Autocrossing is not my bag. The last time I did more than one autocross in a 12 month period was around 20 years ago in college. At the time I was pretty decent at it. I moved over to track events immediately after attending my first Car Guys event at Roebling Road and came to the conclusion that it was way more fun driving the car for 20-30 minutes vs driving for 1 minute and then standing around for an hour. Nonetheless this is the One Lap and that means a variety of events you may or may not be good at or an event you have never done before. Jose is driving to one of those events, a 1/2 Oval track. Back to the autocross... we are allowed 3 runs taking the best time for the event standings.
It did not start out well, I blew a gate completely after the 5th cone under acceleration and DNF'd the run. Funny how these cones look different when you drive vs walk the track. As well the track was wet and grip for acceleration was non-existent.
The 2nd run I was relieved to nurse the short geared (4:10diff) M3 to a time of 44sec. The track was drying out so times are dropping like a rock. The top autocross aces are running around 4sec quicker and they all, with the exception of the rear engine GT2, have four wheel drive to help them launch out of the corners.
The 3rd run I am able to see a 43 and change time, so although better is far away from the top runners who are able to finish as follows:
Top 3 as of now:
1) Cannonball GTR - 38.9
2) TIC WRC - 39.5
3) Cannonfodder GT2 - 40.2
I just hope that this performance does not kill us in the overall to much. I keep saying it is very early in the event and everyone has to finish to win. Another plus is we are heading South to Florida and a few tracks that I have some experience, Sebring & Daytona. First We have to get through the 1/2 mile and "Mini" Talladega sports car course.
Highland Rim ½ mile Oval
Cancelled-Rain
After waiting around the local Shell gas station along with a congregation of One Lappers for over an hour we head over to the track to find that the event is cancelled. The event staff is unable to dry the track enough to run the event. Well that is too bad, it could have been fun.
Jose is back at the wheel and headed to Alabama the Garmin Nuvi GPS has us arriving at the hotel just before 10pm. The rain is coming down at a steady pace.
Hopefully we are headed to clearer skies, the weather report last night looked promising for the Sebring and Daytona events. It can rain in Gainesville for the drags, 1st and 2nd gears are sort of worthless and wheel spin is pretty dominant in those gears and I know the manumatic GT-R’s will have us covered on the drag strip. Perhaps they will open up the old IMSA course that used to be set-up at the track that is so well known for it’s drag strip.
Report in the morning.
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