Thursday, August 18, 2011

Miatacross!







Well, as I've said in previous posts, I've gotten hooked on autocross racing. I got a tip from the nice racer who let me race his Honda a month or so ago, and picked up a '94 Mazda Miata. That is quite the hot ticket for racing in the "E Stock" class, and the cars are relatively inexpensive to get into. I found just the car, put on the market for a very fair price, and jumped right on it. I took it down to Pikes Peak International Raceway last weekend and drove my second race-- first in my own car.

We hit some snags on the way to the race, and ended up getting there about ten minutes after registration closed. The venue is about two hours from my house, and it's just hard to get out of the house at 6 AM... The most important thing in a race is to walk the course beforehand, and memorize it. Well, I didn't get to walk it at all. I did talk them into letting me register, but I drove it blind. DNF'ed (Did Not Finish) on the first lap-- I missed several gates. There were several slaloms, and it was just a sea of random cones at first. I studied the course map, and did better on the next three runs. I still have hard tires on the Miata, and that was a big handicap. The same guy who let me race his Honda has some half-used race tires that he doesn't need, so he's going to let me use them up. Woo Hoo!

Love my little Miata, and I can't wait to get more practice! Woo Hoo!











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