It's a new season. With a new car. And.... not much else has changed.
Well... one other thing has changed. We lost a great competitor and friend a couple weeks ago. And the event was not the same without him. We definitely missed you, Tom.
But Tom wouldn't want us to stop the show on account of him. So we proceeded as normally as we could. And turns out, the event was great. We had awesome weather, a very cool course, and 8 total runs. Can't ask for much more on a race weekend.
As I said, this was the first event with my new car. It has been a long 5 months waiting to see how it will actually perform. And despite much learning still to be done, I think it turned out OK. I ended up in 1st of 3 cars in my new class, D Stock, and 3rd overall according to the PAX index. So 3rd out of about 30 drivers with a brand new car? I'll take that.
It's not just a new car though... when you compare a 160hp FWD car to a 265hp AWD car, you're really comparing apples to orangutans. So I basically have to learn how to autox all over again. Sure, the concepts and principles remain the same. But how you apply and use those things is a LOT different. Unfortunately, a few cones may have to be sacrificed in that process... as a few were yesterday. Whoops.
Jen also did great returning to the course this year. Her morning runs were better than the afternoon - but she definitely wasn't the only one with that problem. Not to mention that her progress in the morning was very good. She reduced her time by about 7 seconds in just 4 runs - ended up with a 67.something seconds as her best time. And that time was good enough for 1st place of 2 cars in H Stock.
All in all... it was a good day. And fun was had by many. And to show off that fun... here's a video of all of my runs:
3 COMMENTS ON THIS POST To “2011 AutoX Event #1 Wrap Up”
Jake
May 3, 2011 at 9:34 amCool video Allan! How did you mount the camera to your car? Just curious.
ack154
May 3, 2011 at 10:25 amIt’s a GoPro camera (http://gopro.com) and it uses a suction cup that will mount pretty much anywhere. For this particular event I just had it mounted on the inside on my windshield. Sometimes I put it outside the car on a fender or something.