I am not big on these recaps, or more to the point, very good at them, but anyway.
My home region was the host for this past weekend's CAM challenge event. I was the co-chair of the event and ended up being the course designer of record though I really didn't do the final work on the course.
We had great CAM support for the event, and decent support for the X classes, but almost nothing for the Worker/Regional class entries and we at 70 2 weeks out. SCCA has to have a certain amount of entries to not cancel the event (and they have to cover their financial and worker overhead) so it was a full panic to get people to enter and myself and the co-chair stopped just short of going to people's houses and forcibly making them enter.
Regardless, we made the cutoff a week out so we got across that hurdle. I won't bore you with the rest of the details on the organization, but it was an exhausting yet rewarding weekend. My phone showed about 50k steps from Friday-Sunday and my scooter odometer showed about 14 miles added.
We had a decent amount of TMO members in attendance. Bob Gosda, Brad Anderson and probably a decent amount more that I am forgetting,
Competition for me on Saturday was meh. You have to be on top of your game to beat Bob and some of these other guys and I was good but not great. I coned away a 51.6 in the morning and Both Bob and I ended the AM with 52.0, his .015 faster. He kicked my ass in the afternoon and stretched his winning margin to .089.
Welcome to National autocross.
Sunday went better for me, managed a 51.7 without coning and that got me #1 seed in the challenge (which means nothing except bragging rights). My daughter couldn't get back to her 53.6 from Saturday but got a solid 54.9 and also got in the challenge. Getting into the challenge at all is not easy so she was happy and Brad should also be proud to have made it as well.
I had a pretty good 1st run in the first round. When I heard Bob was not going to take his second run (you get 2 in the first round) I took the risk that I was also OK to not take mine. The Bridgestone's aren't as heat sensitive as the Yok's that Bob runs but they can get overheated and I didn't want to put heat in them.
Second round (and all others) are one run and done. And you can't hit a cone or you are screwed. I don't remember the times but I got through to the round of 4 by a few tenths.
4 remaining were all Mustangs. Bob G, me and Evan Williams in S197 stick axle cars which are obviously not competitive in CAMC and Ben Edmiston in a S550 Mach 1. Winner of this round is the winner of CAM-C and I managed to sneak it out with another 52.4 or 52.5.
So now the wait for the other classes to finish up so we can run for the top spot. JJ Mallrich topped CAM-T and Billy Damhoff topped CAM-S (in an AS prep car, dude can wheel) Final rounds is based on index. The CAM-S index is pretty tough, BDR put up a good fight. The CAM-T index is a bit pillow soft and CAM-C (and CAM-S to a lesser extent) got murdered by Rick Ruth over the winter because he thinks if you put a wing on a car, it goes 1/2 second faster ignoring how hard it is to build front downforce on production cars at autox speeds.
Regardless of my index rant JJ was running high 52s in the challenge. I would need a 51.9 to beat that on the calculator and JJ is a dangerously good driver and had just put Bridgestones on that morning.
I ran a 52.2 on my final run but JJ also cracked off a 52.2 so the calculator won. I would have needed a 51.4 to beat that and while that was in the car and course, it was getting slicker on course and You. Cannot. Hit. A. Cone. in the challenge, so it is hard to cut all those slaloms and walloms razor sharply under that pressure. JJ earned every bit of the win and this is the second time he has edged me out of a win at a big event. He got me by about 2 feet a few years back at a DriveAutoX event (we were in the same class and they do a Pursuit non timed challenge where you race back to the line on opposite halves of the course)
It was a great event. I am exhausted still, but we move on to Spring Nationals at the end of the month.
Here is the video of my 51.7 from the Sunday AM session.
DaveW
My home region was the host for this past weekend's CAM challenge event. I was the co-chair of the event and ended up being the course designer of record though I really didn't do the final work on the course.
We had great CAM support for the event, and decent support for the X classes, but almost nothing for the Worker/Regional class entries and we at 70 2 weeks out. SCCA has to have a certain amount of entries to not cancel the event (and they have to cover their financial and worker overhead) so it was a full panic to get people to enter and myself and the co-chair stopped just short of going to people's houses and forcibly making them enter.
Regardless, we made the cutoff a week out so we got across that hurdle. I won't bore you with the rest of the details on the organization, but it was an exhausting yet rewarding weekend. My phone showed about 50k steps from Friday-Sunday and my scooter odometer showed about 14 miles added.
We had a decent amount of TMO members in attendance. Bob Gosda, Brad Anderson and probably a decent amount more that I am forgetting,
Competition for me on Saturday was meh. You have to be on top of your game to beat Bob and some of these other guys and I was good but not great. I coned away a 51.6 in the morning and Both Bob and I ended the AM with 52.0, his .015 faster. He kicked my ass in the afternoon and stretched his winning margin to .089.
Welcome to National autocross.Sunday went better for me, managed a 51.7 without coning and that got me #1 seed in the challenge (which means nothing except bragging rights). My daughter couldn't get back to her 53.6 from Saturday but got a solid 54.9 and also got in the challenge. Getting into the challenge at all is not easy so she was happy and Brad should also be proud to have made it as well.
I had a pretty good 1st run in the first round. When I heard Bob was not going to take his second run (you get 2 in the first round) I took the risk that I was also OK to not take mine. The Bridgestone's aren't as heat sensitive as the Yok's that Bob runs but they can get overheated and I didn't want to put heat in them.
Second round (and all others) are one run and done. And you can't hit a cone or you are screwed. I don't remember the times but I got through to the round of 4 by a few tenths.
4 remaining were all Mustangs. Bob G, me and Evan Williams in S197 stick axle cars which are obviously not competitive in CAMC
and Ben Edmiston in a S550 Mach 1. Winner of this round is the winner of CAM-C and I managed to sneak it out with another 52.4 or 52.5. So now the wait for the other classes to finish up so we can run for the top spot. JJ Mallrich topped CAM-T and Billy Damhoff topped CAM-S (in an AS prep car, dude can wheel) Final rounds is based on index. The CAM-S index is pretty tough, BDR put up a good fight. The CAM-T index is a bit pillow soft and CAM-C (and CAM-S to a lesser extent) got murdered by Rick Ruth over the winter because he thinks if you put a wing on a car, it goes 1/2 second faster ignoring how hard it is to build front downforce on production cars at autox speeds.
Regardless of my index rant
JJ was running high 52s in the challenge. I would need a 51.9 to beat that on the calculator and JJ is a dangerously good driver and had just put Bridgestones on that morning. I ran a 52.2 on my final run but JJ also cracked off a 52.2 so the calculator won. I would have needed a 51.4 to beat that and while that was in the car and course, it was getting slicker on course and You. Cannot. Hit. A. Cone. in the challenge, so it is hard to cut all those slaloms and walloms razor sharply under that pressure. JJ earned every bit of the win and this is the second time he has edged me out of a win at a big event. He got me by about 2 feet a few years back at a DriveAutoX event (we were in the same class and they do a Pursuit non timed challenge where you race back to the line on opposite halves of the course)
It was a great event. I am exhausted still, but we move on to Spring Nationals at the end of the month.
Here is the video of my 51.7 from the Sunday AM session.
DaveW
