Race Report 2001 - Round 9


Date: October 21, 2001
Venue: Reese Center - Lubbock, TX
Results: 1st in Class, 2nd Overall (38 total)

Steve Sucsy set up another great course at Reese Center in Lubbock, TX, and the weather was perfect for a day of autocrossing. We started the event an hour early in anticipation of a large turnout, and even though there were only 38 competitors, that extra hour seemed to help out a lot.

Going into this event, I knew that my tires had very little usable tread left. I could tell at the last event that their grip was fading away because my times were slower than what I'm usually capable of producing. I was able to walk the course 3 times before the event started and twice right before the second heat started so that I could determine the best line to run though the course, but during my runs I was fighting to keep the car stable more than I was able to concentrate on the correct line. The car seemed to be very unstable and slippery in turns and transitions where it would normally stick like glue. After my second run, I noticed a small corded spot on my right front tire, and by the end of my six runs, that tire had several large corded spots and the other three had absolutely no usable tread left. I'm surprised that they still hold air!

There were two other cars running with me in E-Street Prepared, but both cars were on street tires and both drivers were first timers, so I was able to win my class with no problems. Local competition in my class isn't usually much of an issue for me, so I'm mainly only concerned with how I do overall. Even though I was having problems with the car, my times were still fairly fast and consistent. Steve Sucsy set the fastest overall PAX time in his A-Stock '00 Honda S2000 and was over 2 seconds faster than my best time. I thought that I'd probably only placed 4th or 5th overall, but it turns out that I was fast enough to get 2nd place overall, so I guess I didn't do THAT bad.

Video of one of the runs
Click on picture to view video


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