Equipe Rapide Sports Car Club Autocross

 September 11, 2022

Heat two comes around and its almost noon. I’m assigned a station to watch for cone displacement. I’m watching as drivers go by and make their runs while trying to figure out an optimal place to position myself.  Not long in, I find myself losing confidence in managing cones with cars flying past me in the parking lot while my brain is frying under the sun. This is where one of the three guys I’m stationed with really shined. JT, a firefighter, a soon to be father of three, and new autocrosser like myself see’s I’m pretty baked and forces me to take his umbrella. He did an amazing job trying to keep my brain less focused on how hot it was. I can’t express how grateful I am to have had the time I did with him at that station. Heat two came to an end with a car flying off course!

Heat three is here. I scram to the pits to load into my car and prepare for staging. Everything is in place but I’m still cooked from standing around for the two sessions. With a fairly brief wait, I finally get called to line in for my first lap. I scrambled to get my helmet on as I pulled up the line way faster than I witnessed earlier in the day. I barely get my helmet fastened before the starting point and I make my run. With a reserved setting on my coilovers, I ran the car about eight tenths out the gate down the first leg of track. Managed to swing the car around with a small power slide running into the slalom. Within the first two cones, I was carrying too much speed before the third cone which caused the car to oversteer harder than I wanted it too so I had to get off throttle and let the car straighten itself out. Noting my mistake, I carried through with the rest of the course. Last couple traps I failed to pay attention to a more appropriate racing line but still completed the run without hitting any cones.

Originally I was targeting a 55 second run which is about 7 seconds slower than what I observed some ND miatas (with autocross experience) running. I managed to score a 54.785 on cold Continental Extreme Contact Force. I drive back to staging lanes and try to catch my breath. I immediate decided to tighten up the coilovers a little and wait to be called again. Within 5 minutes of coming back to lane, event officials pause the event due to incoming thunderstorm. Needless to say, it stormed hard, and my first event was over. The best part is I forgot to activate my gopro to record my run. 

Although we got rained out, we had a great day nonetheless. Thanks to great company, and ERSCC for hosting a great event.