Autocross In Review

Words: Greg Hartke

After the Drenchfest that was Autocross #4 on July 9 th , AX#5 on August 14 th at Prince George’s Stadium in Bowie sawa return to good weather. That was a relief! It was warm, but not too hot. Actually, we’re fortunate in some sense because we got through the hottest months of the year without being roasted while we were racing. I’ll take that!

This one had its challenges. AX Co-chair Brad Martinez has been absolutely hammered by work for months and told me the day before the event that he wasn’t going to be able to make it due to still more work commitments. Thatwas a huge oops because Brad is the one who builds the course. I immediately went into emergency mode and was very fortunate to successfully enlist the aid of AX super-helpers John Cho and Pinto Soin to build the course thatmorning. John and Pinto built the course in a downpour at AX#4, so at least they had experience, but in this case,they really saved the day because without them agreeing to my last-minute request, I’m not sure what would have happened. These guys deserve a big round of applause!

John, Pinto, and I arrived at the venue before 5:00 to get things going and Mark Hubley arrived with the trailer of AXequipment shortly thereafter. We quickly got started removing equipment from the trailer, then Mark drove the trailer around the lot while John and Pinto dropped the cones that would be used to build the course. While theydropped cones, I was working on other preparations, one of which was opening the port-a-pot. As it turned out, I had forgotten the key that morning, but that’s usually no big deal. With a little inside knowledge, it’s usually quite easy toopen the door with simple tools. This time, though, despite my best efforts, I could not get the darned door open.Grrr! Fortunately, Marilyn was following me down to the race later (bringing water, ice, and other supplies that

wouldn’t fit in my Cayman S), so I texted and asked her to bring the key I needed. (In keeping with a theme, I had forgottenmy phone, so had to borrow John’s to contact Marilyn. One thing after another...) Disaster averted, but that could have been interesting. This little incident prompted me to do what I should have done all along – leave the key inthe trailer instead of taking it home. As my twin brother (a biologist) would say, “Even a rat learns.” ;)

We had more snafus. The next difficulty was that the timing board would not display times. Sheesh! Apparently, it gotwet at the Drenchfest and is now damaged. (It had stopped working at the end of AX#4, but I figured it would be fine once it dried out again. Wrong!) A number of folks very helpfully tried to get it working (I didn’t have the time to domuch with it, so left it to them), but to no avail. I’m going to have to contact Race America about that problem and shipit back to the west coast for repair, so it seems we’ll be without the timing board for the rest of the season. Shucks!

Having had all kinds of trouble with our on-site internet connection this year, I left the work of configuring the network

for when Registrar Meilyng Wigney-Burmaka arrived. We had determined previously that the problem was the link betweenthe hotspot and the switch in the trailer, so Meilyng was planning to work on it that morning. Meilyng and others spent considerable time on the problem, also to no avail, so again we had to use Meilyng’s phone as a hotspot. Thisis an obvious concern because Meilyng won’t be able to attend the next race, so solving this is a priority before AX#6. Fingers crossed!

While I sweated over the problems we were having, John and Pinto finished building the course, which means it was

time for John and me to go out for the safety runs. My first slow pass through the course resulted in me saying, “Wehave a lot of work to do.” We made a whole raft of changes (mostly small improvements, not large) that really helped the drivability of the course. John and I also dramatically changed what was originally a long, fast section from thebottom of the course (on the left in the course map) to the top. I always had my eye on that section because I was afraid it would be too fast, and it was. We put a kink in it just after the channel, then a two-cone slalom after the crossoverthat still left it fast, but not ridiculously so. In the end, I thought it was a really good course and it seemed as if everyone had a lot of fun with it. Drivers seemed to enjoy the combination of really fast and technical sections.

When I first did the safety runs with John, it was immediately obvious to me that the “snake” (as Scott B. dubbed it)down in the lower left of the map was going to be entertaining. Exiting the first channel with too much speed would ordinarily result in severe understeer as you tried to come back to the right and the same with the section in the lowerleft of the map as you tried to turn back up to the right towards worker station 3. The key was to be patient, set the right speed, and use the proper combination of brake, throttle, and steering to help kick the rear end around. Anyonewho simply blasted in too fast was fated to push badly and lose all kinds of time. I always tell students that understeeris very expensive in AX – it eats time and eats tires. ;)

The other interesting nuance to this course was how to exit the oblong skidpad (which was a cool design element Brad

threw in this course). I tried keeping on the throttle all the way through the top of the oblong and down the sweeper tothe entrance to the channel, but that caused me to push wide and lose all kinds of time – clearly a terrible approach (especially with tires like mine that are just about all in). In the end, I rolled on the throttle hard coming out of the backside of the oblong and down the back side, stayed tight, and tapped the brakes as I entered the exit corner to help bring the rear end around. That worked great and I could very quickly roll back into full throttle, setting up a very goodline as I went down the sweeper towards the channel. I should say that seemed to work great because another approach (that occurred to me in retrospect when I examined some pictures from the event) might have been to run thebackside return of the oblong skidpad wide at full throttle to give a better entrance line to the exit from the oblong.That never occurred to me because I was thinking of this oblong as a regular skidpad and the fastest line through a skidpad is always the tight one. Istill don’t know the answer to the best way to drive that sectionof the course. Fun to thinkabout, though. ;)

The original course design hadthe return through the channel from the bottom of the course(on the left in the map) much straighter after the channel thanwhat is depicted. John and Iadded that kink and what amounts to a 2-cone slalom toslow it down because it was far too fast for safety for this venue.It was still pretty darned fast after the change, but what Ifound to be a challenge in drivingit was to get the braking point right as you came up the hill to end the sequence and make the sharp right-hander into the finishing sequence inthe lower right of the map. I’m sure it was just me not picking up the proper markers as I was looking ahead, but the hill and the placement of the cones kept fooling me into braking too early and losing time. I got it something close toright for my last couple of runs, but that was a mistake I had trouble overcoming on this course.

Kevin K. treated us to a truly spectacular slide along that section as he went a bit too fast trying to take the kink. It was in a very open area mid-course, so there was never any danger, but it sure was fun to watch. I’m not sure I’ve ever seena car slide that far on an AX track! The judges even gave him a 9.5. Actually, one of Kevin’s students wanted to drive like Kevin and managed to inadvertently duplicate his slide. Well, maybe it wasn’t quite as impressive, but it was stillworth an 8.5 from the judges. ;)

The downside to this course (and I knew it going in) was that 2/3 of the course had to be completed before releasingthe next car. I always thought I’d have to cap the event at 5 runs for that reason, but in the end, we did 6. That madethe event a bit longer than usual, but I think the drivers appreciated the extra run (they were having a good time!) and

(importantly) it was not a miserably hot day, thus not brutal for the course workers.

The more I look at the course map and recall the drive, the more I like this course. I thought it was really fun to drive and received favorable comments from others on the design, too. Keep in mind that we really sweat over course design.This year I had Brad and Meilyng submit designs to me as I made myself the final arbiter of what we use for every race. (Keep in mind that also means that if you don’t like a course, you can blame me. ;) ) That’s worked well so far, butit’s a struggle. Every design needs to balance various elements and it’s far, far from easy to consistently provide fun and challenging courses. Last night I had all the course designs we had used this season up on my 27” monitor in a mosaic

and I was really impressed with what Brad and Meilyng had brought to the table this season. I was looking at the designs and wondering how we could keep it up for the future. Rest assured that we’ll certainly keep trying!

Even though it wasn’t brutally hot, we went through 100 lbs of ice for the water, which was kind of amazing to me. Itwas a good thing Marilyn was there for ice duty, that’s for sure. In addition, Susan Hubley brought over a whole bunch of tomatoes from their garden (it’s been a banner year for their tomatoes) along with biscuits and other fixings for thatMaryland staple, tomato sandwiches. That certainly went over very well and many thanks to Susan and Mark for the bounty! In addition, Lisa Gritti was back with more homemade AX chocolate chips. Thanks, Lisa! We are so-o-o-o-ospoiled! She brought cookies for Brad, Meilyng, and me and since Brad wasn’t there, Meilyng and I dutifully split Brad’sportion of the cookies. Tough duty, huh? ;) The good news is that Brad promises he’ll be there for the next race.

In a highly unusual occurrence, we had two cars towed from the event. No incidents, just pesky bad luck with mechanicalproblems. Slava (driving in the second heat after Meilyng drove the car in the first) tried to change gears on his first run and the clutch pedal went to the floor in his car and stayed there. They had to push the car off the course (and I’mnot making any comments about how Meilyng managed to get her runs in ;) ). In addition, Doug S. finally brought his other car to one of our races to see what it would do and (to make a long story short) had to park it because (it wasthought at the time, and so it was) the oil had been overfilled. I’ve been corresponding with Doug on this and am happy to report that all is well. It’s amazing how easy it is to make that mistake with modern cars.

The registration was capped at 65 and we filled the event (as usual), but with no-shows and last-minute cancellations,we had 59 drivers overall with 41 Porsche drivers present. That’s a high percentage of P-car drivers, so kudos to our PCA members for coming out to support the event! Great stuff! We also had 4 or 5 Taste of Autocross participants whocertainly had a good time getting multiple runs through the course with the many instructors on hand. (And many thanks to the instructors for happily taking out ToA passengers, too!)

First overall and winner of class P5 was David C. with a time of 53.043 sec. Second overall and winner of class S5 wasMichael T. at 53.218 sec. 3 rd among the P-cars, 5 th overall, and 2 nd in class S5 was Howard L., while 4 th among the P- cars, 6 th overall, and 3 rd in class S5 was Scott B. The competition in S5 was fast and furious, but so was the competitionin S4. Eric C. spent the day saying he was too old and too out of practice to do well, then went out on his last run and blitzed everyone in S4 with 55.680 sec, good for 5 th among the P-cars and 8 th overall.

As usual, the CHS participants weremagnificent in helping with the tear down. When we were done racing,everyone pitched in to collect the gear so we could store it in the trailer asquickly as possible. With all that great help, we were packed and ready to goin no time. Thanks to everyone forhelping with the cleanup! After a long day, you can’t imagine how much weappreciate it.

AX#5 had its challenges, but it turnedout to be a really nice event after theDrenchfest of AX#4. The season seems to be flying by with only 2 more races left in the season, too: September 17 th and October 15 th . I’ll be looking forwardto seeing you soon at the races!

Greg HartkeCHS AX Co-chair