June Autocross in Review

Chesapeake Region

Autocross In Review

Words: Greg Hartke, Photos: Jim McKee

Autocross #3 on Saturday June 25 th is now in the books and by all accounts we had another successful day of racing. This makes 5events (AX School, Test & Tune, plus three full racing events) for 2022 with good weather, which I would deem to be a record the Potomac Chapter envies. POT has had 4 events (AX School plus three full racing events) and their AX#2 was contested in a deluge,followed by AX#3 for which it rained during setup and the first heat. They also had all kinds of interesting equipment problems for their AX#3 because they didn’t dry things out after the deluge of AX#2. As an interested participant and POT AX Committeemember, I was thinking about what I would do if it rained like that during a CHS AX event and what I would have to do to dry things out. The good news is that now I know what happens if you don’t do anything. ;)

I arrived at Prince George’s Stadium about 4:50 or 4:55 AM and AX Co-chair Brad Martinez was already there, rarin’ to go. OK, no one is rarin’ to go at that hour, but you get the idea. In fact, Brad had been out ‘til late (and I mean really late) with clients and hewas one hurtin’ puppy that morning. Good thing he’s young. ;) John Cho arrived shortly after us and Mark Hubley shortly after John with the trailer of AX supplies. As we started to get things together, it was still sufficiently dark that I could enjoy the sight ofVenus, Jupiter, and Mars in the morning sky and the International Space Station even passed by nearly directly overhead. Maybe I should have waved. ;)

Mark drove the truck around while Brad and John dropped the cones on the lot along the course, then Mark went home to get his car while Brad and John assembled the course. Pinto Soin arrived around 5:30 and he and I got everything else set up in goodorder. I can’t even begin to tell you how great it is to have the mighty Pinto helping me in the morning at these events.

At our previous two AX events, the hotspot was not working and we wound up using CHS Registrar Meilyng Wigney-Burmaka’spersonal cell phone as a hotspot, so we enlisted the aid of Treasurer Andy Powell, who worked with T-mobile to get that little problem straightened out and the hotspot worked fine this time. Phew! ‘Bout time. Funny thing, though. Everything was workingfine for a while, but eventually we lost range on the iPads we use for the Starter to queue cars and also for the announcer. Thatcaused some hiccups, but we worked around the problem (of course), though now that needs to be straightened out. Meilyng will be looking into that. There’s always something. ;)

Brad was not only about dead on his feet after very little sleep, he had to be in his DC office at 9:00 AM for a client meeting (likely to last all day), so

he had to leave at 7:00. I don’t knowhow he survived that day, but I’ve heard from him since then, so Iknow he did. ;) When Brad left,the course was almost completeand John finished putting it togetherwith Pinto’s help.

With the courseassembled (seethe diagram below), it was timefor John and me to go out and do

the safety runs, always an important step because there’s always something that needs adjusting. After running the course severaltimes, we made some minor tweaks, but we also discovered that the finish sequence was all wrong and had to be rebuilt. We fiddled with it and John eventually came up with the winning combination that I thought made for a good finish. Good job, John! Tooka while for us to get it right, but in the end, we were able to open the course to walking right on schedule.

This course had a double skidpad for an opening sequence (which is a bit unusual, but also pretty fun) and these skidpads weresmallish, which made it a bit of a challenge to get it right. Enter those small skidpads too fast and you wind up pushing wide. We all know what understeer does to your times (and tires), so it required maybe a touch of exploration to get it right. My technique wasto get it as tight as possible and (as early as possible) roll in just enough throttle to make the tires protest continuously (and loudly) as I went around the skidpad. It’s much easier to get the entry and speed right on a larger skidpad, but it was a lot more fun than Iexpected on these smaller skidpads. Interestingly, the small radius of these skidpads resulted in really high lateral g’s. I thought it turned out to be a really great feature of Meilyng’s course design.

We also discovered in the safety runs that there was a bit of an undulation in the surface at the exit from the first channel that caused the wheels to unload just as you needed to brake really hard for the next corner. Meilyng wanted me to change a couple ofcones so that that would not be a factor, but I was adamant about leaving it the way it was. It was a challenge. If you didn’t recognize it was there, you weren’t able to slow down as expected (if you had ABS, you’d lock up unexpectedly) and you wound up enteringthe next sharp corner too fast, understeer badly, and lose time. The key was to brake a little earlier and aim wide, rotate the car and back-side the cone at the apex, then roll on the power really hard for the first diagonal across the lower portion of the lot. The rear end on my Cayman S was swinging out as I exited the corner (perfectly normal for a Cayman), but that was easily controlled. I’m betting the 911’s with their rear weight bias could roll it on even more aggressively and not have the rear end kickaround like mine did. It was perfectly safe having that undulation in play and represented a challenge to the driver to figure outhow to do it right. I thought it was fun and if you didn’t think so when you drove it, just blame me for being diabolical. ;)

I sent the drivers out for their course walk right on time (at 8:30), but the reality is that we need to get them out a little earlier than that if we want to get through the driver’s meeting and novicecourse walk (done that day by none other than Slava Burmaka in Brad’s absence) and still get the first car off at 9:30. It was fine,

though. We actually had first car off at 9:45, which was perfectly satisfactory.

We were fortunate because, while the day was warm, it wasn’t blistering hot like it can be this time of year and there was even alittle breeze with only moderate humidity. Even so, we went through 128 lbs of ice keeping the bottled water cool so that the

participants could stay hydrated. That sounds like a lot of ice,and it is. I bought 32 pounds of ice the previous evening, storing it in a cooler, then prevailed upon Marilyn to bring it toPGS in the morning for me. She then went out multiple times during the day to replenish the ice to keep the drinks cool.

Registration for this one was interesting. Our registration hit the cap (65) with days to spare and even had a waitlist, thenwe thrashed around with late cancellations (real life understandablyintervenes at times) and more late registrations. In the end, we wound up at 63, so everyone who was on thewaitlist got in. We also had 5 Taste of Autocross participants, which is always fun. In the end, we had more no-shows thanusual, so we actually only had 54 drivers, which is unusually small. You know what that means, though: extra racing time. ;)

As I said previously, the first car went off at 9:45 and I was, as always, keeping my eye on the pace. It didn’t take long (3 runs) tosee that we were going to be able to do 7 runs and still get everyone done at a good time. So I made the call for 7, and that’s when our iPad problems cropped up, of course. That stretched out the first heat and with 30 drivers in that heat, it finished at 11:50. I thought that would still be OK and as it turned out, it was more than OK. We only had 24 drivers in the second heat and it absolutely flew by. In fact, I was having a good time in gride bantering with the Grid Master in the second heat, who was (correctly and entertainingly)harassing us mightily to be ready when we were needed. The Starter was getting cars off at a great pace and the Grid Master did a great job keeping us moving. That’s what it takes! We started the second heat at 12:07 (a very decent turnaroundtime between heats – good job by the participants!) and finished at 1:25. Wow! That was great! We really like to get lots of racing for the participants and still finish up at a decent time so that they have time for other activities with family and friends in the afternoon. I’m happy to say we did that in spades for AX#3.

Fastest among the Porsches and winner of Class S5 (2 nd overall) was Scott B. at 42.968 sec. Second place and winner of S4 (6 th overall)was Mark H. with 43.641 sec, followed closely by Slava B. who won Class I with 43.719 sec (7 th overall). Fourth place went to Phong N., fastest in Class P3 (10 th overall) with 44.331 sec. Fifth place and second in Class I (12 th overall) went to Meilyng B. with44.394 sec.

CHS AX participants are da bomb! They provide so much help getting all the equipment gathered and ready to go in the trailer that we were packed and ready to go in no time at all. As I said, we finished at 1:25 and by 2:00, we had everything packed and the trailerlocked and ready to go. That is so-o-o-o-o impressive! Thanks to everyone for helping out. Believe me, those of us who run the event are beat by the end and really appreciate the help.

It’s worth mentioning that every time I set up for an AX event, I’m astounded by how well the trailer (of all things) is laid out. IIRC, that was done something like 5 years ago or so by mypredecessor, Pat Walker, and the design was executed by Pat and others. Here’s what I know: I couldn’t have done half thejob they did. You have to see all the details (networking, power, and storage) to understand, but take my word for it. CHSwas really lucky to have had Pat and friends to do the job when the trailer was upgraded.

AX#4 will be hot on the heels of AX#3 and is scheduled for Saturday July 9 th at Prince George’s Stadium in Bowie, MD. AsI write this, the registration is filled, but we still have plenty of

racing scheduled for August, September,and October, so get registered to race if

you’re looking for some real action.Again, if you think youhave an interest in AX, or even if you’re justcurious to see what it’s like, come out andregister for Taste of Autocross, for whichyou’ll receive multiple runs on the courseriding with an instructor. We had 5 ToApassengers at AX#3 and there’s nothinglike it to whet your appetite. Come andsee!

Looking forward toseeing you soon at the races!

Greg HartkeCHS AX Co-chair

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