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This was my first Solo National Tour. I am fortunate and have many experienced and helpful people in my local region, and they gave me a lot of good pointers before and during the event. The main things that they emphasized was to prioritize the course walks and go into your runs with a plan. With only 3 runs per course, there wasn't much room for error.
Saturday was HOT! We were dealing with 90°F temps with +60% humidity. I had walked the course 3 times the night before and 2 times that morning. It was the most serious that I've taken course walks, but I had a detailed plan in my head that I was confident in. My very first run was okay. There were a few spots where the line that I wanted to take wasn't what others were taking. I entered into one turn and about ate it because of all the gravel being pushed onto my line. Luckily I was able to stop for a downed cone and got a rerun. On my next run I took what I thought would be the more common driving line and there was significantly less gravel and it worked. Once I had the line figured out I increased my aggression and got a good time on my last run. I really liked this course once I figured it out. CAM-C class was extremely close all day. There was less than a half second split between 1st and 5th place. I ended up finishing the day with a 0.064 second lead. It was anybody's game.
Sunday was wet! The rain started as we were driving to grid and the workers were making their way out on course. From grid, it looked like there was standing water on the course and that it would be pretty slick. I was too cautious on my first run and lost the lead by a lot. Everybody came back grid and had the same feeling that there was way more grip than expected. My second run I drove with much more aggression. The front of the car was doing okay but I was fighting the rear in the turns. I noticed that the course seemed dry(ish) in spots where we were accelerating or decelerating, but that the turns were still slick. I softened the rear shocks a few clicks and wanted to focus on taking a good line on my last run. I feel like I executed that plan pretty well except for the end of the slalom. I carried more speed through the first and middle part of the slalom than I did before and the car got upset when I had to scrub speed at the end. I was able to catch it without losing much time and was able to put down a decent time.
Like I said earlier, CAM-C was a very close class all weekend, but I pulled off the victory by 0.053 seconds! I have raced with most of the people in my class before and they whooped me. I feel like my driving has improved a lot, and I'm extremely happy about this victory! Time to see if Hawk will actually pay for their contingency.
Saturday was HOT! We were dealing with 90°F temps with +60% humidity. I had walked the course 3 times the night before and 2 times that morning. It was the most serious that I've taken course walks, but I had a detailed plan in my head that I was confident in. My very first run was okay. There were a few spots where the line that I wanted to take wasn't what others were taking. I entered into one turn and about ate it because of all the gravel being pushed onto my line. Luckily I was able to stop for a downed cone and got a rerun. On my next run I took what I thought would be the more common driving line and there was significantly less gravel and it worked. Once I had the line figured out I increased my aggression and got a good time on my last run. I really liked this course once I figured it out. CAM-C class was extremely close all day. There was less than a half second split between 1st and 5th place. I ended up finishing the day with a 0.064 second lead. It was anybody's game.
Sunday was wet! The rain started as we were driving to grid and the workers were making their way out on course. From grid, it looked like there was standing water on the course and that it would be pretty slick. I was too cautious on my first run and lost the lead by a lot. Everybody came back grid and had the same feeling that there was way more grip than expected. My second run I drove with much more aggression. The front of the car was doing okay but I was fighting the rear in the turns. I noticed that the course seemed dry(ish) in spots where we were accelerating or decelerating, but that the turns were still slick. I softened the rear shocks a few clicks and wanted to focus on taking a good line on my last run. I feel like I executed that plan pretty well except for the end of the slalom. I carried more speed through the first and middle part of the slalom than I did before and the car got upset when I had to scrub speed at the end. I was able to catch it without losing much time and was able to put down a decent time.
Like I said earlier, CAM-C was a very close class all weekend, but I pulled off the victory by 0.053 seconds! I have raced with most of the people in my class before and they whooped me. I feel like my driving has improved a lot, and I'm extremely happy about this victory! Time to see if Hawk will actually pay for their contingency.
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