For those of you that are unfamiliar, the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) usually has regional meet-ups for people to drive their personally owned vehicles around a coned course. These autocrosses are usually time trial-like events with drivers only racing the clock. The course we used that day was in the same area as the Formula Drift competition two months earlier. Suffice it to say it was a big course. This is the only shortcoming of most autocrosses, since they are held in large parking lots the courses are usually small, running about 20-30 seconds from start to finish. Thankfully my first event was about a 90 second course. Perfect for me starting out as I wanted something to stretch the car's legs.
In the days leading up to the event, I came to the conclusion that if I was prepared and took it as serious as I could people wouldn't bother me that much. I practiced on the autocross maps on Live for Speed and drove the GTI hard to get reacquainted with the car's handling (it is the wife's daily driver, after all). I would be using the GTI because it was more mechanically reliable than the MazdaSpeed3, has newer tires, is more forgiving at the limit and could be run in automatic if I chose to do so.
The wife and kids came last minute to sit in the Mazda as a support car. It was fun driving around with Val on the way to the speedway, she'd gun the GTI a little, I'd catch up and make Vin Diesel comments at redlights (been trying to convince her to hoon a bit in the cars with me late night, cops be damned). The first sign that all my worries were unfounded came as we arrived late for registration. Everyone else was still somewhat bleary-eyed and moving at a leisurely pace. I heard several comments about how too damn early 7am was for an autocross. I got my stickers on the car, passed tech inspection and rented a helmet. Since I was a new driver, a walkthrough of the course was mandatory and gave a lot of insight. I had pad and paper out during the walkthrough and mapped out the course to the best of my ability. I started estimating the exit gear for each corner then stopped writing when I realized they all were pretty much 2nd gear turns. After a brief driver's meeting, I lined up the car and waited. Val and I had walkie talkies in each car from a prior road trip to communicate.
Everything I could possibly do, I had done. Changed the software on the car to 100 Octane ignition timing, filled it with 100, mapped out the course and placed that map on the dashboard for reference, went over and over the turns in my mind. I had 3 goals: don't spin out, don't get lost on track and don't knock over any cones. Basically don't do anything noob-ish. As I got closer to the starting line, 5 cars back, 3 cars back, 2, I began to feel the inevitable butterflies in the stomach from anticipation of doing something I've done virtually for hours on end to a reality in just a few seconds.
ESP off, helmet strapped on nice and tight, transmission in Sport (shifts faster than me anyways), lined up number 1, brake fully depressed, throttle to the floor, revs capped at 3000 for launch control. There was a right turn before the timing gate; any cones knocked over there turned into an automatic DNF. Green light waved, brake released and away the little Golf went! The throttle does still need to be feathered for the best launch. I killed the throttle for the right turn and the floored it after I straightened out. Don't know what speed I was at the first turn but a funny thing happened. All nerves completely disappeared and instinct fully kicked in. It was almost like a switch, 1 second it's there, the next it's completely gone.
Throwing the VW into the turns was amazingly gratifying. There was hardly a second on the track where the tires weren't screaming. Kinda felt bad since it's tires were pretty new, but damn it felt fantastic! On my second run, another driver asked to sit in the passenger seat with me. I told him it was my first event so I didn't know how helpful I'd be, but it'd be fun anyways. So I practiced the old "Top Gear" schtick of talking and driving hard. He kept asking me if it was my first time throughout the course, so I guess I left a good impression. We ran a total of 4 runs for the morning group. I had my best run the 4th time out. Ran 86.3 seconds. I left at about noon, not staying for the afternoon group.
After all was said and done, I turned in a decent time and accomplished all of my goals. Talked to some great people and had a fantastic and really laid back time.
