stripethree

There is it, the first autocross course I designed. There were some minor adjustments wen we laid it to pavement, simply because said pavement has some issues. The course was tighter and more technical than the usual courses run in Tucson, but overall reaction the day of and the day after appeared to be very positive. I was nervous when we were setting up the course as parts of it, specifically the area after the first slalom, looked not only difficult, but appeared not to flow as well as I would have thought. Fortunately, it seems that I was wrong and most people seemed to welcome the challenge.

What made things more interesting was that the lot was not vacuumed prior the event as it usually is, so the first heat had to deal with all sorts of slippery pavement clearing out the line for the later heats. I ran my competition runs in the first heat and time only runs in the second, and the latter heats definitely had at least a slight advantage. The course was fun and faster in some spots that I would have thought; drivers setting up properly for the box in the upper corner as well as the final slalom were rewarded well.

My times were pretty good, but not my best, as I hit a lot of cones. My times were 45.513 (+1), 45.860 (+1), 44.884 (+1), and 45.288 in heat one and 45.081 (+1), 45.846 (+2), 45.430 (+1), and 44.738 (+1) in heat two. Like I said, lots of cones, only one clean run but still a lot of fun. My competition runs were good for 26th in raw times, 16th in PAX out of 59 entrants. I didn’t reach my goal this time of PAXing at least 900 but I was close at 889.

Summer attended this event and rode shotgun in my time only runs. I think her experience can be summed up by this picture…

…and the big smile on her face. After the first run I asked her, ‘So, did you breathe for that 45 or so seconds?’. Her response: ‘Ah, I don’t think so!’. I’m glad she came out and got to see and experience this crazy addiction of mine and that she had fun doing so. Now, can I get her to drive? Hmmm…

Here’s the video of all 8 of my runs: