Thanks to everyone who came out for helping to make THSCC's first rallycross a complete success! For those of you who were on the fence about coming, or decided at the last minute to pull out, you missed a great time! We had 34 drivers, and with about an hour or so lunch break, and some delays due to timer issues, everyone got their 6 runs in by 2:30, followed by 45 minutes of fun runs. The weather was great- mostly sunny and warm, but not too warm. And although it looked like a big storm was blowing in while we were packing the bus, it missed us and all we got was a few drops of rain during trophies.
Special thanks are due to several folks who put in a lot of hours to make this event happen. Peter Baio came out for every work day to help prepare the field for us. Mike Winn volunteered his time and tractor to mow the course and pit area. And, of course, Kevin Allen put in many more hours toward the cause, both in preparing the course, and in needling his mom to let us have the event there!
Thanks also to Café Monet in Smithfield who arrived with tasty lunches just as we finished our morning runs.
About half the course turned out to be on softer soil, which did develop ruts fairly quickly. Fortunately, in most places people’s lines were different enough that a tall center ridge never developed. Also, the displaced dirt was very soft, so the risk of car damage was low. However, as many people discovered, if you slid wide in a corner and into the deep soft stuff, it really slowed you down!
For the 3 afternoon runs we were to run the course in the other direction, but clearly some other changes were needed. So
while folks were munching on their sandwiches during the lunch break, Kevin and I went out and rerouted the course to avoid the most badly rutted areas. The modified course was more open, and most folks seemed to run it 3 to 4 seconds faster than the morning one. There was one corner where you could carry a single long drift through several consecutive gates- it seemed to be a favorite!
The concept of cumulative scoring (as opposed to “best time”, as in autocross) was another new concept for most drivers, and they soon discovered that those pesky cones they hit in the morning were going to be with them all day! Of course some folks seemed to just be in it for fun- the Adams Ligon and Menges, co-entered in a Miata, were the undisputed kings of coneage, hitting 15 between the 2 of them!
Some other notable results were: Vincent Keene, who would have finished 2nd behind his codriver in the SO4 class (street tire, 4WD) had it not been for 2 cones on his first afternoon run; and Jason Mauldin, Jordan Denhoed, and Charlie Guthrie, who walked away from the rest of the SO2 class (street tire, over 2.4 liters, 2WD), with Jason finally taking the win. Matthew Johnson would have given a schooling to everyone in SU2 class (street tire, under 2.4 liters, 2WD) had his VW GTI rally car been in good working order, but it wasn’t so he struggled in a Nissan Sentra he co-entered with former ProRally teammate Eric Adams. Still, Matthew did put in the fastest time of all cars on the morning course. Also worth noting is that we had 4 women participating, including 2 students from the spring Chicks School- you go girls!
I think most folks learned a lot, including that you don’t need a 4WD car to do rallycross, or to be competitive. We had a wide variety of cars turn out, including a VW Beetle, a Toyota Corolla, and 2 BMWs, all of whom did quite well in their classes.
I hope people will be encouraged by what they've seen and heard of this event, and come on out to the next one!
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