Chesapeake Region
Autocross In Review Words: Greg Hartke; Photos: Ken Wilmers
Autocross #7 is in the books! We gathered at Prince George’s Stadium in Bowie on Saturday October 22nd for the final AX of the season and were met with a chilly start, but certainly very good weather for late October. As always, Co-chair Brad Martinez, as well as AX crew Pinto Soin and John Cho, arrived with me in the wee, small hours to set up for the race and Mark Hubley was right on time as always with the trailer of supplies. Unfortunately, Brad’s wife had come home sick from work the previous day, so he wasn’t able to stay, but Brad was there long enough to build the course with John’s help.
While Mark drove his truck with the trailer around the parking lot along the track that would be the course, Brad and John dropped cones and Pinto sorted gear while I opened up the port-a-pot. Or tried to. As it turned out, the door was locked with a small padlock (first time that had been done!) and I didn’t have a key. I had the key to the door, of course (2 keys, in fact), but not to that padlock. Not sure what to do, we grabbed some tools and tried to break it off, but that didn’t work. I was getting worried (more than a bit worried, actually) and when they came in from dropping cones, I asked Mark if he had anything at home, we could use to cut the lock off. He said he had bolt cutters, so the plan was for him to bring back the bolt cutters when he drove the truck home to get his car. While they were uncoupling the trailer from the truck so Mark could head back to get his car, I went back over to examine our little problem. It didn’t make sense that they would lock the door that way without providing a key, so I thought maybe I had missed it, even though I had already searched all the usual places the keys are hidden on these installations. Using the flashlight this time (remember, this is 2 hours before sunrise), I did find a key on the ground, but that was a key to the door and I already had two of
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