1996 Florida State Championship Autocross
22 September 1996Hosted by the:
It was fun,
This being the State Championship, there was quite a crowd. I went the night
before, signed up, paid & got tech inspected, then I walked the course twice.
One of the organizers walked around with me and John (another newcomer), then
John and I walked around again & drew maps. The maps weren't much help, except
that they made us think about what we were seeing, and get a better grasp of
what was going on "in the big picture." I had every intention of getting up
early and being there by 8 or 9am, but... 8:30, I wake up. I had the car
mostly prepared the night before, so all I had to do was pack the cooler, run
by Publix, get some sandwiched & drinks (& sunscreen) & go. I went to Publix,
but forgot the sunscreen, so that was another stop at Walgreens on the way to
the course.
I finally got there around 10. I did manage to snag a
spot in the shade, which is good because it was very hot. I spent
the next 1/2 hour getting my bearings,
and borrowing shoepolish for my numbers. John and I went to the driver's
meeting together, then I headed back to the car to pump up the tires.
I was finishing the fourth tire when they called my group, so I went ahead
to the grid without removing the spare tire.
In the grid everything went smoothly. I kept the
top up & A/C on while waiting, and I think I put the helmet on a bit early
for my first run, on later runs I waited until I was 3rd or 4th in line
until strapping on the full face-mask. On-course during the 1st run,
I took things a bit conservatively, though I did manage to tip a cone in
the slalom.
The second time out, I went at it more agressively. What I gained in
speed was nearly canceled by lack of finesse, the car was sliding through
over half the corners (5 year old stock rubber tends to do that...), and
there were one or two gates where I had to make some time burning
corrections. And again, I tipped one cone in the slalom. At the end, this
run was just over one second faster than the first. By the way, removing
the spare tire did not seem to make any difference.
In my third run, I think I struck a better balance, not sliding so much, but
taking the gates more quickly. I was feeling familiar with the course by
then, able to look a couple of gates ahead and plan for the whole sequence.
I was also getting braver about coming close to the cones on the gates,
proven by the fact that I tipped one on the first half of the course.
Just before the slalom was a gate - wall - gate combo, and on the third run
I took this with excellent speed, putting me into the slalom going too fast.
I know, that's what brakes are for, but if I could take the wall that
quickly... anyway, I think I ate every right side cone on the slalom. After
the second one went down, I lost my enthusiasm for the run and backed way
out of the throttle, but did still manage to get one more cone for good measure.
Correcting for the extra cones down, this run was 0.4 faster than the second
one.
I would have liked to do a fourth run (who wouldn't ?:), but the event was
wrapped up at 2:30, leaving me last in my class, just behind #15 Ian, the
other newcomer Miata who was also on street tires.
The rest of C-Stock consisted of one late model MR2, faster than me and Ian,
but far behind three other Miate who were all running on race tires.
The Miate are competitive, especially when prepared beyond just race rubber,
but the ultimate fastest time of the day went to a Neon, I believe in D-Stock
class, go figure.
Regarding the race tire dilemma: I guess you can look at it like this,
they'll let you autocross in just about
anything that doesn't leak oil on the track, but if you want to compete for
trophies, even in the so-called Stock classes, you've got to buy some race
rubber - period. I guess that makes things even for the people who are
taking it seriously. I did have fun, and I do think I'll go again, but
I really prefer events like the Bay Bottom Crawl,
a speed trial / solo road race held every October on Sugarloaf Key.
