A handfull of THSCCers and a good number of NC AXers attended the (first annual) SCCA Dixie National Tour event this past weekend. Despite dire predictions the weather only affected the third runs in the 4th run group on Sunday (guess when I ran?
) There was a free Pro Solo test event on Thursday for those able to take off more time from work than we could, I heard reports of up to 100 runs per person!
Oh my aching tire bill...
A 25 sec mini course was available for $3 per run on Friday afternoon. Donna and I got to make 4 runs each to scuff the mold release off the new tires and get a feel for the surface. The asphalt was smooth and grippy and the Solstice stuck like glue. Donna's times were in the same second as the AS open cars, with me about a second behind her. Towards the end of the session Rob Faukner jumped into our car and set FTD in the class, about .5 sec quicker than Donna, so we felt pretty good for the weekend.
Saturday was a beautiful day sunny mid 70's, and the course was long and FAST, Kinda a KA type course, very open gates shallow offsets and 2-4 cone open slalloms with a tight turnaround in the middle, no real sweepers, a longer version of our Sanford layouts. The lot was long but not particularly wide, maybe double the main runway at Sanford.
It was a day of firsts for Donna: driving the new car at a national event, running in the first run group before I ran, having to go to 3rd for most of the course and downshift to 2nd at the turnaround (maybe should have even gone back to 1st...), the car attracting a great deal of attention, having less than 6hrs total sleep in the prior 48, and worse of all getting more nervous than she has been since her first National event. All that caused her to make serious mistakes on all three runs and putting her in 4th out of 5, in a 1.9 sec hole going in to Sunday with that severe storm predicted to hit during the night and lasting all Sunday. The course got faster as it warmed up and rubber laid down, so although not using anywhere near the cars potential, I ran a full second quicker than Donna and wasn't DFL in a very strong AS class!
We managed 7 hrs sleep Sat nite, the same course was to be run in the opposite direction so we didn't need to walk it as many times.
Before leaving the site Sat we packed up out race tires and the trailer, expecting we would be running on our street tires the next day and didn't want to have to pack wet in a thunderstorm.
Sunday we awoke and immediately looked outside. It was still dark out at 4:45 but it was dry and the sky was only lightly clouded. We arrived at the site along with daybreak, put all the magnets on the car and our luggage and the dog in the Faulkner's trailer and waited to see what was going to develop. Didn't look bad at 7:30 and with FCO scheduled for 8:00 we broke out the jack, unstrapped the hoosiers, and set the car up for dry runs. The sun actually was playing hide and seek thru the first two run groups!
Donna got over her nerves and drove like she can, setting FTD in ASL, but it was too little too late and had to settle for 3rd, .2 out of trophies (and tires
)
I underdrove the car on my first run, missed the 2-3 shift on the return leg on my second, and got poured on 5 cars from taking the course on my third. I wasn't going to improve in the rain so I took a DNS rather than sliding around, and finished 11 out of 13.
The rain stopped and the sun came out as the last cars in my run group came back for impound and redried the course for the rest of the event!!!
Other THSCCers there and their finish were:
Jim Feinberg 3rd/23 STS2
Adam Breakey 13th STS2
Keith Vail 15th STS2
Tim Walsh 23rd STS2
Bryan Hertwick 2nd/6 BS
Aaron Buckley 4th BS
David Spratte 5th/13 GS
Congrats to all that participated!
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