missing The Crown Autocross Club event out at the speedway due to a misplaced wallet, I finally got out to drive again on Sunday.  The course this month was about as long in terms of time, but generally felt slower and had more and tighter features.  The bad news is that I’m not that much faster than last time — I only shaved about a second off the gap between me and the class leader compared to Event 5 — but the good news is that I’m getting a solid feel for the car and I think I know how much of that gap is me and how much is my setup.  [Translation: I hate-hate-hate-HATE my tires.]

I ended up in grid next to yet another KU student, Cameron.  He was out for the first time in a ’93 Miata that he’d just got; the previous owner was apparently an autocrosser or club racer, because the car had a rollbar and fairly fresh Falken Azenis.  I hooked him up with Rick Hartpence for some instruction and he certainly seemed to have a good time.  As for my runs, I was pushing way too hard on my first run of the day, and ended up skidding out wide on a couple of turns; reeled it in the second time with the help of a visitor who was driving a ITA prepped Si riding shotgun.  He was there with his dad, mother, and a another older woman, a friend of the family.  They wanted to ride along with somebody, but since the ITA car had only one seat that wasn’t an option.  I offered them a chance to ride on my last two runs.  My third was my best of the day, even with the passenger.  I was very smooth and was close to as fast as I think I could have been.  The last time around I got distracted on a chicane and nearly lost it, otherwise I would have been even faster.

I’m beginning to notice my tires more.  I didn’t pump them up to very high pressure this time around (I don’t have a tire pressure meter in Lawrence yet!) but the things just aren’t sticky at all.  I feel like I could do at lot better if my car stayed hooked up to the pavement.  I may put some fresh, decent all-season tires on them for the rest of the season and hold out for somebody to sell me their old tires and wheels at the end, and just use the stock rims for driving around in the winter.

The ricers were out as usual, with one guy in an over-lowered Prelude pusing his way around the course like a bulldozer and even failing to grasp the optional slalom on his first run.  One poor sod out there even had a riced out Cavalier.  I mean, a Cavalier?  That’s GM’s beefy middle finger to the working class!  As I was packing up at the end of the day one of them came over and congratulated me for owning a Honda (okay, fine) and then suggested that I put Si badges on my car, and “nobody would know the difference.”  Hrrm… DPFI, no rear sway, no sunroof, wrong seats… Yeah, I think an autrocrosser would know the difference pretty well.  Ah well, not everybody really gets it.

Looks like the next event in the pipe is a Crown Autocross one.  Hopefully I’ll not lose my wallet again for that.  Again, my times and other information on my autocrosses can be found on the AutoX Results page.