Well, I went to the Halloweenie out at Arrowhead, but it was plagued with timing issues and wind. I also kind of sucked that day, so I’ll just pretend it didn’t happen and move on to yesterday’s event! The Kansas Region of the SCCA put on a fundraiser autocross for the Jayhawk Motorsports FSAE team, and held it at the Park and Ride lot on campus here. That’s a three minute drive from my house (I was joking that my car hadn’t even warmed up enough to stop burning oil when I got to the lot), so of course I had to run. Good thing, too: I turned in my best performance of the season.
It’s been unseasonably warm lately, so rather than three layers of heavy clothes that still can’t keep the wind out like at the Haloweenie, I was in short sleeves, and the surface was warm, but really, really sandy. Turnout was a little low, so there were only two heats and everybody got five runs. My folks even turned out for the day to watch me run (unfortunately, I couldn’t convince them to autocross the minivan, but at least Dad rode along with me on one run). The course was short and narrow, but with several sections conducive to WOT, it made for a good balance between power and handling. In fact, taking the lightweight, high-grip, purpose-built FSAE cars out of the equation, a Corvette took home FTD. As for my runs, I laid down a decent time first run taking it easy and underdriving the car… and then proceeded to get slower and slower for the next three runs (however, in my defense, Dad rode on my fourth run, and I could certainly feel the extra weight in the corners. Funny how much a difference having a passenger makes…). I pulled it together on my fifth run and trimmed 9/10ths of a second off my previous best, good enough for a solid first place in H Stock (over a Suzuki SX4 and an Oldmobile Aurora, but still! First place in class!) and a decent middle-of-the-pack PAX score. I know I didn’t get a couple of the corners quite right at any point of in the day, but I didn’t suck completely and even PAXed ahead of a couple nationally competitive drivers — a fluke, one was driving a car he’d not competed in for quite a while — so I’m calling it a win, and a much better way to end the season that the Port-A-Potty-toppling nastyness of the Halloweenie.
As usual, results are here.