Autocross In Review & Announcement

Chesapeake Region

Autocross In Review

Words: Greg Hartke; Photos: Jim Mckee

Since I wrote my column for the last Patter, we’ve had two Autocross event, the Instructor Day / Test & Tune on March 20 th andIntroduction to Autocross on April 2 nd . The AX School is such a complicated event (and as I write this, it was only two days ago) that I’ve forgotten the details of what happened at the first event. I’ll bet that wouldn’t have happened in my younger days. ;)

The first of these was a dual event. In the morning, we gave the instructors who will be teaching at the AX School the opportunity to come out and knock off the rust to prepare them for (and thank them for their contribution to) the AX School. In the afternoon,we held a Test & Tune, which was a practice event for anyone who wished to come out and get ready for the competitive season. Timing was set up and we gave participants as many runs as we could manage in the time available (which was 7 for thatday). Great fun!

What I remember most about that day was that it was cold and windy. Brrr! I also recall watching Venus, Saturn, and Mars rising together in the dark morning sky before sunrise. Very pretty in a deep blue sky! The International Space Station also flew byoverhead while it was still dark. Some of us find that to be fun. ;) Anyway, the cold temperatures made for reduced grip, so we made sure we warned everyone at the T&T to be careful ‘til their tires heated up. As befits an early season event, the course was relatively simple and quite fast in places. The event went very well and everyone seemed to have a great time. It was a great warm up for the season and a good way for those of us running the AX events to get back in the swing of things. Hey, we needpractice, too. ;)

As always, Mark Hubley deserves special thanks for bringing the trailer with all our equipment from his farm (where we store thetrailer), showing up at 5:00 AM with Brad and me to start assembling the event. (He does this for every AX event! Can you imagine???)Special thanks also to Pinto Soin for his help in showing up at that ridiculous hour to help me set up and to John Cho for also showing up when he should be sleeping to help Brad assemble the course. You can’t imagine how much that eases the earlymorningburden of getting things ready on time!

Then there was the AX School. We had quite a dance this year with registration. I didn’t have as many instructors as I wanted,

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Chesapeake Region

Autocross (cont’d)

but was able to make a couple of last-minute additions to allow 30 students. (I need one instructor for every two students, withBrad and me held in reserve.) In the last week, our registration cap was a moving target (I determine how many instructors I had and adjusted the cap to suit) and then had some churn with last-minute cancellations and registrations. We registered two studentsThursday and Friday after registration closed to fill those cancellations and also had to deal with a last-minute instructor cancellation due to a work emergency. No shame there – the real world doesn’t always conform to our wishes and that’s why Brad andI hold ourselves in reserve.

We did have one somewhat entertaining occurrence. When I arrived at the venue at 4:55 AM, there was a vehicle parked on the lotin a location that was decidedly problematic. It was unlocked (!) and I quickly discovered it was a rental vehicle, but it left us

scratching our head what it was doing there because it was right where it couldn’t be. In the end, we decided to jack up the car (Mark Hubley to the rescue – he had a floor jack in the truck he uses to tow the trailer) and put it on dollies (which we carry as partof our standard equipment) so that we could push the car out of the way when the instructors arrived.

Fast forward and someone from PGS showed up. Brad was chatting with him and pointed out the car, at which point the gentleman recalled that he had the keys because it was “the manager’s car” (which presumably means a car for the manager of the visiting team). He had apparently completely forgotten about it. We took the car off the dollies and the car was moved out of the way. Noharm, no foul, but it had us sweating for a while. Admittedly, we also had a bit of a chuckle over it. We had actually wondered if we should call the police, thinking it might be a stolen vehicle that had been dumped in the lot!

Never a dull moment! ;)

For the School, the students were broken up into three groups with each instructor assigned to two students for the entire day. In the morning, the students participated in three exercises with each group of students spending an hour at each exercise. Eachgroup of students was broken up into two subgroups. One subgroup drove the exercise for about half an hour with their instructor while the other subgroup watched, then they switched, with the instructor moving to their other student in the same group. After

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Chesapeake Region

Autocross (cont’d)

Words: Greg Hartke; Photos: Jim Mckee

an hour at the exercise, the groups transitioned to the next exercise.

The three exercises are all designed to give the students experience in the basic skills of an AX. Exercise A (see the accompanying diagram) was a double skidpad at which the students drove multiple circuits and practiced holding the line on a circle with thethrottle and experienced understeer and oversteer. Exercise B was a double slalom (Exercise B) for the students to learn how to drive an AX slalom, which is a very basic AX skill incorporated in virtually every AX event. Exercise C was a section of an AX courseon which the students practiced reading the course, looking ahead, driving the line, and finding their braking points.

After the exercises, there was a break while the students ate lunch, Brad and John Cho set up the course (which consisted of connectingthe exercise segments), and Meilyng and I set up timing and the computers to control the event. After lunch, we wereready for the afternoon AX. With only 30 students and a relatively fast course, we were happily able to give the students plenty of run time in a relatively short time.

After the students arrived in the morning, Brad did a great job with an hour of instruction from 8:30 to 9:30 while I took the instructors out to walk the exercises and discuss the agenda. That was followed by a driver’s meeting before the students were sent

to their cars to prepare to go out to the exercises.

Remember that the majority of the students were newcomers to AX, so I imagine there was considerable nervousness among themas they got ready to drive. I still remember my first time and I was certainly plenty nervous. I’m happy to say that in my case, the nervousness dropped away when I started to concentrate on driving and I’m sure that was true here, too. It’s really interesting towatch the evolution of the students. They start out very tentatively (of course!) and we get to watch them gain confidence and go faster as they progress through the exercises. Great fun!

This is a really complicated event because of all the coordination required to orchestrate the exercises before holding the AX race for the students. The exercises started at 10:05 AM and finished at 1:15 PM, then the AX started at 2:35 PM, finishing about 5:25

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Chesapeake Region

Autocross (cont’d)

Words: Greg Hartke; Photos: Jim Mckee

PM. The event went really, really well and the students seemed to have had a great time. We stayed virtually right on schedule for the whole event and gave the students 8 runs in the afternoon AX, with each heat taking 75 to 90 minutes. With only 30 students (2 students per instructor), they received lots of seat time and very personalized attention. This format really works well! As youcan imagine, I’m still almost fainting with relief that we had dry weather for the School. I have nightmares about that. ;)

It's hard to tell who had the most fun, the instructors or the students. I know you might find it hard to believe, but the personalityof a good instructor is such that they are incredibly excited to see their students improve and have just gangs of fun learning how to race. I can’t tell you how many great comments I heard from the students about what wonderful instructors we had, too, as wellas how many comments I heard from instructors what a wonderful time they were having working with their students. When I asked random students as I wandered around if they were having a good time and enjoying the learning process, all I received wasreports of what a wonderful time they were having and what a great learning experience it was.

Sometimes I think it should be illegal to have this much fun with our cars. Don’t tell the authorities. ;)

With so few cars involved, I won’t detail class results and besides, Meilyng pointed out that it’s more relevant to give a few results based on the experience of the driver. (Great idea, Meilyng!) Matt P. earned the fastest time of the day (a visitor who joined thecourse run, not the school portion) in his 2007 Porsche Turbo. Here are the fastest times based on AX experience levels who attended the school:

• 0 events: Eric S. in his 2016 Porsche Cayman GT4

• 1-5 events: Douglas S. in his 2019 Porsche 911 4 GTS

• 6-10 events: Lisa G. in her 2019 Porsche Turbo Cabriolet 11+ events: Tom D. in his 2019 Porsche Turbo Cabriolet It’s all-hands-on-deck to hold this event. There are a limited number of instructors in the CHS region, but we are very fortunate to be able to have the cooperation of our PCA Potomac Chapter friends, who came out in force to help with the event. Our instructorcorps this year was actually half POT and half CHS. You can see what that means: we couldn’t run this event without our friends from POT! Many thanks to all of our instructors for coming out and dedicating their time to making this event a big success andgiving the students such a great learning experience.

Thanks also to the students who came out and made this a great event. It was our pleasure to host you for the event and provideyou with the opportunity to learn some new and exciting skills with your cars. Keep in mind that AX#1 is scheduled for April 16 th at Prince George’s Stadium in Bowie. We hope to see you again soon!

Greg Hartke CHS AX Co-chair

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Chesapeake Region

Autocross Points Event #1 Annoucement!

Greg Hartke

AUTOCROSS POINTS EVENT #1 SATURDAY, APRIL 16, 2022

Rain or Shine...Autocross is always a good time!!!

Join us for the FIRST Points Autocross Event of the Season!!

Autocross (AKA AutoX) is a sport of navigating your car through a defined course usually on a large parking lot. Courses are set up using soft orange traffic cones which will not damage your car. Autox is a "performance driving event" and a safe way to learn how to drive your car to its limit. You not only learn how to handle your car at speeds you drive daily, but you also: Gain confidence in your driving ability Learn the limits of your car's brakes Learn the limits of your car's tire adhesion Learn correct seating, hand, and feet positions We've just had our Introduction to AutoX school... now it's time to put what we learned into action!

Will it be sunny or will it rain? Either way...come out and play! No special equipment needed

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Chesapeake Region

We have helmets for you to borrow We have instructors on standby ready to show you how or make you better

WHEN and WHERE When: Saturday, April 16thWhere: Prince George’s Stadium, 4101 Crain Hwy, Bowie, MD 20716Day of Event Schedule: 0700: The venue opens to participants0730: Registration / Check-In opens 0745: Tech opens0830: Course opens for walking0850: Registration / Tech closes 0900 - 0910: Driver meeting0910 - 0920: Novice course walk0930: First car off 1400: Completely packed upPARTICIPATIONParticipants must comply with PCA, CDC, state and county guidelines for COVID prevention. By signing up for and joining any of our social events, registrants acknowledge and assume all the risks in and full responsibilityfor their participation. Note that planned events are subject to change, for weather-related or other reasons. While we are striving to make this event safe, with your Participation in and Registration for this socialevent, you recognize and acknowledge the hazards of COVID-19, and you assume the risk of illness or deatharising from a COVID-19 infection at this event. A full refund will be issued if you feel sick during the week prior and/or the day of the event; therefore, PLEASE do not attend the event if there is any chance you mayhave COVID-19 or be contagious.REGISTRATIONLog onto your Motorsportreg account at motorsportreg.com.MSR Registration will be capped at 65 drivers. If the cap is met after registration, you will be waitlisted and may be eligible to attend if there's availability. It will close at midnight on Wednesday, April 13 th .

Entry Fee:PCA Member Pre-registration Entry fee: $50 Non-PCA Member Pre-registration Entry fee: $60There are no walk-up autocross entries available for this event.

For those of you who are interested in autocross but aren't sure if you want to give it a try, we offer a "Taste of Autocross." For $5, you will get to ride with one or several of our instructors for several runs.

QUESTIONSSend autocross event related questions to the Autocross Committee/co-chairs at autocross@pcachs.org.

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