Da Groj

The results are up and it's only 4:30pm. Way to go Loren and Ron. Congrats to morning session who played "Dancing in the Rain" all morning for us.

Not that there was a lot of water in the afternoon but we spent the entire Driver's Meeting in a constant drizzle. And basically it didn't stop for the rest of the afternoon session. The last heat pretty much was standing water for all my runs. Great day to run R tires. This is the 3rd event I've been to on these tires and the 3rd time I ran in the rain for at least 1/2 my runs. Omen? I almost brought my RX8 with new street tires but didn't. My bad. Ken Marion had the good sense to borrow Gerry's M1 car and took 3rd place in R1. Impressive. My car is much too expensive to repair so I happily settled for DFL in R1 but hit nothing and carved 3 seconds off my time. I'll live with it. At least I didn't finish DFL overall like I was pretty sure I would in the last session. I left the AC running for all my runs as didn't want the windshield to steam up. At least I was comfortable.

I was blown away how Les could pull off a 44 in standing water. My first run I left the Nannies on and a message appears in computer print: "Are you nuts? Slow down." So I turned it off and went faster. There was absolutely no grip for any road race tires in that 60F rain. I used my ABS to heat up the brakes which heated up the rims which heated up the air in the tires to 70F - which wiggled and giggled and tickled inside 'er. Genius. The turn around was no problem if you yelled "coming about" first.

I did see some great wet driving today. So you weenies who drove on dry pavement don't get too cocky just yet. We get 3 drops and this will probably be one of them.

Thanks to everyone who pulled this event off and sorry I didn't help clean up but cold rain makes me have to pee.

Especially thanks for the course workers who managed somehow to remember where to put downed cones with no remaining boxes to be seen. Loren treated all the cones like a Mirage and kicked a lot of butt driving where he thought they were. I doubt he even got a chance to walk the course. Yikes. Soraya likewise very quick dodging puddles.

Looking forward to FALL.

At least I didn't get beat by the... oh, wait.
Surely I didn't lose to... oh, my.

Hey, my clutch seems to work. So, there's that.

I think Ron touched my car because it handles like a backward shopping cart at the moment. Too many mods all at once! Still, autocross in the rain is always fun! I haven't done it in forever. 'Twas a fun day.

Oh and now I need to clean grass and dirt out of all the crevices. Hehe

No sticker today, but I made my two goals AND I had sooooo much fun in the wet. Got to take my doppelganger out for a solid run too.

...and Gerry, your shopping cart still made it well into the top 30, that's a very shame-less group...

I missed the dry part of this event due to having to work. But, Steve (and a bunch of other people) picked up my slack. Y'all are awesome!

Speaking of awesome, there were some seriously awesome folks running our WET afternoon session today. They cheerfully (okay, maybe not quite cheerfully) worked course in the rain. Cheerfully (mostly) drove the course in the rain. And a BUNCH of people stuck around to help us pack up at the end of the day. Special thanks, however, go to Jamie Sculerati (who wasn't even a registered driver, just came out to instruct in the late session for fun... and ended up being drafted to pick up lunch... and work timing... and then volunteered to help pack the trailer!), and Rowen Suarez (who stuck around to work the WET afternoon session, even though his car broke in the early session and he wasn't driving). Thanks!

As Doug noted, the Results are up.

What the results don't tell you is "who's runs were in the rain?" Well, here's the answer to that question:

M0 1 Drew Scoda
M1 24 Les Davis
M1 314 Gerry Hernandez
M1 5 Ronald Rice
M3 33 Joseph Lazaro
M4 161 Soraya Juarbe-Diaz
R1 19 Doug Adams
R1 60 Ken Marion
S1 606 Anthony Alto
S1 93 Austin Denis
S1 80 David Lineberry
S1 41 Blake Wallace
S4 11 Robert Ledwell
S4 321 Philip Petrie
S4 42 Derek Stevenson
S5 97 Vincent Chou
S5 37 Steven Frank
S5 3 Loren Williams
FN 81 Vincent Bartolomeo
FN 83 Emilio Cabrera
FN 4 Dan Estep
FN 181 Colin Herzberg
FN 28 Louis Lazaro
FN 511 Cesar Mendoza
FN 727 Brant Rakoski
FN 9 Andrew Smith III

Loren wrote:I missed the dry part of this event due to having to work. But, Steve (and a bunch of other people) picked up my slack. Y'all are awesome!

GOOD JOB EVERYONE in the morning!!!
Loren actually thinks there was a morning session... what he doesn't know won't hurt him!



Seriously, thanks very much, all! I'll second Loren's "name-calling" and add all those who worked stations by themselves, or worked two stations at once (Rob Ledwell...). We were a bit short on workers due to no-shows, but it all worked out well in the end.

I especially want to thank the last group of workers who stood out in the rain so I could take my runs.
I will also point out, that, I only took 3 runs (in Loren's Mirage, not the Gulfenvagen) out of mercy. Mercy for the courseworkers waiting on me, and mercy on the rest of S5 (and perhaps a few others), in that after cutting a second off my time on my second run, and then 2 more seconds off my time on my 3rd run, I easiliy knew where there was more! You're all welcome!

And also thanks to Doug and Rob for offering me co-drives/runs - I'll catch you guys next time!

As Jeremy Clarkson would denote next to your lap. “VW”. For very wet.


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Good times at the FAST autocross season opener! Big thanks to Mustang Brian in station 6 for grabbing at least two-thirds of the downed cones. Extra special thanks to 13 lb baby Kosei K1 for giving my 45 y/o unexercised knees the supple strength to somehow sprint to the finish gate to grab cones and not pass the eff out from geriatric exhaustion. Much love!

Sally beat my R1 Vette by 3.4 seconds. Watch out for her. She's green but she's mean.

Doug

dan wrote:the top 30, that's a very shame-less group...

The shame runs deeper than the water at this event.

Looks like fastest wet times were:
1. Gary Fernandez - 44.396
2. Dan The Imposter - 44.483 (with 4 practice runs in the dry)
3. Loren The Professor - 44.998 (no cones here)

If cones didn't count, some raw times worth mentioning:
Matt Gonna Whoop up on M2 - 43.015 (edit... turns out Matt ran in the morning on all-season tires)
Philip This-Course-Hates-Me Petrie 43.053
Ron The Time Lord - 44.931 (he swears that slalom cone was already down, he just didn't want to stop for it)
Les Of Many Torques - 44.849

The rest of y'all... well...

Kudos to Steve for getting within 3/10 of my time in the same car. Must be the car.

To me the Line of Shame are the DNS "9"

That was the worst finish I've had OA since I started running with FAST other than the DFL for the Crown Vic. I need to disprove further and suck you all in for the kill. Jamie didn't even bring a car and finished ahead of me. Damn.

Kudo's to Gerry Ferandez new wife for throwing him out the door to come racing for the first time in months!! Congrats Gerry and Mrs. Fernandez. She must be a good cook!! You barely fit under my poncho with 6 other guys.

Doug

Gary Hernandes? Never heard of him.

Loren wrote: If cones didn't count, some raw times worth mentioning:
Matt Gonna Whoop up on M2 - 43.015

We'll see about that...

twistedwankel wrote:Sally beat my R1 Vette by 3.4 seconds. Watch out for her. She's green but she's mean.

Doug

Sally Sneaking through the Alley has a ringer car and a bunch of coaches that want to see her kick some bottoms in class and out. Pay attention.

twistedwankel wrote:To me the Line of Shame are the DNS "9"

Truth!

nathanwilliams617 wrote:

Loren wrote: If cones didn't count, some raw times worth mentioning:
Matt Gonna Whoop up on M2 - 43.015

We'll see about that...

Dis gon' be fun!

Special thanks to Joe Brannon for wringing out my car today and offering the suggestion I remove my rear sway bar. Everybody else that has driven my car has commended it for being very nice, but Joe called it out for snapping a little aggressively and he kinda walked away with my T-shirt a couple times, so I'm inclined to take his advice. I'm a little tentative as a driver as it is, so a less loose car may well make the difference. Hang in there, kiddos!

Oh for Pete's sake, where are my manners?
Loren, thank you very much for taking over my starter position, in the rain, so that I could get in a few runs in your car!