2008 Lone Star BMWCCA Event #6, First! Options

[SWortham]

Yesterday I had an autocross with the BMWCCA club at the Texas Motor Speedway bus lot. The surface out there is a sealed asphalt that's quite slick. It always takes some adjustment on my part when I go out there since it's so different from the other sites.

My main rival this year has a Toyota MR2 with a Toyota Solara V6 motor swapped in. And so far he's beaten me every time I've raced him. That is, until yesterday. Although his car is substantially lighter and has the same tires as mine, I think my car should have the advantage on paper with a 120 hp advantage and AWD. But he's been racing for longer than I have and he's definitely a better driver than me. So as it turns out our times are always very close to eachother. I enjoy the rivalry though as we definitely push eachother to the limits, and we've always congratulated one another on a hard fought victory.

Anyway, in typical fashion the first 4 morning runs of mine were not so good. I was getting 62, 63, and 64 second runs. Whereas Nathan (the MR2 driver) put down a 60.7 second run. But the beauty of the BMWCCA races is that we get 8, count them... 8 runs. And during the lunch break I reviewed the video of my morning runs to try and figure out what I was doing wrong and where I could make up time. This "break" has always been a huge benefit for me in the past, and it certainly helped again today.

When I went back out there I felt much more confident that I really knew the course. My 5th run was kinda crappy with another 63 second run. I guess I was taking it too easy. Then there was my 6th run where I put down a 61 second time. I thought... OK, just a little bit more. Then came my 7th run which was fast, smooth, tight, clean, and even better than I expected. I did it in 59.9 seconds, clinching first place (my first of the year).

The video...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFOJ9Sd2ziA

[silet]

Nice!!! It's good to see you improving and having fun with your STI

[cobas]

Yes!! Congrats!

[SWortham]

Thank you, thank you...

Heh, I keep watching the slide at around the 45 second mark. I didn't intend for the car to slide that much but I got it back under control just in time for the next corner and it almost worked to my advantage.

Perhaps I should add that on my 8th and final run the car got quite loose at that very same point. Only that time I tried to hold the slide and ended up doing a full 360 instead. Not quite how Petter Solberg would've done it. I think by that time my tires were way too hot. Oh well.

[Alex2013GT]

Congrats man. . . that is awesome news! As soon as I have time I would love to check out the auto X circuit, though I don't think the sonata would be much of a car for it.