I like these threads too.
When I was in college at UNC, I used the money I earned working at bike shops to buy a used '88 CRX Si, the first of three CRX Sis I would own over the years. I bought this car from a newlywed couple, Arthur and Valerie Hunt. About a year later, the car was squeaking like crazy from the hatch area, something those cars just do. I posted a question on how to fix on the "HONDA-L" mailing list, a listserv based out of Brown University.
Someone responded, asking if I'd bought the car from a newleywed couple in Raleigh, and that if so, I should take it to an "autocross school" in Rocky Mount, because those cars were really good at it. I was vaguely familiar with autocross, so, I went. I had a blast. Among my first instructors were Mark Senior, and maybe Chris Schimmel. Took me a while to get back to the hobby, because I didn't have any money until I got my first real job.
That puts me in about 1996, and I went to Bondurant back then. Came back and put Bondurant stickers on my 1995 Integra GS-R, which I'd bought new. Started autocrossing with increased seriousness, doing the entire NCAC series one year and getting completely clobbered. I should have spotted the pattern back then. Sometime around then, Mike Whitney, Shawn Whipple, and I were all autocross VPs.
In 1998, I did my first track event, at Summit Point with Car Guys. I got hooked, bad, and ended up instructing for various groups by 2000. I became involved with our track program from its inception, and even remember having original planning meetings at Matt Graham's house years ago.
Come around 2001, I was getting the itch to race door to door. Long story short, a close friend of mine, Scott Giles, and I had an idea. We invented, and co-authored the original rulebook for what was then East Coast Honda Challenge, a fledgling race group hosted by NASA-VA. He and I co-ran that for 2002, which took over my life, and by then I wasn't autocrossing at all. The politics started to get really ugly entering 2003, as Honda Challenge became a nationally recognized class within NASA, and I only stuck around for a race or two in 2003.
By 2004 or so, the same guy, his wife, and I shared his ITC Civic in ECR enduros with SCCA. A highlight: Renee and I were undefeated. A lowlight: I crashed into Mark Senior one time. Overall, ITC was fun, and I enjoyed being able to just be a racer, without having to help run the show.
In early 2007, I bought my S2000, and bought a nice example. I knew I wasn't going to take it to track events, so it followed that I'd autocross it. That marked my return to autocross, which I did for four years or so, including a two year stint (09-10) as autocros VP again. I started going to national events, including Nationals in '08-'10. In '11, I met my fiancee, and had a bad event in Lincoln. At that time I knew it was time for a break. I've done one event since, in October of last year, and drove better than I ever had before. I'm not sure why, maybe it was the lack of self-imposed pressure to perform.
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