Date: November 11, 2001
Venue: Reese Center - Lubbock, TX
Results: 1st in Class, 1st Overall (52 total)

Wow! What a perfect way to end an awesome season! We couldn't have asked for more perfect weather (shorts and t-shirt in November!), and we had our largest event of the season (maybe even EVER!) for our 2001 finale with 52 competitors total. Steve Sucsy setup a course for us that was tight in some spots and very fast in others. A great challenge, and lots of fun!

I was kind of nervous about co-driving Steve Sucsy's A-Stock '00 Honda S2000, because even though I knew it would be an awesome car, I feared that it would show my lack of ability to adapt to a different car than what I'm used to. Steve had me run in the first heat so that he would have warm tires and the advantage of knowing what he'd need to run to win in advance. It's kinda like being able to have lane choice when drag racing. After driving the S2000 around the event site for a few minutes by myself before the event started, I realized that this car was going to be a blast to drive. The car has very precise turn in and a tight turning radius, but also has an oversteer that comes on without any warning and is almost impossible to save once it has started to break loose in the back. After 4 runs, 2 spins, and 2 cones, I had a much better feel for what the car could do and how far it could be pushed. I was able to push it to the limit on my 5th run and produced a time that I felt wasn't too shabby. It turns out that Steve wasn't able to produce a better time than mine (although, he came within 0.097 seconds of it), and I won A-Stock as well as the event overall! Whoohoo! It was a real blast driving the S2000 (thanks Steve!), but I still prefer my Mustang.

By the way... the Mustang is completely torn apart at the moment (motor, transmission, and rear differential are all removed). I'm planning on rebuilding the transmission and the rear differential and also fix an oil leak on the motor during the off season (no motor rebuild yet... 200,000+ miles and counting ), as well as completely clean the engine compartment and undercarriage of the car while everything is out.

Final points from this event got me 2nd place overall in the West Texas Region SCCA 2001 Open Autocross Championship... only 5 points behind Steve. This has been a very fun and challenging season for me, and I hope 2002 will be even better!