April 15th Autox at Brooksville

[garage west]

Hey Chuck,

When you were eating lunch I made a snide comment in jest about you not being able to catch Chris-- Chris and I were standing right there. You didn't react, so I thought you didn't hear me. If you did hear me, I hope you know I was joking.

[Loren]

We're apologizing for trash talk now?

[Jeremy]

It ain't an autocross unless you are using full lock. OH YEAH!

[twistedwankel]

If anyone was working the course in the 2nd heat, and remembers where the red RX8 was hitting cones, please tell me. And rest assured. I paid the price by working the slalom and running cones like crazy. Karma.

Honest I didn't ask to be "starter". I avoid that position because I swear EVERY time I've done that there has been the "shit happens" t shirt.

2nd heat was approaching "ugly". Serves me right for getting everyone Hypoglycemic. God bless "That Smoky the Bear guy" as that was unavoidable. The girl on the bike was different. The guy backing out of the finish was different.

As far as your runs suffice to say I had to hold the start on the downwind leg while they rebuilt the course more than once. Maybe if you left your windows down you could breath better? Or at least hear the carnage? You had the AC on right?

Don't feel bad - you had alot of talented company on the coneage today. I didn't have a clean run until my 4th with the first 2 DNF's Oh that's right it was my ONLY clean run of the day.

I thought today's course was crazy challenging!! Nice to see the big guns sweat.

[Loren]

It ain't an autocross unless you are using full lock. OH YEAH!

I don't think I got that close to that cone even when I walked the course!

[Gerry]

Loved this course. I loved the fact that I never quite figured it out, yet had a blast driving it every time. It really gave me the chance to experiment. Definitely the most fun I've had hitting cones! Hahaha!

Oh and Doug.... <-- stick this up your "loud pedal!" Finally!!! That's what you get for kicking me out of your car.

Big thanks to Chris Meier for the course walk and tech inspection, Ed for fixing my car, Ken Marion for filling up my tires, That Guy for the ride-along so I could learn the course, Joe Buckley for leaving before I could give him his tire pressure gauge back, Chuck Ray for pronouncing my name correctly, Steve for learnin me some master cylinder bracing, and Loren Williams for "teaching me everything I know."

[Loren]

Here's one Chris! And you don't need a goPro, I just use my iPhone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy2cSLI0oyY

Don't forget (everybody) to tag your vids with "drivefastvids" so they'll appear on the FAST website.

[garage west]

L

Big thanks to ...That Guy for the ride-along so I could learn the course...

Always glad to provide an alternate perspective.

[nc4me]

It ain't an autocross unless you are using full lock. OH YEAH!

I don't think I got that close to that cone even when I walked the course!

I was up on it all day . Frantically, but I was right there .

[Lava Speed 05]

My apologies to anyone working the course in the second run group, especially at the long slalom... I kept forgetting there is a pedal between the clutch and the gas causing me to get waaay behind. I was continuously destroying that slalom and anything in its general vicinity.

I need to find a groove real soon or find a new hobby because my car and the course workers can't take much more abuse...

[Rosko]

Hey Chuck,

When you were eating lunch I made a snide comment in jest about you not being able to catch Chris-- Chris and I were standing right there. You didn't react, so I thought you didn't hear me. If you did hear me, I hope you know I was joking.

No worries. I didn't hear you. My ears don't work while I'm eating.

And hey! I might've caught Chris. Of course, I would've needed 12 more runs, and would've needed dirty runs to count because clean wasn't in the cards today.

[aparke]

Great event for the most part!

The mighty Fred did better than expected on ridiculously narrow all-season tires, and I was able to win M1 with two runs in John's Miata (with a cone?). I really enjoyed the course... even the "challenging" pin turn!

Results coming your way very soon...

I started cussing myself out until I realized that you switched cars before you took me by a tenth!

[ShelbyF]

Had a great time at my 2nd event. Here's a video of my best run. Unfortunately I nailed a cone but hell with it, I'm happy with my best time, even if I pissed off a cone. Youtube won't let me edit it right now so it's not trimmed, but here it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz5b7aG7 ... AAAAAAAAAA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[twistedwankel]

Oh and Doug.... <-- stick this up your "loud pedal!" Finally!!! That's what you get for kicking me out of your car.

Guess it really pays to sleep in.

Remember Loren's first words of advice to you: "Now keep it clean sonny."

(For the record my car is much quieter than yours because I keep my mouth shut while I drive and my head inside the window.)

[Rosko]

As far as your runs suffice to say I had to hold the start on the downwind leg while they rebuilt the course more than once. Maybe if you left your windows down you could breath better? Or at least hear the carnage? You had the AC on right?

Yes. AC was on. Radio was on medium volume playing some relaxing Kenny G saxaphone. When I wasn't yawning, I was glancing in the rearview mirror, snickering at course workers. What does the middle finger mean in course worker language? I translated it as "very nice effort, but try harder".

Seriously, though, what parts of the course were they rebuilding? I had my passenger window up, and my driver window down, actually, so I could hear stuff. I only obliterated a couple of cones on my first run. The rest must have been super gentle taps. Those don't even count, right?

[Jeremy]

Here is my video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TR_PT3WfoM" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I drove like poop, and the car was down about 50 HP. Charles's new race car boost controller stopped working after first run.

[twistedwankel]

Seriously, though, what parts of the course were they rebuilding? I had my passenger window up, and my driver window down, actually, so I could hear stuff. I only obliterated a couple of cones on my first run. The rest must have been super gentle taps. Those don't even count, right?

All I can tell you is both station 2 and 3 were an issue too far for me to see precisely other than the orange workers running. There were so many cones 2nd heat from everyone I doubt anyone in timing remembers any other stations that may have nipped you calling in.

Maybe the corner captains will eventually chime in? There was only one red RX8 there. It is a bummer not knowing what we hit!! Need computer generated holograms of cones on xmas list. Then course setup and teardown wouldn't be necessary. Oh that's right it all ready exists at the game parlor. No car req'd. Hmmmm.

I do vaguely remember hearing a couple sorta late calls on you after you finished tho'. No idea where they were. Might have been station 5?

[Lava Speed 05]

I do vaguely remember hearing a couple sorta late calls on you after you finished tho'. No idea where they were. Might have been station 5?

Yeah i remember watching his first run and he had a 50.5 then two cones were thrown on after Chuck had parked. So they must have been wobblers that had to be checked.

[Loren]

Okay, I keep hearing about this "car that backed up in the finish lane". I didn't see it happen, but someone finally explained to me what happened.

It was an unusual situation, and I think it may have been handled wrong. Follow along, if you will...

At every driver's meeting, we tell drivers "if you spot a cone that is down or out of place STOP, point it out to the course workers, and you'll get a rerun". Well, in this case, the driver was blasting through a fairly fast section right before the finish, SPOTTED a misplaced cone, and stopped as quickly as he could... which happened to be just after the lights. The nearest course workers were WAY behind him.

The proper thing for him to do at that point (probably in spite of a bunch of people yelling at him to move) was to stay put until a worker came to him. Instead he backed up to get closer to the course workers... dumb idea. HOWEVER, whether he stayed put OR backed up, the course needed to be red-flagged. It sucks, it caused a couple reruns, but that IS the procedure. You stop for a down/misplaced cone. If it takes more than 5 seconds to point it out to a worker... it's probably going to cause some reruns. That's life.

The last bit I heard was that this driver was still requesting a rerun for stopping for the downed cone... I didn't hear whether he got it or not, but I feel that he deserved two things: 1. to be lightly admonished for backing up on course, and 2. a rerun for stopping for a misplaced cone. I'm gonna bet he got more of #1 than was warranted in the heat of the moment. But, if he didn't get #2, I want to offer an apology, because he should have gotten that rerun.

Remember that misplaced cones CAN be dangerous when a driver sees the cone and doesn't realize that it's out of place. Can result in spins, trips through the grass, damaged timing equipment, etc. We should never fault a driver for stopping to point out a misplaced cone.

That is all. Carry on.

[garage west]

I nearly #2'd a couple times while course working.