PARADE AUTOCROSS Article by Steve Kidd, GCR Autocross chair Photos by Christy Spangler Going to a Porsche Parade and competing in Autocross (AX) is the equivalent of participating in the Superbowl for a participating Porsche owner. Autocross is the pinnacle driving event during Porsche Parade week. It is the only competitive driving option that is offered at Parade. Other driving options are guided tours and very casual sightseeing opportunities while seated behind the wheel of your Porsche. Autocross competition at Porsche Parade is serious business and offers a winning driver incredible bragging rights for such an accomplishment. With Parade in the Poconos, autocross participants were given an exceptional experience. This year the AX was held at Pocono Raceway, not far from the host hotel, the Kalahari Resort. Pocono Raceway a short twenty-minute drive, eleven miles, from the host hotel. This raceway has a large oval NASCAR track as well as a twisty road course where the AX was held. The Porsche Parade Autocross event spans two full days.
Driver’s meeting
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Die Porsche Kassette
| Aug 2022
This year, as with most parades, the many stock classes, and some production classes (mostly the older and lower horsepower cars) ran on Wednesday. The remaining classes, which consisted mostly of the newer and higher horsepower/modified Porsches ran on Thursday. This year’s course was one of the best in recent memory. It was very safe and had lots of runoff room if needed, so you could go fast… but not too fast…and it was easy to navigate. As proof, there were very few off-courses. Most of the team GCR; Steve & Dottie Kidd, Christy Spangler, Lee Walton, and Carolynn Ditrichs ran on Wednesday. Ernie Revuelta with his newer wellprepared Cayman S, ran on Thursday. So how did we do, you may ask? For the answer and times, go to the Parade website and view the results. We will tell you there were four 1st place awards for GCR members. The trophies are exquisite. The Parade website also has an extensive photo gallery, so you can see hundreds of
AX action shots and the awards ceremony. Within the AX photo gallery there are many familiar faces. One of the Parade dinners is the Autocross Awards Banquet, usually held on Friday night. Trophies are formally presented in a spectacular fashion, accompanied by an impressive array of AX photographs. It is thrilling to receive the respective class award and have an action photo presented on the big screen at the same time. Our hats are off to PCA parade AX committee chair Danny Saxton, PCA National AX Chair Paul Kudra, and the local PCA regions (Poconos, Metro, and others) that handled timing and scoring. These folks and Regions developed a challenging course design based on models that worked well locally. The entire committee did a fantastic job. There were countless volunteers involved with the two-day autocross event. Specifically, he Parade Team AX were all easily recognizable. They wore Gulf Blue polos with the embroidered PCA National AX logo.
Ernie Revuelta in his Cayman S
