10/25 BMWCCA Autocross

Last Sunday I did autocross with the National Capital chapter of the BMW Car Club of America at Baysox Stadium. It had been a year since I ran with BMWCCA last, and there were certainly a few things to like compared to the PCA events at BWI.

The weather wasn't great, but I'm always happy to race in the rain and it meant that we only had about 30 racers total. This gave us a chance to do seven runs each and I was still out of there by 12:30pm. I'm sure part of that was the weather but it was also that BMWCCA does an AM and PM session instead of just taking on however-many racers happen to register and then going as late in the day as you have to go.

One of the exciting things about this event was that it was my first chance to use my new GoPro for autocross (the prior week's event being abruptly canceled before I could run). I didn't have enough time to play around with different mounting points, so I just did an interior mount from the underside of the sunroof for all of my runs. I did try playing with the different zoom levels, and it seemed like the widest angle was the best. I also tried capturing sound using an external mic mounted near the center console. It worked okay but I ended up with a lot of noise from my feet on the pedals and other things in the car creaking through sharp turns, as opposed to a great engine or exhaust note.  Next time hopefully I have time for different camera angles and a better mic mounting position.

The other fun thing I got to try this time was my new Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3's. This was my first autocross not using run-flats and they felt absolutely awesome. Granted this was a wet course so I couldn't feel the maximum grip level, but still the tires had tons of steering wheel feedback and responsiveness.

I'm not sure if it was the rain, the set of cars, or just a particularly good day of driving for me, but I actually came up with some pretty good times. I finished 16th overall and 8th in my heat when the track was wettest. With the PAX adjustments (accounting for car performance), I actually finished with the 5th best time and the 2nd best of my heat!! It was fun posting such a fast time and it was a great way to close out the season of autocross.

I could see doing fewer autocross events next year just because it's so much time on a weekend day for such little actual driving. But I'll definitely do at least an event or two and I'm already looking forward to getting out again. :-)

10/17 PCA Autocross

The last Chesapeake Porsche Club autocross of the year ended up being a very memorable one - but for very much the wrong reason.

The day started off well, with a big crowd of 60 drivers and a nice collection of cars - a Lotus Elise, two Vipers, an NSX, and of course all the Porsches. With so many drivers, we split up into three groups, with me working the track during the first heat and driving during the third heat. Working the flag station was pretty uneventful. I was able to pick up on where the drivers were having trouble with the track which I figured would help when it was my turn to drive.

During the second heat I was getting my GoPro ready for my turn in the third heat when I heard a crunch out on track. I looked up to see a Porsche Cayman stopped out at the corner of the lot. My immediate thought was that he hit the curb out there, but there were car parts strewn around him and it was obvious that he had hit the concrete base of the light post. I didn't see it happen, but apparently he started fishtailing and, instead of jumping on the brakes to stop the car, continued to try to correct the spin as he careened into the light pole. The whole side of his car was wrecked and three airbags deployed.

It was clearly an expensive wreck, but it was really fortunate that nobody was hurt. Not only was the driver in danger (a couple feet to the left and he would have slammed into the concrete head-on), but that pole was also the flag station for the course workers so there were two people standing right there when it happened. In fact, that was the very pole that I was standing next to while working the course myself during the first heat.

Once the autocross chairs saw the extent of the damage, they called an end to the event for the day. The had to call a tow truck to remove the car, plus I think they had to take some measurements and pictures to document that the track setup itself wasn't a contributing factor to the accident.

The whole thing was a big reminder to everyone of what the risks are for something even as relatively controlled and safe as autocross is supposed to be. You have to be aware of where the dangerous obstacles are and make sure you aren't pushing the car in any kind of risky way when there's a danger of breaking the car or getting yourself or others hurt. It was disappointing to spend so much of the day on the event and never get to drive, but the important thing was that nobody was hurt. Hopefully the whole thing gets resolved as well as possible for the driver and the club.

10/19 Autobahn Arrive and Drive

Last night the same group of four of us from the 9/3 trip returned to Autobahn for some more karting. It was also my first time using my new GoPro at Autobahn!

We started off on Monaco and I was pretty fast once again - 1.18s clear of the nearest competition. It was good enough for the #1 best time of the week! Actually they reset the times every Monday morning, so the fact that we were there at 5:30pm on Monday night made the best times pretty doable. Still it was fun to see my name on the top of the sheet.

On Le Mans, Greg bested me by 0.33s. We were also out there with someone warming up for league night and he posted a truly fast time that was almost a second faster than my best.

In terms of raw times, I was the fastest of the night among the four of us, which was fun again. I tried calculating compared to how people improved their times from our last trip out though, and by that score Greg had the best "adjusted" times (Colby as well, but he only ran on Monaco). As we get more trips recorded and a more established average, it'll be interesting to see how the "winner" each night moves around as everyone's time gets more based on just beating their own averages.

As far as the GoPro - I used a mount on the chin of my helmet in order to get more of a first person view than the top of the helmet. The outcome certainly seemed very first-person with my hands and arms practically coming from the sides of the camera view. With the camera angle a few inches below my eyes though, it was actually enough to make the steering wheel take up a ton of the camera view. The videos weren't a total loss since you spend so much time looking to either side of the steering wheel at approaching corners, but I could still see some other locations of helmet mounts working out better for karting.

2015 Gotham Dream Car Sprint

Today I got to drive a Ferrari and Lamborghini for a second time (the first being last year's Dream Car Sprint in Aberdeen). This time the event was in Baltimore at one of the parking lots next to the Ravens stadium. It didn't quite live up to last year's awesome time, but I still had a lot of fun.

Although the location was way more convenient for us, the smaller parking lot meant that the course was much more confined and quite a bit slower. It was just a figure-eight and the "road" marked out by the cones was very narrow. On the upside though, the slower speed and tighter corners made it even easier to play around with the car at the limit.

I drove the Lamborghini first - a black Gallardo convertible. It had tons of power and sounded fantastic. The traction control (they wouldn't let me turn it off) still allowed me to slide the car around through corners, which was a lot of fun.

The Ferrari F430 was second and had a bit of a rocky start. As soon as I started to pull away, the car stalled! I started it again and gave it a bit more gas this time, and the engine note sounded really strange. On top of that, when I tried to get on the gas it would only give me about 20% power. The Gotham Dream Cars guy had me pull it in right away and they opened up the hood to figure out what was wrong. After about five minutes of waiting, they had it working again.

I blipped the throttle a few times while I was sitting there waiting to go on track. We were sitting underneath a highway overpass, so the engine note of the revving Ferrari was just fantastic. On track, it was actually not quite as nice to drive as the Ferrari I drove last year. I don't know if it was the tires or the tighter track or what, but it seemed to squirm a lot under braking, and the traction control was a lot more intrusive as I tried to accelerate out of the corners.

I'm surprised to say it, but I think if I magically had $150k of disposable income I might actually buy the Gallardo instead of the the Ferrari. Not only was it the more fun car to drive today, but I absolutely love how the Gallardo looks.

As much fun as it was for me, the most important thing was that my mom, who also drove the Ferrari, had a blast. I got her the Dream Car Sprint for Christmas this year partly because she missed an opportunity 10+ years ago to ride in a Dodge Viper around Lime Rock Park driven by an actual race car driver. I was hoping this would make up for that missed opportunity and she seemed to really enjoy the whole experience.

9/3 Autobahn Arrive and Drive

On Thursday a few of us from work got together for another Arrive and Drive at Autobahn Indoor Speedway. It's been five long months since the last time we visited Autobahn, and as soon as we took our first laps we were all questioning why it had been so long. It was so much fun hustling those karts around the track.

The first heat we did on Le Mans and I got the best time over Greg by the tiniest possible margin - a single thousandth of a second! Greg and I were both faster than Colby by four tenths, and faster than Paul P. by nine tenths.

At the start of the second heat, this time on the Monaco track, the course worker told us to put our visors down. I forgot my own helmet and trying to see through the scuffed and scratched visor of the loaner really made me wish I hadn't.

My kart felt great on Monaco and I got the best time once again - this time by a significantly wider margin. Greg unfortunately had a bum kart, but he still managed to come in four tenths faster than Colby again and over a second faster than Paul P. My best lap though was a full second faster than Greg's! Not only that, but it was good enough for the tenth best lap of the week on Monaco. The time sheets show the names and lap times for the top twelve laps of the week so it's always extra fun to crack into that top twelve.

It sucks that I didn't really get a fair fight with Greg in the last heat because of his lousy kart, but I have a feeling my time would have been pretty hard to beat regardless. Either way, I'll happily take over the office trophy until the next time we go out. :-)