January 17th, I talked to Terry Baker and Bob Brochu about the possibility of running a BMW Z3 at that particular Tidewater event. Originally, I thought I'd be able to run Terry's M Z3 roadster in SS, but he told me to talk to Bob, and we all ended up running the Z3 coupe -- Terry in ASP and Bob and I in AS. I'd never driven a BMW before, but I found this one to be much like a Porsche. It was very neutral in the handling (at least that day it was -- Terry and Bob messed with it every event), and had a good deal of power. It reminded me of another AS car, Rob Falkner's 968. I didn't drive this to its potential, and evidently neither did Terry, as Bob dusted both of our times, and raised a ruckus with John Shealley by beating his Morgan too. I guess John didn't believe that Bob was a good enough driver to beat him, and so tried to "prove" that the car wasn't classed in AS and so should run SS instead. Some people are really full of themselves.

     The next Winter 4 event was February 21st, and it saw me driving a car that no one else has ever codriven before -- Tom Bleh's CSP BMW. In fact, when I mentioned that I might be able to codrive it previously on this page, Pat Griffith calls me to dare me to run CSP and try to beat him and his co-driver George Perenis in his Sentra SE-R. Well, I had no idea how to run his car, and I ended up waaaaay back in CSP, behind both George and Pat, as well as Courtney in his Neon R/T. Meanwhile, Brian Tiffany ran my car in FS, and finished well enough to place 13th on overall PAX. The day before was a practice day, and Brian and I went down to play around in my car on street tires. Well, I think I scared him the one time I took him out in the car, because on street tires, my car handles entirely differently than on the race rubber, and I let it hang out all over the place. I also let Eric Bonnett take the car out for a few runs, and every time he went out, the driver's seat wouldn't stay put; it'd slide forward under braking and backward under acceleration. I checked to make sure it was latched properly, and even made sure it wasn't broken, but we decided the problem was that Eric is a career Ford guy, and my car just didn't like him.

     A full month later, I ran the " Slide into Spring " autocross put on by the Blue Ridge Region. Staunton, as usual, gave us crappy, crappy weather. It was a cold, bitterly cold, rainy day, that saw several National drivers show up, including Sam Strano, Rob Falkner and G.H. Sharp. I was the only one running FS that day, and I didn't even bring my race tires down with me after checking out the Weather Channel before I left the house. Well, after my three runs, I would have been winning ESP by half a second over Sam! So, of course, what do I do? I put myself into ESP (I would have bumped into SS with Justin's second-fastest-time-of-the-day in his Corvette). But then, like an overconfident idiot, I let Sam take his third run in my car. Bam! He beat my time by about four seconds to win. At least it took a stock car on street tires to win or come in second in ESP.... ;) Courtney had FTD in his street-tired CSP Neon R/T, by 0.006 over Justin, who evidently wasn't happy about losing to a front-driver.

     The next weekend, the 28th, was a VMSC event at the Virginia Motorsports Park in Dinwiddie. I had talked to Roger Garrett the night before and secured my ride for the day -- the ZR1. No one believed me though when I told them what I was driving, not until they saw me get into it, that is! Needless to say, there were a few jealous looks. Anyway, the ZR1 is an absolute beast, but it's also a blast to drive. I used second gear more than Roger did, and wasn't doing too badly. My third run was my fastest -- 0.3 behind Roger's best time -- and then I found out I could have gone even faster, had I remembered to switch the dang thing to full power! Yes, when I took it back to the paddock, I found that the "valet key" was still in "valet mode." I debated whether or not I should tell Roger I almost beat him with half the horsepower, and eventually did tell him. He still let me take it out for a fun run (to make up for my stupid mistake), and I took Amy Cogle (Courtney's financee') with me. Well, this time, I had a little too much power, and I ended up spinning it after the long slalom. It was still a lot of fun.

     The weekend of April 10th and 11th, I had a couple of different things to choose from on Saturday : the MAFB VVF DAT (Mid-Atlantic F-Bodies Vette-Viper-F-body DragAThon) at MIR, a school-related workshop in Silver Spring at Montgomery Blair High School, and a MWCSCC Novice School that Ernie Manzella had asked me to instruct at. In the end, I decided to instruct at the school, even though I hadn't yet made a DAT, plus I would have gotten paid for the workshop. But I'd never been asked to be an instructor before, and I was very much honored.

     I had two different students, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. My morning student had a bone stock, newer Escort SE and had first seen an autocross about 10 years previous, but had only recently decided to actually try it for himself. My afternoon student had a Volkswagen GTi with enough stuff to definitely put him in SP, if not P. Anyway, he'd autocrossed a few times previously (including at least once with BRR!), and was actually very good! His car wasn't too bad either, as I took it out for one practice run to show him how I wanted him to enter the slalom; it pushed a little bit, but that was likely more due to the street tires than the FWD. I was very proud of both of them, and really stressed a lot of the concepts I'd learned myself in the past year, namely "look ahead" (always, always look ahead), and "don't let your heart mess with your driving."

     The next day was the Practice Autocross , and it was pouring down rain. I was originally scheduled to run in the fourth heat, but I got there early and put in for a second heat number, which I got. Once again, I didn't bring the race rubber -- what was the purpose? I went out, ran in my stacked-heeled shoes, and then went home with 3rd place. I had fun, which was the primary intent.

     The replacement for last year's 11/22 event was the following weekend on the 18th. The Virginia Region of NASA's "Big, Fast Autocross" was definitely "big," though I don't think it was necessarily any faster than some of the National Tour courses I've been on. Pat Griffith and Joe Henderson set up the course, and the fact that they are both SE-R drivers showed with the narrower gates. Still, I took the Camaro out and ran faster than Roger's ZR1 (o boy, don't think I'll be getting an offer to driver that again anytime soon!), and was second to Pete File's AS 944 by thousandths of a second! After the event, we had an official NASA Screw Around Time, where I took my car out for two fun runs, then after some prodding by George Perinis, asked Scott Witt for a fun run in the TVR. George evidently didn't realize I knew Scott personally, and was shocked when he then saw me getting into the car. I took the TVR out, only stalling it about five times to the line, and had a blast, as usual. When I got back, my car was in the line for fun runs! George was behind the wheel! Damn, that's the last time I leave my keys in it! Anyway, then I took Pat Griffith's SE-R out, followed by Scott Willard's ESP Talon. Somewhere in that time, my car made nine, count 'em, NINE fun runs. I know George, Pat, Scott, Wade and Brian all took it out. Towards the end of it all, Brian heard a strange noise from the front end -- he said it sounded like it hit a cone, but there wasn't a cone there -- and after I ascertained the car wasn't falling apart, I let Scott take it out. Then we all packed up and went for pizza. It was tons of fun, that's for sure.

     I found out what the noise was later in the week (actually, right after the neighbor's house blew up). The front swaybar bracket on the driver's side broke, and so the bar is just slapping around, especially over bumps. I won't be autocrossing it until I fix that little problem, and then I need to do the brakes (the fronts at least) too.

     I didn't have to autocross my car the next weekend, the 25th, because Matt Carson was in town with his 1998 Camaro, and he owes me many, many codrives after the 1996 season in my car! So, for the Blue Ridge Region's "Spring Run" event in Lynchburg, I still ran FS, but it was in a different car.

    But first, that Saturday, I was playing instructor again, this time at the VMSC Novice School. Richard West called me up at the last minute, desperately looking for instructors. I told him I'd worked the MWCSCC event, and so he took me. This one was set up a little differently from the MWCSCC one, with the students being divided up into FWD, RWD and AWD groups, and the RWD students being split between myself and CM driver Dick Rasmussen. I ended up with Luke Hardy, who runs a CP Mustang Cobra Convertible, a guy with a third generation RX7, one with a early C4 5 speed, and Don Ross, who drives a 924 (not an S!). All four were very eager students, and we started off on the slalom course, where I stressed the importance of knowing how big your car is. I took each of the students out in their own cars and showed them what I meant, plus showed them the difference between early and late apexing. Dick did much the same thing with his students. Then we switched with the FWD/AWD people and ran the mini-course. There, my biggest problem was figuring out how to get Luke to back off the gas a little bit. He was tearing up his differential, and sliding all around -- not the fastest way to get around the course. I basically told him if he didn't start taking it easier, he'd end up buying a new diff, and suddenly he saw his times coming down.

     The afternoon was for practicing the whole course. I took the 5 speed C4 out, as well as Don's 924, Luke's Mustang, the Cooley's Tui SuperVee, and one of Dick's student's LS1 Firebird. Needless to say, I had a lot of fun swapping cars around. The Tui was my first mod car experience, and it was unreal. I was just happy that I'd run the course a couple of times previously before jumping into it, otherwise I would have been completely lost!

    After the school, I went down to Chesapeake for the last part of the Saturday events at the Race at the Base. Then I headed off to Lynchburg for the autocross . The course was set up on the lower, "skinny" lot, where the speed bumps dictate a lot of the course design. :( Basically, all you can do with it is shoot up one side (with a slalom this time), do a 180, then come back (with off-set gates this time). Needless to say, the cars with acceleration have an advantage on this lot. Well, Matt and I were running pretty close to one another all day, but I ended up nipping him by half a second in the overall. Pete File, once again, was not only faster than me, but had fastest PAX by thousandths. In fact, Pete ran six times total and his last run was actually good for FTD, but they only counted his first three runs in the final standings. Matt was third on PAX, fifth fastest overall. I was third fastest overall (behind Pete and Dave Clemens, who was official FTD).

     MARRS 1 was the next on the list. I obviously wasn't running the race, but I had decided to go out and flag. So I went up there Friday night and registered, hung around with the NASA guys (Chris Cobetto was going to run EP in an RX7 until a slight mishap during the practice day), then came home to sleep. Saturday, I couldn't bring myself to go over until later in the afternoon, and so got there after the qualifying sessions, and hung out with the NASA guys again, talked to Neil Maddox and Greg Witt (who is now running a Vee), and a couple of other people while carefully avoiding Justin and the Fat Whore. I didn't leave Summit Point until, oh, about 3 in the morning, after everyone but me, Jon Felton and Mark Snodgrass had bit the dust. I was back at 7 the next morning to flag.

    Flagging was pretty uneventful this time around, thankfully. I was at turns 5 & 6 (rotating), and the most excitement was probably during the Production race when an MG/Spridget-type car "crawled" up the embankment at 6, and I had to grab the yellow flagger, just in case the car had come up any further. I was on yellow flag in turn 6 during the Vee race, and I noticed that Justin did not come around in lap 1; he had suffered an ignition problem according to John. The Vee race got cut short though when some people couldn't deal with a yellow flag in turn 10 (that is, they completely ignored it, didn't slow down, and several people continued to "race," including pass, under it), and so the whole session was ended early. The worst thing to happen all day was in the last group, where I was working the point on turn 5, and Lee Kaufmann was tapped coming down the chute, and ended up crashing badly into the embankment there. It was terrifying. I didn't realize I'd been holding my breath until I saw him get out of the car under his own power, and I exhaled. He was taken to the hospital, but was reported okay. The little red Escort, however, was a wash.

     I didn't autocross again until the Peru ProSolo , May 15-16. I fixed the swaybar bracket and replaced the front brake rotors and pads the night before (thank yousooooo much, John!), and spent 90 minutes with a hair dryer to peel the old BFG stickers off since we were going to be running brand new Kumhos. I left work after 9th period (oh, how I love having the last period off!), and met up with Brian to head out Friday night. We registered and walked first thing in the morning, and I think Brian was a bit apprehensive at his first National level event, considering I was fully immersing him into it -- introducing him to every body and he was definitely seeing how many people I really do know (he's always accusing me of knowing "everyone" anyway....). Well, I don't think a ProSolo was really the best way for Brian to start out Nationally. The starts were really difficult for him, and he really hadn't run my car very often anyway. I wasn't doing so great myself, but I was having a blast being as obnoxious as I possibly could, including wearing my Budweiser dress on Sunday to "distract the competition." Chris Lindberg, who ended up winning in his Mustang, evidently wasn't distracted enough -- he just went even faster on Sunday morning.

     I could have autocrossed the following weekend at Ft. Meade, and in fact, I was preregistered and ready to go.... but I just didn't want to go. I really, really wanted to stay home, and sleep, and so I did. And I think that's the first time in two years I have had an autocross close by that I could have gone to, and I just said no. And you know what? It felt good to sleep in and do nothing. I actually took the advice I'd given to the newbies at the autocross schools I'd taught at -- if your heart's not into going to the event, don't waste your time and your money running. It's not worth it.

     So, my very next event was yet another ProSolo , this one the Petersburg event over the Memorial Day weekend.  I was originally signed up to run SS in Roger Johnson's Corvette, but at the last minute, he found out he wasn't going to be able to make the trip. So when I got there on Friday, I was somewhat resigned to running my own car, until the offers started pouring in -- Terry Baker offering his new red Z3 coupe, Rob Falkner offering his AS 968, Marcus Merideth offering his ESP Mustang, Roger Garrett offering, surprise, surprise, his BSP ZR1.... Considering of all of these, I'd driven everything but the Mustang, I decided to take Marcus up on his offer. He mainly wanted to get additional data on his new GEEZ! box and software, but I just wanted to have fun.

     There were only 4 ESP competitors, since Chris Lindberg, who was originally supposed to run Marcus' car also in ESP, decided to run Jim Crider's 1999 Cobra in FS instead. So, we got bumped up into BSP, where we ran against Roger Garrett and the Hellers in their Corvette. I had some problems initially just driving the Mustang, as the rubbing of the front 315s was a little disturbing to me, and the clutch was a bit grabbier than I was used to (I kept stalling it out at first). My biggest problem turned out to be on course -- the car was just ever-so-slightly wider than the Camaro, and it turned in more quickly than the Camaro, so I kept hitting cones with the front end. In fact, of all my left side times, I think only two of them were coneless. I was pretty happy with how I did, however, but I was even happier for Brian in my car -- Saturday afternoon, he discovered how to use the handbrake to help launch the car, and Sunday morning, he learned how to drive it! He went from 7th in class to 2nd -- less than two tenths behind class winner Pat Salerno. I could have been happier only if he hadn't tripped the red light in the first round of the Challenge. ;)

     The next weekend was a MARRS enduro at Summit Point that I was thinking of flagging at. But I was also planning on going out to Mid-Ohio to crew for Scotty White in the Speedvision GT race, so when my alarm went off Saturday morning, I decided to turn it off and sleep in. Instead, I got up at 4 AM the next morning and drove out to Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course for the USRRC/Trans Am/Speedvision World Challenge race. I got there too late to hold Scotty's Corvette flag during the grid ceremonies (he thought the race started at noon, when it started at 10:45 -- after a wrong turn and a line at registration, I got there at 10:30), but I got to watch. I also ran into some people I knew, which was weird; Brian Priebe and Michael Eckert waved to me as I came down the entrance road and I did a double-take as I realized who they were. Then I encountered Fred and Eric Heller, and met Eric's Viper benefactor, who is helping him reach his goal of roadracing. Fred and Eric showed me around the track, and all the good places to watch from, and I got to see Paul Gentilozzi win the Trans Am race from the pole (Brian Simo was second). I also met some of the Trans Am guys, which was neat, and some of the USRRC guys as well.

     I decided to skip the Ayer National Tour this year and go to a local event at Ft. Meade . Of course, after looking at the Ayer entry list, I really, really wish I had gone there, but I couldn't do the drive by myself and made it back to give my second period biology exam on Monday.  Anyway, I figured I'd preregistered for this event, and so I really ought to go, and I thought it would be fun. And I thought changing tires before I left would be smart, because it was only an hour away, and I really didn't want to change tires there, and have to load and unload the car.... you know how it goes. So, here I am on I70, on worn out Kumhos up front, and decent Kumhos in the rear, when I notice that the skies overhead are really nasty looking. Like, "we're going to drop so much rain you won't be able to think hydroplane before it happens" kind of nasty. I just start praying. Well, someone must have been listening, because the most it does over me is mist a little, and by the time I get to Ft. Meade, it's drying out. El Pricko Justin has just finished his third run (he ran second heat), and has FTD, but he knows it's not going to stick what with the course drying out. So he asks me, "Can you do a rain dance?" I laughed and replied, "Who do you think brought the sun in the first place?!" Lee Piccione ends up winning SS by a large margin. Me in FS? I don't think I did half bad, but since Steve and Vickie Smith ran in the wet (at least I think they ran then), it's not exactly a fair match. Steve Catlin won, I know that, and I might have been 3rd or 4th or lower. The car pushed a lot on the first run, so I had to back off a lot the second one. I improved by three seconds. I drove a little harder on my last run, and the car pushed again, so I backtracked. Oh well. At least it was dry. ;)

     This past weekend was the Harrisburg ProSolo , which has always been my nemesis. In fact, I can't think of one good event I've had at the Farm Show Complex. I was debating all week whether or not I should even drive my car, considering how enjoyable the Petersburg Pro was when I drove Marcus' car. In the end, I decided to drive my own, even though it looked like Fred would have let me drive the BSP car since Eric was out roadracing the Viper. Maybe I should have run BSP, but considering BSP still would have bumped to ASP and run against Rex and Lisa in the Elan, I don't think it would have been that great of an idea.

     I started out great on Saturday morning. Roger Johnson kept announcing that I had fast time on the right course, and I had a decent time on the left course, even though it had a cone. Brian was doing well too. Then the results were posted -- Dave Cole was leading?! How was that? Brian was second. I was 8th. It turned out that Dave had clean runs on both sides that were good. Roger thought there was a cone on his fastest right side time, which is why he thought I had the fastest time there. Anyway, I should have left at that point (isn't that always the case at Harrisburg?). I started to blow my launches in the afternoon, and then let that get to me all the way down the straight so that I blew the slalom and the rest of the course. Actually, I was only screwing up the end of the course royally -- the so-called "box" -- but the end result was the same. I didn't really improve and by Sunday morning had dropped to 9th, and I really shouldn't have even beaten Steve Catlin. Brian slipped too, having problems also in the "box," though his launches were better than mine, and fell to fourth in the afternoon when Alex and Pat cleaned up their runs, and then fifth the next morning when Jeff Youmans switched to Kumhos and found a little bit of time.

     Did I mention that I still had a good time? Well, I did, despite my crappy runs. The social activities, including the Grand Turismo enduro being held in room 234 of the Red Roof Inn and the dinner at the microbrewery, made up for the lack of good runs.

     The NASA-Va track event is over, and I think I've pretty much recovered as of late Monday afternoon. The fun started when I got home the afternoon of the 26th, after an invigorating hike through the woods of Gambrill State Park. Within 30 minutes, Scott Breneman had arrived in his 1995 Camaro Z28, and after much debate, we decided to skip the NASA-Va dinner meeting in Charles Town and go to Dave and Buster's in Bethesda. So, we spent the evening playing video games such as Sega Rally 2 and Sega Super GT to get us in the track mood. Early Sunday morning, the alarm goes off, and I know I am hating life at that point (I think I got 4 hours of sleep, at the most). We were off for the Point just after 7AM, and after stopping for gas and breakfast, we were there by 7:50. Imagine my surprise when the first people I see are Scott and Greg Witt, with Scott's newest toy -- a Formula Continental! Other friends were there, including John Bailey, Jr. in his Volvo and Shannon Wilkins in his Impreza RS.

     Well, I had a busy day, to say the least. Socializing wasn't supposed to be high on the list, but I snuck it in anyway. Jon Felton told me right off that I was going to be his right-hand "man" (waitaminute! isn't that deputy director Joe Henderson's role?), so I knew I had some work. I was the starter, and kinda like the whole control tower crew, to be exact. I don't know if that's what he actually planned for me to do, or if it just worked out that way. Anyway, even the ambulance crew was asking me when they could take their lunch break, rather than asking Jon! Anyway, I kept things rolling along, trying to keep the sessions on schedule, but mainly the reason I was able to do that was because the drivers had a clue, and basically avoided incidents that would have caused problems. The one car that needed to be towed back in (a third gen RX7) did it only minutes before I was going to throw the checkered to end the session anyway. Scott Willard, when his car blew a hose, was able to get it connected enough to drive it back to the pits rather than have us stop the session to move it. There were a few OC incidents, but they were minor when compared to the last time (year and a half ago) NASA was on this track -- when an M3 was claimed by turn 5.

     I wasn't planning on running any -- in fact, I rode over with Scott to make sure I didn't even get the notion of driving -- but then at lunch time, Shannon Wilkins offers his Impreza for a few laps. I couldn't resist, especially knowing he had to return it to the lease company within the week. Not knowing it was on street tires, I pushed it a little harder than I should, but it was still a lot of fun. I also took Scott Willard's Talon out to pick up some of the workers and equipment at the end of the day -- so it wasn't a "full lap," but I didn't exactly take it easy between stops.

    I was soooooo tired after this weekend, after Scott brought me home, I managed to stay awake for about 15 minutes, and then I was gone. Brian called about 15 minutes after that, and I was just too tired to talk and he realized that. At least it was a good tired though!

    I did the Evansville Freedom National Tour over the July 4th weekend. In a sense, I almost wish I hadn't. Some things were kind of bothering me that weekend, and so I didn't drive as well as I should have, especially considering the courses were very similar to last year's (in fact, that was practically the first thing Matt Grainger said to me when we got there). Brian was third after the first day, and I was 8th, and the only reason I wasn't last was because Brian Regganie had cones on all three of his runs. Now, as bad as that sounds, I really wasn't all that far away from Alex, who was leading. But Sunday just went downhill with my mood. When will I ever learn? But, of course, since I was already out there, I couldn't just pack up and go. Brian held on for third place (three times to Evansville, three third place FS trophies for the green terror).

     Last weekend, I came back from the Outer Banks in time to go to the Frederick autocross . I haven't been to an event at Harry Grove Stadium in a while, and with this event, I remember why. I've gotten way too used to big, fast lots. The cramped space at Harry Grove just doesn't suit me any more, even if it is only 15 minutes from my house. I spun out on my first run -- wheee! -- and took it easy my second. I pushed a little harder on my last run, but got loose near the end and only improved by 0.8 -- which was still 2 seconds back from the class winner. No biggie. It's just a regional event, and I'm not running there for points anyway.

     Wow. There's been a lot going on recently! On July 16th, I went to Summit Point for the MARRS III qualifying, where I flagged. Fun, except for the new gravel traps. During the GT Pinto session, we only had about three go off, and the session ended up being black flagged because of the two that were stuck in turn 3 (one in the trap, one that had blown an oil line or something and laid crap down on the track). My excitement for the day was when Chris "Crash" Cobetto skated across the gravel backwards in his EP RX7 in the second qualifying session. I was stationed on the embankment right there that time, and he was close enough that I could wave and say "hi." He qualified first in EP, though, and won the race the next day, which I missed because I was at the Virginia Commonwealth Games autocross, which was held in Roanoke.

     The course was sort of on the short side, but with two loops of the first section, wasn't too bad. Scott Witt designed it, and of course, got FTD, but he only managed one complete run in the TVR before it broke. And he's trying to sell this car!! Brian and I ran in FS against Todd Tignor and three Mustangs. I led off with a decent run, but Brian quickly eclipsed it, and ended up winning the gold medal while I settled for silver. Todd's Camaro took the bronze. Poor little Mustangs got nothin'. ;) The most interesting part of this event was the amazingly fast cleanup! A thunderstorm started to break just as the last car was finishing, and it seemed that everyone ran out and grabbed a couple of cones, and the course was gone in under five minutes. Then when the rain came, we all ran into the Civic Center and watched as our cars disappeared behind the curtain of torrential downpour. The hail was fortunately small enough not to cause damage, but the power went out and we couldn't do the awards for about an hour until we got auxiliary power to the laptop.

     Monday, I was back at Summit Point for the MAFB VVF RRAT . Wow. That's a mouthful. It's short for Mid-Atlantic F-Body 'Vette, Viper, F-body Road-Race-A-Thon. Scott Breneman followed me over, and we got there early enough to change tires. It was going to be warm out, and evidently that fact coupled with the Monday date made a lot of the instructors "forget" to show up. So, while I was still in Group 1, instead of just subgroups "A" and "B," I got put into "C," with about 7 other people. The biggest group was Group 2, since most of them didn't need instructors. My first time out on the big track in the Camaro, I took it easy, trying to remember the line from soooooo long ago. My instructor the first time was Natalie, who was very critical of my lifting coming down the chute (as she should be, since if I was going anywhere near speed when I lifted, it could be real ugly). Other than that, I didn't have too many problems. I checked the tire pressures, and took some pictures, and got ready to go out again. This time my instructor was Don Barrack, the voice of Summit Point, and driver of ITB28 (a VW Golf). He was talkative! But he reinforced what Natalie had been saying about lifting in the chute, and I started pushing the car a little harder. By this time, Glen Swartz and Jeff Eckaus had already toasted their cars (sadly enough, both of them experienced spun bearings), so I wasn't too tough on the car. One 'Vette had also left due to lack of oil pressure (pump worked, but otherwise, it was unexplained). My brakes got pretty soft in this session, so I left a couple of laps early to let them cool off. We had lunch, then got to go back out. My third session, I continued to push the car. I really never saw anyone else while I was out on the track except for one Corvette who waved me by pretty quickly. Otherwise I was by myself. I should have gridded further back so I'd have at least a little traffic to deal with! Well, Don was happy enough with my driving after the third session that he signed me off for a solo session in the fourth if I wanted it, and promoted me to group 2i (group 2 with an instructor) for the next time I go to a FATT. Scott also got signed off, as did Brian Burdette and David Tittermary <-- who had to spend the next two days at my house because he fried his fuel pump in the last session. Warningto LS1 drivers! Don't fuel starve your pump for even a second!!!!

     The weekend after was the MAFB Grillin' and Chillin' II in North Carolina, and a NASA-Va autocross in Petersburg. Brian and I went down to Cary on Friday night to stay with his brother, and then hit Lake Crabtree early Saturday morning. We took up the entire lot next to the pavilion we rented, and with the weather, the meat wasn't the only thing "grillin'!" We had a mini-car show, where the missing Brad Ludes won "slowest looking car" (he drives a Mustang), and a beautiful topless TransAm won "fastest looking." Joe Creecy won the distance award by driving from York, PA. John Griswold got the dirtiest car award, which I avoided by carefully washing and waxing my car the day before! The most desirable car I think went to the 30th anniversary TransAm that came by. A lot of nice cars were there -- mine just blended in, which was the whole point of the Polo Green, if I recall correctly. ;)

     The rally started around 2, and Brian's brother came with us, but this one was structured differently than the BOYB event. With this one, to go the "correct" route, and therefore get the correct mileage, you had to answer questions based on 30+ years of F-body trivia. Yikes! If we'd had Brian's cell phone, I could have called my brother and gotten some of the answers, but instead, we just did the best we could. We weren't last, at least. After the rally, we all went over to "party central" (aka Randy Brown's house), and "chilled." It was a lot of fun, and I think I'm definitely in it for next year too!

     The NASA autocross was once again designed by the duo of Pat Griffith and Mike Garner. This one was even faster than the April event, with me absolutely needing third gear at one point. Dang if Brian didn't beat me again, and he was second on PAX overall -- second to Justin. :( I was 7th on PAX, I think. Highlights of the day? Justin spinning crazily on his second run, and coming terrifyingly close to destroying his Corvette against a light pole (he estimated seven feet). Roger Garrett letting me take the ZR1 on fun runs, and me beating his best raw time by a tenth (he had a cone on his best time, but I didn't), and then him letting Justin take the ZR1 out, and Justin spinning that too. I also took Pat Griffth's SE-R and Scott Willard's ESP Talon out too. Fun, fun, fun.

     Watkins Glen's second MARRS event was the following weekend (July 31 and August 1). I went up with the NASA guys in the Cobetto Infiniti, and got to watch Chris win his second EP race in a row. Plus, I got to get totally soaked Saturday night in a fierce thunderstorm. :( I think my wallet is still drying out.

     Last weekend was the adventure known as the Wendover ProSolo . The trek actually started on August 3, when Tim Aro and I went to King's Dominion in Doswell, VA, and I was too tired to drive home after our last ride on the Xtreme Skyflyer ended around 10:20. So, I stayed at Tim's, and made the mad dash home Wednesday morning. Gotta pack, gotta finish laundry, gotta make it to BWI by 3:45!! I made it, and didn't have to sit next to too creepy of people. Alex picked me up at Midway in Chicago, and we went to dinner, then sleepy-time. Thursday morning, I head out around 5:30 (central time!) and meet up with Chris Lindberg on the Iowa border about 2 hours later. You've gotta love the blatant disregard for speed limits on the part of Illinois drivers! Chris and I drove a total of about 16 hours to Cheyenne, WY, where we met up with Paige Wagner, who was driving Chris' car in Wendover. From Cheyenne, it was only about 9 hours to Wendover, which we accomplished by 2:30 (mountain time!).

     I liked the course a lot, probably second only to the Dan Popp designed courses at Peru. The site is perfectly flat, and the concrete good and sticky. I could launch just like at the drag strip! My launches were some of the highlights of my runs -- no red lights, and no sitting-and-sleeping either. Alex, though, man, he just kicked our collective FS butts. I've never seen him run so smoothly and so consistently over a two day period! He deserved to win not only the class, but the overall NationalSeries challenge, which he did in convincing fashion. The only person who made a win "easy" for him was Joel Schotz (Dave Schotz's dad), who after cutting perfect lights all weekend, finally red lighted in the final round of the Challenge. :( My times, well, they were good, though only good enough for 7th of  9. But 2nd through 8th were all pretty close, so I wasn't bummed (too much) about it.

     Besides the autocross, Wendover is on the Utah/Nevada border, so Alex, Matt Grainger and I hit the State Line Casino on Saturday night. While Alex played blackjack and poker, Matt and I played craps (with Erik Streknieks and Dave Schotz) and the slots. I lost $30, but Matt didn't do too poorly. The next night, Matt and I played blackjack, and I won back $11 of what I'd lost the night before. I also managed to play for over 2 hours on the nickel slots with just $1. ;) I think this was one of the most fun autocrosses I've ever been to. The drive home (caravaning with Matt) wasn't too bad, and the time we had out there was great. Since it was 2000 miles from home, I'm glad it was good. It would have sucked to have gone that far for a crappy event.

     The Central Divisionals were held the last weekend before I had to go back to work. I drove out Friday, two hours later than planned because my alarm wasn't set properly (doh!). I met up with my codriver for the event, Matt Carson, around 7:45 (Indiana time), and walked the course and got dinner. The next morning, I met up with the rest of the very strong FS class -- Chris Lindberg, Brian Goodner, George Williams, Bob Anderson, Brian Regganie, Bob Lenz, Kent Weaver and Roger Christopherson. Alex would be there, but only on Sunday, so I knew I could beat him. ;) I was second car out, and I didn't make a very good showing of it. After the first runs, I was only beating Matt. Chris and Goodner were on top, followed by George. The next run, I took almost 2 seconds off, but still was a half second and more off the pace. Goodner and Lindberg went even faster, and I wasn't even close to Bob Lenz, whom I've beaten before! The last run was the surprise run, however. Bob Anderson came outta nowhere to crush the competition by half a second. George Williams improved enough to take second and Goodner and Lindberg were virtually tied for third. Me? Matt nipped me by less than a tenth to leave me in DFL for the day. :(

     The next day wasn't about to get any better. The course was the same, only backwards. Now this course, I wouldn't call it "Nationals-like" in the least. There were no slaloms, and the so-called offsets (which were only in one area) weren't severe enough to cause anyone to slow down in that section. Basically, this was a serious of straights and turns. Anyway, my first run on Sunday just exacerbated the problems from the day before. I wasn't happy with the setup on Matt's car, and the axle hop under braking was practically intolerable. I was getting more and more frustrated with his car, and so fought it more and more. The second run on Sunday was the low point. With the back end literally jumping around going into the 180 at the far end, I let off the brakes to try to calm it down, and the back end came around on me. Evidently, at the same time, Bob Lenz spun into the grass a little bit behind me. Well, I was pretty pissed at this point, and it took all the time until my next run to calm down. While I was feeling like I was banging my head against a wall, Goodner was killing everyone, Anderson couldn't find the times he had Saturday, and Lindberg was struggling a bit too. Despite my problems on my first two runs, I was still beating Matt, but I didn't think it would last for long. Sure enough, while I got down to a 49.5 on my last run -- respectable, but still damn slow -- Matt did a 49.1 and so beat me in the end. Goodner had fast time of the day -- a 47.1 -- which he attributed to my Bud dress, and he ended up second overall. Bob Anderson's first day time was good enough to keep him on top, and Chris finished third with George in fourth. Alex's times were good, but he wasn't a factor because of his Saturday DNSs.

     Next on the schedule -- Harrisburg, PA again, this time for the Northeast Divisionals/Pennsylvania State Championships. Oh joy, oh joy. I'll be driving Scott Breneman's 1995 Camaro at this event.