Well I definitely have to say I was thoroughly impressed with the way the Martin Sports Car Club runs their events. I had never even attended an autocross event, let alone raced in one, but I found everyone to be very friendly, informative as well as professional. They really made it a fun experience; that's for sure.
The turnout was extremely overwhelming, as 100 competitors showed up for the event, 26 in the novice class alone. I definitely knew I had my work cut out for me. However, there were Skip Barber Racing School instructors on site that let us do as many walk-throughs of the course as we wished. I took as many as I could to try to get familar with it.
Basically, the format calls for either 3 or 4 runs, the computer taking the fastest of the three as your competing posted time. My first two runs were extremely confusing and basically uneventful as I went slightly off course each time. However, after closely observing other competitors and conversing with my other friends who now routinely autocross, they filled me in on the things they could visually see me doing wrong, and on my 3rd and final run, I was able to post a 55.54 second run, good enough for 6th in my class, and less than .10 of a second from 5th place, the final trophy spot in the class, due to the unusually large field of novice runners.
I'm a competitive person. Automatically my thoughts went to at least wanting a trophy my first time out. However, the guy that barely got fifth from me was also a friend of ours, has a GSR in his rex as opposed to my B16, and has raced previously in two other MSCC events, as well as a Honda/Acura auto-x earlier last year, so after taking that into consieration, I was pretty happy with my first time out, after feeling like I left about 2-3 seconds out on the track and probably could have won. I beat 20 cars in a 26 car field my first time out....so I guess I just have nowhere to go but up the next time. I'm very grateful to have a monthly event to attend now.
Auto-x events are way more exciting than I thought they would be. After seeing how these events are about 70-80 percent driver and about 20-30 percent car, I can't wait to further improve and keep going. I've always wanted to race; now I can.

 

Sounds like fun. Can't wait til my Rex is done and I can get out there. I really want to do the SCAA - have never autoX'd before. Thanks for posting

 

Very nice, glad you enjoyed it. Im currently getting my car ready for the autocross too. And I can't tell you how anxious I am.

Props for going out and trying new stuff

 

AutoX Ownz

 

i like gymkana (spelling ?)

especially in an ef


Modified by Rostr02 at 8:08 PM 1/10/2005