Morning runs were decent: 47.98, 47.74, 46.97. Clean, but I knew I could be going faster. There were cars I should be keeping up with going faster. From the times I was able to hear, I was about middle of the pack. CDC has not yet posted results, so I am not sure what the average times were. The afternoon ended up better, although I have to say I was not happy with my first run, as I knew I was not driving aggresive enough and clocked in a 47.10. The second run of the afternoon was better, and faster, but not clean; 46.36 plus one cone. The last run I knew I pretty much had to just leave it all out there, and I was very happy to hear 45.40 announced when I finished. Over 2.5 seconds better than my first morning run. Excellent.

Here’s video of all six of my runs, it’s 24.61 MB. Download me!

Saw X3 on Friday at midnight and enjoyed it very much. I did not enjoy the idiots in the theatre that booed, yelled, and otherwise couldn’t shut the hell up. If you don’t like a movie, fine, but while it’s still on, have some common courtesy. Anyway, I can see why some people won’t like the movie: major characters die, controversial plot twists, and general deviation from the comic book storyline, but forget all that, it was a damn good movie. I’m a X-Men fanboy and while there were some things that surprised me, the movie was damn good. I think the story was excellent in things that it incorporated from the original comic book story and the characters background while adding some twists that touch on current issues. As far as the action, it was great. The casting, was almost flawless. I could go on, but whatever, you’ll either like it or you won’t.

Saturday it was AutoX time again. It was a hot day, but hey, it didn’t rain. A complex course with multiple double gates and a couple triples. Stayed on course and ran faster than I thought I would have. Fastest time of the day was in teh 38s if I recall correctly, and I’d guess that the average was in the 45s or 46s. In the morning I ran a 43.90, 42.54, and a 43.01 followed by 43.84, 43.36, and a 43.52 in the afternoon. Was more than satisfied that I didn’t get lost on the most complicated course I’ve ever run and didn’t obliterate any cones. Kharissa was along as well and rode shotgun on my afternoon runs. Her initial reaction made me laugh, “How can you do this to your car!?!?” but she said she had fun. Will she be AutoX-ing anytime soon? No, but that’s cool, she got plenty of cool points for riding along.

Sunday it was BBQ time again. Beer and Kool-Aid marinated chicken, Steak on a Stick, burgers, and liquor. Lots of liquor. Good times as always. I think I might just go have another burger because the grill is still out. The rest of the weekend was spent lounging around, playing with the kitten (who was a hit to everyone that met him Sunday night).

Was the fourth car to arrive at 7:30 behind a Boxster with its owner putting on comp tires (and well worth it, I think he was fastest of the day), a red WRX wagon, and a cherry/maroon red 993. Sweet. I think what struck me most, before we even got on the course, was the atmosphere. No one was a dick, to put it simply. I was a definite newbie and asked some definite newbie questions and got some great help and tips from people, young and old. Cool shit. I had to wait a while to run, but that gave me a chance to watch two full heats (40 cars, 3 runs a car) go through which I think helped me when my time came. I also had one of the event organizers/instructors ride along on my morning runs, which I thought was very cool that people were volunteering their time to do so. My first run I came in clean with a 35.01 and a huge grin on my face. It was well worth the wait. Second run, I got crossed up and missed a gate: off course. Third and last morning run, I got down to a 33.95 but took a 1 second penalty for hitting a cone. For some context, most people were running in the 31s and 32s, with some exceptions both ways, including the aforementioned Boxster, which was knocking down 27s all day long. The afternoon runs I ran solo and ran clean all three times. Times were 35.01 again, followed by a 33.7?, then 33.27. They’ll be posted on the CDC site soon so I can double-check them. I was happy to improve on every run in the afternoon and was very pleased that I ran mostly clean runs and only got lost once.

As I kind of alluded to earlier, the people were awesome. We talked to a bunch of people from MR2 folks, to Porsche folks, to Audi folks, and it was just cool. After my half of the heat in the morning, walking out to work the second half two different folks I’d spoken with earlier (and who answered some of my newbie questions) complemented by efforts; I guess it was all just a nice change. There was only one other VW in attendance, a 1.8T Jetta that appeared stock running on steelies, so Vee-Dub was not so much in the house but it didn’t matter.

The variety of cars was amazing too from Minis (old and new) to various generation 911s, a Pantera, a trailered in Cobra (no, not a Mustang), and of course the assortment of Miatas, MR2s, WRXs & STIs, etc. etc. Next time I have to remember to make sure my video camera is charged and that I bring a camera that’s better suited to the event (read: SLR for faster and manual focus abilities).

See ya in Manassas on April 15th; can’t wait.

Props to Ted for most of the picture taking, esp. while I was driving/working. Thanks again!