PCA Maverick Region Event #5 - 8/6/06, MineralRing

[jrj512]

I plan to go. Anyone else?

More info at http://mav.pca.org/Events/Autocross/AutoxSchedule.asp.

Jerrett

[onething]

What's the routine for registration? Been too long since I ran with those nice folks!

[jrj512]

Go to http://www.clubregistration.net/.

[jrj512]

Quick day! With only 26 entrants, we had finished our five runs by 11:30.

There were only three in the AJ (All Japanese) class - myself, Lorin Stolz (NA Miata), and a guy in a WRX. I think I actually took second from Lorin, although I am waiting for the final results to be sure. However, if I did beat him, it was not in the way I wanted.

The course was a partial copy of the MSR track, including the pit lane. Just after the start, you could choose a direction of either taking the "pit lane" that took you on a long sweeping curve, or you could choose the "race course" that took you straight, but with a 90 degree turn at the end. Lorin and I both felt that the straight (with the 90 degree turn) would be faster because our Miatas would not build enough speed to compensate for the significant difference in distance through the long turn, so he took this route on all five runs. On my last run, the starter talked me into trying the long sweeping turn and guess what? I knocked two seconds off my time. I think the change in direction was responsible for about 1.5 seconds of that, as I really nailed some other areas that also improved my time.

Since that fifth run was the only run where I beat Lorin, then I did not beat him on the same course, so to speak. Oh, well. I was only 2/10s off him in my other runs, so I might have caught him anyway. We'll never know.

We could have used more Miatas out there!

BTW, my partner when corner marshalling (Dean, drives a white Z06) actually brought a portable homeade misting device to the corner, so we were quite comfy under the mist. He used a bottle from a tire sprayer to create the pressure, stored it in a wheeled cooler to keep the water cold, and then just hooked it up to a PVC pipe with mister nozzles. Pretty cool.

Looking forward to the S2000 race next weekend.