how did you become a THSCC AutoX'r

RobLupella · **Posted:** Mon Jul 23, 2012 10:03 pm

I started out in 2000 at the Belk lot after my wife met a guy with a 1/2 scale NASCAR bodied go-cart. Even on a site that was little better than grid space, I managed to get lost. Steve would still be driving along trying to find the next gate. :lol:

I had a blast, came back for more and like Shawn started volunteering for stuff. No novice school and just had to beg rides and help from some who were willing to help.

I have to sort of agree with Steve that we were not too friendly to noobs back then. No one helped me figure stuff out, drivers yelled at me when I couldn't find out where the F%^*king cone box was.Despite that I kept coming back, improved, and enjoy trying to miss cones.There were cliques that actually made fun of drivers who were new and slow. I too, remember folks saying that they didn't want the novices returning as there were too many people. :roll:

Most of those folks are gone to spend time on track, chump, with kids, or just got bored.

I like working with novices. I feel that if I can get someone to enjoy the sport, come back and improve I am successful. I want to make sure that they do get help and don't feel any more lost than necessary in any new experience.

JamesShort · **Posted:** Mon Jul 23, 2012 10:13 pm

I have to say that Rob doesn't get thanked enough, but he's a damn hard worker and is always committed to helping out the novices. His shirt is soaked on hot summer event hours sooner than anyone else's as he jumps in and out of other peoples cars. He is always rushed to get his race tires on so he can do the novice walk etc etc.

Anyway, as much as I love to bust his balls, he's a key player in THSCC and I'm glad he made it through all the cliques making fun of him for being slow

.

JamesMilko · **Posted:** Mon Jul 23, 2012 10:17 pm

I moved to NC in late 2007. Met Andrew Jonell sometime in 2008, he ended up failing to talk me into points #7 that year but I made it out to the last event of the year at Sanford. The famous "wiggle room" course.

I had a good time, placed terribly. Got made fun of by the two people I knew (Andrew and Bryan Paterson) who both had proper autocross cars. Sometime in late 2009 I purchased another member's 1997 Miata and started throwing money into the endlessly deep money pit that is CSP.

Just pulled up that event and looked at the results, Les was FTD and I was 17 seconds behind him.

Les Davis · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 2:04 pm **Posts:** 2059

I must confess, I started with Triad. I might have started even earlier as I remember when I was in the Air Force in '92 stationed at Luke AFB in Phoenix walking across base one day seeing a couple guys working on an E30 BMW in a parking lot, had a brief conversation with them and they said something about an autocross the parking lot at PIR, which was just down the street from Luke. I was interested, but didn't have a car at that time though I soon afterward got a MKII Supra, unfortunately never could find out about any more autocross events, it was harder in the dark ages before the WWW.

In '97 I found myself back in Thomasville NC, where I had grown up, working at Autozone while going to college and a guy I worked with named Eddie Clinard had a VW Scirrocco 16V and I had a Sentra SE-R, he invited me to go to a Triad autocross with him in Danville and I was hooked. Even though I moved to Raleigh in '97 to go to NCSU, I continued autocrossing with Triad for the next year or so as I didn't know THSCC existed until I met Jason Mauldin and he told me about it.

In '98 I bought my first DSM a '97 Eclispe GSX when I got my first co-op job at IBM and decided '99 was going to be my first "serious" season of autocross, I bought a set of Sumitomo HTR Z II tires for the Eclipse which was some serious rubber at the time and is amazingly still produced and sold to this day. My first THSCC event was the same as Ryan and Vincent's in Rocky Mount and I'll never forget the bright flashing LEDs VK had on his Cavalier. That season I proceeded to compete in and win the '99 THSCC street tire championship against the likes of Mike Whitney, Scott Johnson, and Aaron Buckley, actually I have Scott to thank partially for that win as if he hadn't finished second ahead of Mike at the last event of the year in Morrisville, I wouldn't have beaten Whitney in the points for the season. The following year I began my history of Street Modified cars that I continue to this day when I bolted a bigger turbo on my the '95 Talon TSI AWD I bought late in '99...

Les Davis · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 2:04 pm **Posts:** 2059

JamesMilko wrote:

Just pulled up that event and looked at the results, Les was FTD and I was 17 seconds behind him.

Yeah, and guess who beat me this weekend? I also am probably one of those guilty of poking fun at Rob Lupella in '00 who also beat me this weekend. I guess that's payback.

Neal Harrington · **Joined:** Thu Sep 04, 2003 4:29 pm **Posts:** 106

Now you've done it, Remchak! I am going to bore everyone with my story. I moved here in 1985 from Illinois, where I had autocrossed for a couple of years with Blackhawk Valley Region of the SCCA. They were very low key in Autox, with a turnout of 30 being huge. I found them after hearing word-of-mouth that they were autocrossing in the back lots of the Chrysler plant in Belvidere. I had converted my 1966 Corvair to mid-engine V-8 power in 1975, tried one autox at a national Corvair convention in 1981, and liked it, even though I really sucked. Anyway, I went to work in 1985 where Mike Dishman worked in RTP. He admired my Corvair, which was my daily driver then, so I mentioned Autox. He perked right up, since he had done a ride/drive in college. Being the go getter that he is, he found out about THSCC, then came and watched me run my Corvair at the Raleigh fairgrounds. After deciding to risk his beloved Chrysler Laser, he began participating and we both joined THSCC in 1986. As to being friendly to noobs, THSCC was pretty good back then, with Kurt Spitzner, George Bright, and Peter Krause always being very helpful when asked. I think that's the key. If a noob is too shy to ask questions, he may fall into the cracks, since most of us don't want to insult a new person by
assuming he doesn't know what he is doing.

Arthur McDonald · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 1:54 am **Posts:** 2052

OK, Remchak - you asked for it...

In the summer of 1988, my first Taurus was in the shop, again, and I'd borrowed Dad's Reliant to go to work. After work I picked up Dad and he said we should go see a wrecked Lambo in the tobacco warehouse across from the Durham Fiat/Alfa dealership that his friend Lee O'Briant ran. When we got, there, I fixated on the red Ferrari Daytona that Peter Krause (who worked for O'Briant then) had subtly parked on the sidewalk in front. Dad remarked sarcastically that it was "just an old Fiat". Anyway, Peter caught me gawking and invited me along for a blast down the downtown loop and past my old high school on Duke Street. V12 vs 35 mph speed limit. Did I mention that it was a Ferrari?

A few months later, on election night, I accompanied my folks to the Kiwanis Pancake dinner at the Armory. We parked in Dad's rented parking place behind the Fiat dealership, and since the lights were on the shop we popped in to say hi to Peter. He let me sit in the Daytona again, and then in an '85 Testarossa. As we left he invited me to come out and watch an autocross at the State Fairgrounds the next Sunday. So I did, along with my college buddy Tom Morris, and Peter took me for a lap around the course in his '75 Alfetta sedan. (Rules were bit less strict then). I also met Dick Rasmussen, who was instantly my hero because he was (a) fast and (b) driving a new Mustang LX 5.0 hatchback, which I knew was the best car in the world. I also watched a guy named Spitzner cut countless doughnuts in an automatic Gremlin.

The next March THSCC ran a charity autocross for MADD at the Fairgrounds. For $5 you got two runs in a spec car on an incredibly short course. The spec cars (there were two) were identical 1989 Mustang GT Convertibles. They both had under 100 miles on their odometers, and I really felt guilty about flogging them. I'm sure Tom Morris felt guilty too, but we both ended up making 6 or 8 runs each. As I recall, the event organizers (one of whom may have been George) had arranged for a local tire store to provide substitute wheels and tires so that the rental agency got its cars back with their original, unmolested tires.

By the end of April, I had joined the club, bought a helmet, helped with my first site prep day (a cold rainy day of shoveling, hacking and scraping at Laurinburg), bought my first autocross car, and scored a 3rd place novice trophy in my first event. In that order.

As far as being made felt welcome, well, volunteering to help with things goes a long way, especially when you're a newcomer. At the Laurinburg site prep, which was staffed by only the two Auto-X VPs, Tom Morris, and me, VP Ed Gelston welcomed me by driving me down to the "P" in his Corvette, handing me a shovel, and instructing me to wade into six inches of cold water to dig a drainage trench. At the autocross the next Sunday, Jean Wilkins welcomed me by accusing me of being a total idiot for calling in a DNF on her husband Bill. And after a lurid slide during my 3rd run, Susan Bunch encouraged me by saying "We MUST do better" when she handed me my timing slip. Then my muffler fell off.

JasonWatts · **Posted:** Mon Jul 23, 2012 11:49 pm

Matt McGrain wrote:

Speaking of novices, I never thought I'd have a police car in front of me at the line getting ready to do autocross runs with the flashers on. Very cool and he was pretty fast in that patrol car.

I never thought I would give a ride along to an officer while wearing an i hate police style tshirt...

Zach Hill · **Posted:** Tue Jul 24, 2012 2:03 am

Okay, here goes...

When I was 16 years old, I bought my first car, a 1987 Porsche 944 with 187K miles displayed on the odometer (which no longer worked). I didn't know anything about cars or things like staggered tires, which is how I ended up driving around with the two larger wheels on one side after rotating my WalMart tires trying to get some more life out of them. I learned how to drive RWD and fell in love with it. I drove way too fast and recklessly on back roads purely for fun late into many nights for about 2 years, luckily I never hit a deer, ended up in a ditch, or worse. I got many speeding tickets, the worst of which was 127 in a 65 on I-85 on my way to community college. I was arrested and had to call my parents to bail me out. When the mechanic and lawyer bills had maxed out all of my credit cards and my license was nearly suspended, I bought a 1992 Honda Accord 5MT and my driving life got a lot more boring. I still got speeding tickets.

In January 2008, after having a better job for a while and a clean driving record (well, the 3 most recent years that mattered), I purchased my dream car, a Honda S2000 (944 + Accord = S2000?). All I knew was: it was faster than my 944, it was RWD, and hopefully it would be as reliable as my Accord. Plus it looked sweet, and had these "coilover" thingies installed, which sounded awesome, whatever they were. I didn't know what autocross was and couldn't care less about motorsports. When I told my friend Carlton Whitehead about the car I had bought, he immediately said "you should autocross it!" I replied, "what's autocross?" He convinced me to get up really early one Sunday morning and drive two hours to a town I'd never heard of, Laurinburg. This was the result. Yep, I was last place in every way, DNF on every run. What a humbling experience. Even my scratch time was beaten raw by a Fit driven by Chris Lin. Art won FTD and FTP in Karl's S2000, I believe. I had a great time and was hooked from the first run, and I have only missed a couple THSCC events since that day.

Through my first season I was pretty distant with people in the club. Carlton was the only person I knew, and I didn't make any friends. It's a two-way street though, and I probably wasn't the most welcoming either. I probably told people offering to ride along and coach me that "no, I got it" when they offered. I suppose if I hadn't been interested in continuing with the sport/club, I could have left and that would have been that. But everyone was faster than I, and I wasn't discouraged, in fact the opposite. It became apparent to me at some point that these people had skill and experience that I didn't, and that made me determined to acquire that same skill. People were definitely helpful, though, whenever I needed anything, and I definitely did not feel discriminated against or unwelcome. Plus, I had finally found a place where I could drive as hard as I wanted, and there was no fear of speeding tickets or quadrupling insurance for 3 years. It wasn't until the Novice School at the start of 2009 when I started to get to know people in the club. Several people coached me and helped me get faster, and it felt fantastic. I started getting more involved and attending meetings, and here I am today.

Bottom line though, I think that if this is going to be someone's hobby, it will happen quite naturally once they've been to an event. Autocross is misunderstood almost 100% of the time by people until they attend an event. The big hurdle is getting people to come out to their first one, so they get to see and experience what it's all about. If they don't come back, I think the quality of the club and welcomingness of the people are most likely not the primary reasons. But for the record, in my experience as far as autocross clubs go, THSCC has a great group of people attending and running things, and does a good job attending to novices thanks to people like Rob, James, Maria, and others.

Remchak: I heard you were in Fayetteville on Saturday. Bummer we didn't get to meet, I would have loved to talk shit to your face. :lol:

Guess you'll just have to come to another autocross.

Pete Guthrie · **Posted:** Tue Jul 24, 2012 10:26 am

Well.. I got a freebie, seeing as how my father was pres at teh time... I got in under the radar as a kid, I eventually paid like everyone else... Now I dont even autox.
I do dirt, I have not auto x other than jimmy v for years.. And I suck bad!!!!! If rallycross ever goes under it will be years before I am back where I used ot be.
I really hope that does nto happen.

Pete Guthrie · **Posted:** Tue Jul 24, 2012 10:28 am

My first autocross car, as you may know was a 1977 datsun 280z. No power steering, weak brakes and a lotta motor.Then I progressed up to a sentra ser.. the famous dark grey sentra. till it blew up and then i got my wrx which i have now. and then i disappeared and got dirty. And have not come back since.. :lol:

TomFreeman · **Posted:** Tue Jul 24, 2012 11:09 am

It was 1998, Les and I had just reconnected in Raleigh, as we hadn't seen each other since high school. The conversation always returned to cars, so we started talking about Les's SE-R and my Probe GT. Les had just started this auto-x thing, so I signed up for my first event with Triad at Danville.

Now...those still on the forums that have been around long enough to remember when I autox'd regularly with THSCC will tell you that I was plenty slow, but this first event with Danville was the epitome of slow. It was "time me with a sundial" slow. I also got hopelessly sunburned, but like with many others, the hook was set.

I ran another event that year with Tarheel at the old Belk warehouse in Morrisville...and got hopelessly lost on most of my runs. I remember Mike Whitney bringing out his red MG with vinyl on the side saying "100% pure whoop@ss" I believe that was the event where Jon Kerfoot ran his FV under the fence at M-ville. I autox'd pretty regularly with THSCC from '99-'04 before moving to MD, running a wide variety of cars. Probe GT, Eclipse GSX, 2 MR-2's, and a Miata.

I've been back down for a few THSCC autoxs in the 8 years I've been here, but my focus has turned more to track events, LeMons and Chump racing.

I'll wrap this up with the reason why I'm still a member, 8 years removed from the area. Friends. I made many friends in those years with THSCC, and many I still keep up with to this day. They've towed me home, offered me codrives, helped me fix my broken stuff, and many other acts of kindness and friendship. I hope I've been able to reciprocate.

Vincent Keene · **Posted:** Tue Jul 24, 2012 11:14 am

TomFreeman wrote:

I ran another event that year with Tarheel at the old Belk warehouse in Morrisville...and got hopelessly lost on most of my runs. I believe that was the event where Jon Kerfoot ran his FV under the fence at M-ville.

I didn't know you back then Tom, but I was at that same event in my Z-24. I remember that site really SUCKED especially compared to L'burg or R'Mount. We lost that site right after that, but I decided I wouldn;t go back to run in a "McDonald's-sized parking lot" again.

Anyone know what became of Kerfoot?

Charlie Guthrie · **Joined:** Thu Aug 28, 2003 8:14 pm **Posts:** 832

Pete wrote:

Quote:

Well.. I got a freebie, seeing as how my father was pres at the time... I got in under the radar as a kid,

.... Well he didn't really get in free (guess who paid for his high school student at the time). And by the time he started auto-X I was not the pres (at least that's how I recall it). Pete did start coming to events at the tender age of 5 when we ran at the Raleigh fairgrounds. By age 8 he was at many events riding in the MG Midget.
Charlie G

Charlie Guthrie · **Joined:** Thu Aug 28, 2003 8:14 pm **Posts:** 832

In the spring of 1985 we moved from CA to Raleigh where I worked with Dick Rasmussen. Dick and I had worked together in CA before and he had tried to get me to an auto-x in the San Francisco area, but I was driving a '67 Sunbeam Alpine that I had transplanted a Toyota engine and transmission into for reliability as much as performance (although it really was faster than stock). When Dick explained that this would put me in MODIFIED class I chickened out. So when I drove my 1962 Corvair convertible to NC from CA the time seemed right. My first event was at the Wake Fairgrounds and we raced over the area where the midway is typically set up. Lots of elevation change and cones, cones, cones. I trophied in novice class along with Oscar White, but not until the safety steward from Triad (a co-event) came running onto the course crying "Red flag the Corvair" because he was sure it was going to flip over. (Hidden under the car was a camber compensator bar that kept the wheels from tucking under, but it still looked scary.)

I found the membership to be quite open and friendly and willing to share stories and tips. One member, Bob Smith, was campaigning an Austin Healy Sprite and offered to share the ride. I don't know if he was secretly just trying to keep the Corvair off the course or not. Later that same year I bought a couple of MG Midgets and eventually made one running car (even if multicolored). This was a super low budget endeavor. Slowly the car began to take shape and was headed for CSP (later downgraded to DSP). I learned the hard way that when one lowers a car there should be some sort of accommodation for shortening the bump stops. There were some spectacular spins in that short wheel based car as the springs loaded up and gripped right up until the axle touched the bump stops then...wheeeeee. Bob Smith and I continued to hang out together and did the first ever CarGuys event at Rockingham and then began working track-side for free track weekends. I eventually got the call to instructor duty at a THSCC CMP track event and then spent many years without auto-x as I chased the track junkie dream.

The Midget gave way to the 280Z which gave way to the E30 BMW 325is which gave way to the DirtMaster 1600 (Toyota Corolla) as 7 of us co-purchased Bill Gratton's commuter car to go rallycrossing. Along the way I have been fortunate to serve a club officer on multiple occasions and have found the experience rewarding, I also picked up the nickname "SpinArt" (some will remember why and some who were at Fayetteville Sunday already know).
I just needed Dick Rasmussen to have been at Fayetteville to remind me one more time to "show down and go faster" .

I have to say that of all the different THSCC sports, I believe rally-x is the most fun, challenging, and technical. While it doesn't hold a candle to the seat time of a HPDE or even time trial, the pure adrenalin rush of a well done rally-x easily exceeds anything I have done. (This message approved by the Rally-X Advisory Board)

Charlie Guthrie

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