BMC Autocross II

Overcooked. That's my one-word summary for this event (the polite version). I felt like I had more to give, but instead of refining my drive I went all Jeremy Clarkson on the course, with predictable results.

454 in the paddock. On the right is a post-run picture, showing a bit of cone rash. I'm glad these cones are as soft as they are. When I told someone I had hit one at speed they replied "yeah, I know." "Oh, you saw it?", I asked. "No, I heard it from the grid!"

The weather was looking a bit iffy in the morning. I caught some light rain on the way to the event, and we had a bit more some time before the start, but then it stopped for the duration. I got to the venue around 0830, which gave me plenty of time to walk around the paddock and do some meet-and-greet with other drivers. There were lots of CS-class drivers, most of them driving miatas, except for two: one driving a Porsche Boxster and the other a Honda S2000.

Some CS drives. I don't think I got everyone, we had a pretty full class today. Number 54, Nick, is my class nemesis (he even partially copied my number, 454!), and it's been a close battle so far.

Walking around the paddock and chatting is always a rewarding experience. Folks are usually friendly, and there's plenty of interesting cars to photograph. This was no exception.

The NSX with Senna plates was something very special, almost brought a tear to my eyes. 27 is another Beto! Roberto is new to the area and his parents are Brazilian. Alex is one of the nicest guys in the event. His miata on the other hand looks very mean. Chris, white mustang, a co-worker and now an event regular, and Paul, Lotus 7 kit, roughing it right by his RV (I hear it has a wet bar). That last one is a Faux-rarri. 404 is what you get if you ask which Ferrari that is (sorry, computer joke).

The course was very interesting, and challenging. First of all, it started from an unusual spot in the lot. In all my (three) previous events, BMC had setup the grid along the lot's edge nearer to the paddock, and the course had been clockwise. This time, the start was on the further out edge of the lot, with a counter-clockwise course. And instead of a tight set, it gave you a false sense of speed that got me big time. Here's what it looked like:

Phone picture of the course map laying on the registration table, with my course notes in blue. The cones were not layed out excactly like the picture, but were close.

I think I lost most of my time at A and B. The S-A right-left kink were easy to do fast, but that led to overspeed and going wide at A, and the fast-slalom between A and B might as well have been a straight (although I did manage to graze a cone there in my last run). C also required finesse, but it was ok, though you could overdrive it as well, as I sure did on my last run, eating a cone big time on the outside. C-D was flat out, hit the brakes for D, and D-F had a proper slow slalom that required some tossing around. Without further ado, my best run:

After I got back home and made myself a caipirinha I tried to get a sense of what learnings I could get from the day. And it comes down to: "you gotta slow down to be fast." There were basically two problems. The lesser one was, I didn't have to lift in a couple of spots, such as the S-A stretch, and the A-B fast slalom. But that probably wasn't where I lost the most time. It was at A, I think, and the fact that I did not slow down enough for that corner. That means I went wide, and had to delay corner exit acceleration, and could not take advantage of the fast-slalom. Slowing down for B was also not great. Those braking events needed to have been a lot harder and less streched out, and definetely better timed. The problem is that, while I had a good sense of all that around run 3, I still couldn't turn off the temptation of getting the time back on the fast bits of the course, even though I knew that it's the slow bits that give you most of the gains.

How did I do? Unfortunately I don't know the preliminary results, as the online resource BMC uses to track time during the event was not functional during the event. Official results will be published sometime in the near future. I'll update this when I have them.

Full-size pictures.