racing

I went racing yesterday. In my car. No, really, I did.

See, there's this thing called autocross. You go to a big parking lot, and the organizers lay out a racetrack with cones. It's small, and the corners are tight, so you never get going much more than 60mph or so. That, and the fact that you're racing one at a time, and never trying to pass someone else, makes it safe (or so they say.)

Here, just have a look at the wikipedia article.

Okay, good. You read the article and came back, right?

So anyhow, the night before I got my car ready (mostly just took anything out of the car that wasn't bolted down, so I wouldn't get whacked in the eye by a quarter flying around while I was driving.) Also, I printed out some gigantic numbers to tape to the side of my car (I was #33). I should've taken a picture of the car all numbered up, but I forgot. Maybe next time.

I left for Denver, about 6am, stopped to gas up and fill up my tires, and got to "the racecourse". It was a pretty amazing sight. The idea behind autocross is that you can just show up in your ordinary car, like I did, but that doesn't mean you *have* to use an ordinary car. A substantial contingent had former street cars that were so race prepped they had to be towed to the site on a trailer. And then there was the car that looked like this. Yep. That's a race car. 

The nice thing is, the cars are divided into classes, so the folks driving stock jetta station wagons (me) aren't competing directly with the porsches. Unfortunately, I learned once I got ready to go, that I *was* competing directly with a woman in a Mini Cooper S on her way to the national championships. But that's okay, it was my first time, I expected to suck. And suck I did.

So, the first time around, naturally, I was terrified. But I made it, didn't crash, didn't hit any cones, and managed a time of 60 seconds. The guy next to me, in a similar car, but on racing slicks, got a 50. Kristi, in the Mini, got a 46. So I had some improving to do. Clearly, the car could go faster, so I pushed it a little harder the next time. I got a 54, but found out later I had missed a cone somewhere so my score didn't count. For the third run, a more experienced driver asked to ride along with me. I said, heck yeah, because he'd be able to give me advice. Well, I tried to drive a little too fast, and was flustered by the passenger, and went on the wrong side of the cones again, so the third didn't count either. We only got four runs, so I only had one chance left. I was determined, at the very least, to at least do the course right so as to get a score that counted. I managed to pull it off, and got a 50.9s, which felt pretty good. Not at all competitive, but still, alot better than I started with. Of course, I learned later that I knocked down two cones on the last run, which added another 4 seconds, but hey, I'm a beginner.

Okay, so that was probably more detail than you care about. Sorry, just kind of getting it down for my own memory's sake. This post would be a lot more fun if I had some cool pictures, but I didn't take the camera, and what I tried to take on my phone is predictably terrible. Maybe I'll get some pictures next time. Because, yeah, there's definitely going to be a next time. (I'm such a nerd.)