First let me say a big Thank You to all my friends and family for coming out today. It felt awesome having your support! Also, Thank You to Mark for the video, and Jim for the Photos.

I drove at my first autocross today at Toledo Express Airport. I had some small goals for the day:

– I wanted to run under 60 seconds.
– I didn’t want to hit any cones.
– I didn’t want to get lost on the course. (My biggest fear!)

I’m extremely happy to report that I was 100% successful at achieving my goals. 😉

The day began with a novice walk of the course. I picked up some good pointers and more importantly, I was able to learn the course and plan my drive. After the walk came the driver orientation. 127 drivers signed up today. There would be four heats, with four runs per driver. Each heat consisted of many different classes of vehicles. I learned that I would work the track on the very first run of the day, and drive the third run of the day. Unfortunately, the skies again opened up and soaked not only the track and cars, but also the track workers.

After working the first heat, my posse (Brother and friends) drove up to Charlies for lunch. When we finally made it back my class was just getting ready to enter the “grid” to begin heat three.

Cue the butterflies!  I was nervous, but that was gone when I started the car and moved up to the start line. Did I mention the course was soaked? That actually worked to my advantage because of the all wheel drive (AWD) in the Subaru.

On my first run I was mainly concerned with staying on the track, nothing else. My laptime time reflected my lazy approach to navigating the track. I turned a 59.964. Whew! Under 60 seconds! Download the video here:
My First Ever Autocross run – NWOR SCCA – May 22, 2005

On my next run my friend, co-worker, golf buddy (on and on) Jim rode shotgun. With a successful run under my belt I opened it up a little more and began to actually lose some traction. I was even more excited to learn that I turned a 56.563! A nearly 3.5 second improvement. Hooray!
Download the video here:
My Second Autocross run – NWOR SCCA – May 22, 2005

My third run was, well interesting. I was getting squirly in most corners, but still maintaining control. On the second to last corner, I had my shifter knob fly off in my hand. Needless to say it was fairly distracting coming into the last turn while pushing the shifter back onto the gearshift! Even with the distraction I still managed to improve my run to 55.563.
Download the video here:
My Third Autocross run – NWOR SCCA – May 22, 2005

The fourth and final run was the first time there was any hint of dry track. That turned out to be good and bad. I went to slow in the dry spots and a little to fast in the wet sections. With the mixed track conditions I was very happy to see my fastest round of the day, a 55.206.
Download the video here:
My Forth Autocross run – NWOR SCCA – May 22, 2005

Additional Photographs can be viewed here.