Confessions of an autocross novice Jun 30, 2008
I had a dream the night before my first autocross: I was driving the Miata — really driving it — and was dipping my toe into the throttle ever so slightly as the rear of the car swung around, setting up a beautifully controlled powerslide. Then I heard an odd thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump and saw a fountain of orange plastic cones cascading in my wake. My beautful powerslide had taken out a whole row of them.
Luckily the reality was much better when my son and I met up with the Crown Autocross Club at Kansas Speedway Sunday, thanks in large part to my neighbor, Don Lillig, who knows a few things about piloting his ‘72 911 through the cones and helped me out a lot. Thanks Don!
So what did I learn? Among other things:
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No matter how good a driver you may think you are, your first autocross run will suck badly. By the end of the day, if you actually are any good—and you’re lucky— you may rise above “Suck”. Maybe.
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Don’t worry about the other guys’ times. You’re not likely to get close to them anyway.
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Do worry about what the other guy is doing, especially the fast guys. Check your ego, and see if you can figure out any of the things that make them so much faster than you.
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If you think you’ve walked the course enough, you should probably walk it one more time, just to make sure.
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A bone-stock Miata is capable of much faster times than I am.
So how did I do?
By the clock, not very well. I finished about nine seconds behind, FTD, and almost five seconds behind the C Stock front runner. But I took more than seven seconds off my time through the day, eventually found my way around all the cones, and learned a lot. So I’m pretty happy. In the end, I finished 54 out of 72, which is better than I really expected I would.
And Don, who was kind enough to take my boy out in the Porsche with him, finished first in class and 12th overall.
Making it an even better car weekend, the night before the autocross my son and I went to KCI Cruise, which is a pretty huge gathering of car nuts in the area, with pretty much everything from Smarts to Super Bees lined up somewhere, with their owners intermingling. Too often car guys seem to wall themselves into little boxes where they only like one thing. I think cool is cool, no matter who made it, when or where. As Per puts it, I’m a car slut.
Some of the local Miata club guys were there and took some pictures. Since I always forget my camera, I’m thankful to Rodney Giebel for these.
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