1999 SCCA Solo 2 (autocross) Rounds 12-13

Two days in a row at the Oakland Coliseum for the next two rounds of the autocross season. There were a lot of people present -- over 200 drivers for each day.

Saturday we ran in the last run group. I got to walk the course at the lunch break, and it was an interesting layout. After the start was a smallish circular loop, and on the back section was a long arc with a jog left gate followed by a jog right gate. However, it looked like the first of these gates could be taken in a straight line, and the second most certainly could. So the back section would be very fast. Having been pretty satisfied with running at stock tire pressures in the previous rounds (29 front 36 rear), and taking into account the slipperier surface and some discussion with Dennis Pederson about how his Boxster is setup, I boosted the front slightly to 32 and kept the rear at 36.

I saw Dennis in his Boxster running in the Street Tire class. He turned in a fantastic 51.905 to take first place in Street Tire.

In run group 7, while we were gridded and waiting to start, a little yellow stripped-down car -- perhaps a Toyota Starlet like some of the other top CSP ass-kicking name-takers -- crossed the finish line in a huge cloud of smoke. At first I thought it was tire smoke, but he then coasted to a stop off the course and had to be pushed over to the exit area and into the parking lot. He had left a 30-yard trail of oil and coolant across the finish line: not tire smoke, but rather a blown engine. Bummer. It took a good half hour to clean up the mess so we would be able to safely scream through the finish line slalom section.

The whole course was in second gear. My first run was pretty good, 53.219, best first run of the class by over two seconds. The car felt good and I really hauled ass on the back section and a later short straight. The finish line slalom felt good and I was going fast across the finish line, using the Boxster's excellent braking to come to a quick stop in the exit area without hitting any cones. I didn't feel the need to play with the tire pressures. My next run improved to 52.471. But once again, I was unable to improve further, with my remaining runs at 52.694 and 52.582. At least I was consistent. My raw time of 52.471 was the best in the class, but with indexing Kevin Lahey's 52.669 in a B-Stock Miata took the win by 0.049 seconds indexed, leaving me in second place.

Sunday we were the first run group. This meant we had the privilege of using our first runs to clean the dirt off the slippery track. The course was run in reverse of the Saturday layout, with a couple of modifications. The long, fast back section's jog right/left gates were modified so that they had to be respected this time. And the loop was replaced with two 180-degree sharp turns.

The first car out came across the finish, with the announcer saying, "And, coming across the line with the top time of the day is...." My first run was good, 57.229, once again the best time of the class' first runs. But on my second run I was carrying too much speed through the back section, and I guess I didn't pay the necessary respect to those jog right/left gates. As I slowed to make the second gate, I got the car way too far out of shape and when I corrected it, it came all the way back and into a spin, causing five poor cones to be brutally murdered. I restarted the engine and got back on course having lost a good ten seconds to the spin, and another ten seconds for the 5 downed cones, totalling 78.341. The announcer greeted me at the finish with, "And, coming across the line with the top cone count of the day is...." A badge of honor! Unfortunately my next two runs just couldn't quite better my inital run, as I turned a 57.784 and 57.841. Once again, my first run was the best, and my remaining runs, while consistent, couldn't top it. This ultimately left me in fourth place out of 20 drivers in the class. Kevin Lahey again took first place. I have yet to beat him other than Round 1. (Note that Round 1 was prior to the rearranging of the Rookie class run groups.) That guy is good!