The second weekend in January was the annual Beginning of the Year Bash for the Mid-Atlantic F-Body group, and as in past years, this one was held in the Tidewater area. What a blast! Saturday was party time at Neil's house, and we played Playstation games, complements of Randy "Homey" Brown, and then went cruisin' Saturday night. Brian Tiffany came out with his Porsche 944, and got to hear the "music" of 20-some after-market-exhausts going through the I-264 downtown tunnel -- gods, that was beautiful. The next day, we did the "Super Fun Gimmick Rally and Scavenger Hunt," which teamed Randy and I up since Brian couldn't make it. In honor of our green cars -- the only green cars there -- we called ourselves "Team Green," and went out to win it all. No holds barred here. Randy didn't pick up the biggest cucumber, but we did get pretty much every question right, and we got all the bonus items (including the KY jelly and the Burger King crowns), so we finished with 115 points to the second place 113 (a tie between Wayne and Ernest). So I'm the reigning BOYB rally driver, with two titles to my name! ;)
     January 16, 2000 was a Tidewater SCC event, and the only reason I really went was because I needed to pick up a couch from Brian. I drove my brother's Chevy S10 pickup down, and Pat Griffith came up to my house to drive the Camaro down. Pat and Brian were going to duke it out in the Camaro while I was going to troll for another ride, and I got a good one -- Terry Baker's 1991 Camaro, with its brand new 5 speed, in ESP. This car is sweet. It's got power -- okay, not as much as Marcus' beastly Mustang, but it handles too! And I haven't driven Marcus' car since he finally got rid of those BFG g-Forces, but it can't handle any better than this car! Of course, with the quick turn in and the wide Kumho tires, I couldn't stay away from the cones. I didn't have a clean run all day. Meanwhile, it's cone troubles all over for the Triskelion team, as both Pat and Brian hit cones on their runs and so let Marty Lentz in his Mustang finish first in FS. Oh well. We all have bad weekends every now and then. At least I got my sofa. ;)
 

     The next time I autocrossed was February 13 . I really didn't even want to go to an autocross that weekend. It was my birthday, and I'd just enrolled in a credit counselling service to try to reduce my insane credit card debt, so I didn't want to spend my money ($20 at that) at an event on the scary side of Philadelphia that is Camden, NJ. But Pat made an offer I couldn't refuse (he would pay my way as a birthday present), so I decided to go. We left Saturday afternoon to spend the evening at Eric Carman's aunt and uncle's house, and to my surprise, they had cake and beer for us, in honor of my 29th birthday (damn, am I that old already?). I feel asleep early -- after totally dissing George Perinis on the phone (he'd actually tried to race me on the way up -- like his 200SX SE-R had a chance even with my car loaded down with tires and a codriver!) -- and we got up early the next day to make it to Camden on time. Pat and I ran in the first heat, and there was only one other FS person there in a third gen, so we took the first two spots overall. Not really all that fun, when it came down to it. It was cold, and there was a huge freakin' snow pile in the middle of the course; it ran down the center of the entire lot. One guy in a Fiero actually hit it and knocked part of his bodywork off. I won, mainly because Pat couldn't stay away from the cones, and we were off to Ft. Myers for the following weekend. The coolest thing was that this event was the Solo event of the month in SportsCar . Ross Atwell's Neon (pre-stripes) was pictured, and I was mentioned, but poor Pat wasn't.
     Ft. Myers, Florida. Dang, that's quite a drive from Maryland, you know? I put in for a day off on the Friday before hand so that I had a day to drive down, and it was a good thing I did. It took us about 15 hours to get down there. Ick. However, because it was snowing/sleeting or something in Maryland, schools were closed and so my day off didn't count, much like the flood day during Nationals. Anyway, we left Thursday afternoon (I left early from work), and we stopped in South Carolina for the night. We made it down in time for practice starts, which was nice. I made only a few practice starts (Jocelyn Sharp was riding me about my pathetic starts; I wasn't worried about them). Pat made a bunch of them, because he'd never tried to launch my car before, and he discovered it wasn't easy. Well, the next morning dawned foggy as all hell.

     I put the picture here because you wouldn't believe it unless you saw it. When I was walking the course, the water was condensing on my eyelashes and it looked like I was crying the whole time. They had to delay the start somewhat until the fog cleared. Weird.
     I ran first because Pat took #134 while I was #34 (as always). That left him against Dean Sapp, who is running Chris Lindberg's Mustang this year. Poor Pat had to deal with the Partridge Family CD being played at full volume, as is Dean's modus operandi. Me, I was up against -- who else? -- Jeff Youmans in the red '96 Camaro. And, right off, I wasn't doing too hot. The car was pushing, badly. It just wasn't doing what I wanted it to do. And after Pat's morning runs, we had corded the front tires. Oh, crap. Well, fortunately, Alex Tziortzis had decided to go to the larger 265/45/R16 Kumhos, so his 245s were available for use. He kindly let us use them, and we finished the event on them. We only managed to finished 7th and 8th (me and Pat, respectively), just ahead of the local guys. :( I was over a second behind Steve Burger in his new 1998 Camaro. I could do better, and I knew damn well I could do better.

     Pat and I drove back starting Sunday afternoon and got back Monday afternoon. We were not happy with where we finished. Meanwhile, Tim Aro and Eric Peterson were trying to figure out what was wrong with Tim's 1999 Miata, which suddenly started to cut out in the middle of runs. Tim managed a meager 5th place finish due to the cutting out, and Eric was even further back.
     The next weekend was going to be a weekend of reflection, but instead, Pat dragged me to Camden again for another Philly Region event . This time, however, we were not the only FS competition; Pat Salerno and Ron Bistrais had come down from the New York Region. However, they were running Ron's third gen car on old crusty Hoosiers. Not quite the recipe for dominance, no matter if Salerno was the reigning National Champion or not. After the first three runs, Pat and I were leading FS. But, I had already made a "deal" with Salerno and Ron to swap cars for one run in the afternoon, and so we did. I found out that I can't autocross an automatic very well, but it was fun anyway. And, well, all it took was that one run for Salerno to win FS and Ron to come in second. Pat beat me by a frustrating 0.001 second (!!!) so I ended up fourth of four in my own car But, the best part of the day was getting Mark Daddio into my car for a run. His best time beat Salerno's best time, plus he gave me some setup tips which will hopefully prove to come in handy later in the season.

     The Camaro got a few weeks off after the second Philly event, until the March 25-26 NASA-Virginia High Performance Driving School at Virginia International Raceway . I went down Friday evening, on race rubber (to heat cycle the new tires complements of Rosen Autosport ) and worked half of each day and ran the second half of the day. Oh my god, what a beautiful track. We only ran the North Course, so after the bridge, we hung a right up the hill through the North Course crossover, but it was still a joy to drive. I can't quite describe the feeling of going down the hills through turns 14-15-16-17 into the main straight. It's just an absolute blast. I can't wait to go again.

     The following weekend, April Fools weekend, Pat and I went down to Virginia Motorsports Park for a Virginia Motor Sports Club novice school. While Pat ran the car incessantly on the practice course, I worked with several novices on the slalom and practice curves. At one point, to try to make my lesson clear, I went down to the other course and took my car away from Pat so I could show my students what I was talking about. ;) It was fun in any event, even if I didn't get as much practice in as Pat did.
     The weekend of April 22 was supposed to be the VVF Dragathon V , but the threat of rain cancelled it. This was a good thing for me, as that Friday, Pat and I took my car to the Ft. Myer auto hobby shop to fix a worn tie rod end (thanks to Ross Atwell for catching this little problem, which likely had something to do with the horrible push at the Ft. Myers ProSolo). When we got to the Ft. Myer gate, Pat had a difficult time putting the car into gear, any gear. At first I thought he was playing with me, but after we got a bay at the shop, I went to move the car into the bay, and sure enough, it didn't want to go into a gear. It was like the clutch wasn't fully disengaging. Well, we got the tie rod fixed, and we got the car back to his place in Alexandria, and I was relieved in a sense to see that D5 was postponed until May. We still went over to Quoc's and had his awesome wings and Stacie's awesome cheesecakes and we played around and then went over to Wayne's for more screwing around. Then, Sunday, I drove my car back home and ordered a new hydraulic system, because all the symptoms pointed towards that being the problem.
     Well, Wednesday, as I am driving the Camaro to Pat's so we can take it to the auto hobby shop and swap out the hydraulic system, the car suddenly acts like its in neutral. This is while I'm on the Beltway, during rush hour traffic, at the I66-East exit. Joy, o joy. I wait 90 minutes for a flat bed tow truck, and get the car towed to Pat's apartment. I'm practically in tears the whole way. The car had gone 140,000+ miles without gracing the back of a tow truck, and the streak is broken. :( After a week of sitting at Pat's apartment, some dickhead in the complex decides enough is enough and has the car towed. (!) If I ever find out who it was, they are going to regret it immensely. I was in tears when I walked outside and my car was gone (I'd ridden the motorcycle that day). After I found out where it was, I had it towed directly to my brother's shop, and from there, things came together to get it fixed.
     What had happened was that the clutch disk had broken. This was likely due to uneven wear on the pilot bushing, which wasn't replaced the first time I switched out the clutch. John replaced it with a pilot bearing (TSB), and got a new Valeo clutch through our neighbor Jeff rather than paying through the nose to get the same Valeo clutch in an AC/Delco box. John did a heck of a lot of detective work to get this done, and I greatly appreciate it.
     But in the meantime, I missed not just one, but two autocrosses in the Camaro because of the down time. April 30 was a Summit Point autocross put on by the DC Region SCCA and Autocrossers Inc . I ended up running Pat's Sentra SE-R instead of the Camaro. Well, actually, I had offers to drive both Roger Garrett's ZR-1 and Chang Ho Kim's Corvette, but when George started saying that I didn't want to drive the Sentra because I "couldn't drive FWD," I had to prove him wrong. ;) So, Pat and I co-drive the SE-R in the second heat, and while he won the class, I finished 3rd, behind Glenn Ty in a VW. George was fourth in his 200SX. The course was very similar to the one from last fall, so I kinda wish I could've driven the Camaro, but alas... it was lying broken in Pat's parking lot at the time. :(
     The following weekend, May 7, there was an event at Petersburg being put on by VMSC and set up by Tim. Again, because my car was incapacitated, I had to rely on codriving someone else's car. I really didn't want to go to this event. Pat all but dragged me down there. I could have driven his car, but I really didn't want to. I just wanted to go home. :( I ended up driving Ross Atwell's Neon in STS, and I finished almost exactly one second behind Ross and 1.5 behind Richard West in his Subaru, who won the class. The Neon oversteered a lot more than I anticipated it would, but it still wasn't anywhere near the Camaro. I was upset and really wanted my car back after this event.
     Fortunately, my brother was able to get my car back to me during the week between the VMSC event and the following weekend, which was the raindate for the Dragathon and the first NASA-Virginia event of the year. I was chairing the event and doing course setup, so I really wanted to know ahead of time what car I'd be driving. I was very happy to find out that it would be the Camaro. :) Pat and I went to MIR for the MAFB event, but I didn't run because of the new clutch. After watching the final eliminations, a bunch of us went to Jody Creegan's house for a few hours, until a thunderstorm blew up and everyone had to hide in the garage. While we were there, they decided that that was as good a time as any to start on the clutch swap on Bob Reese's car. It was about then that Pat and I decided we should leave. We went down to Chris Cobetto's for the night and left from there Sunday morning, with cones in tow in the dualie. We got the course set up in record time, and amazingly enough, there were absolutely no complaints! Everyone loved the course! It was a lot of fast fun, especially since I won FS over Pat, and I was ninth on PAX. Tim was first, even though his car was still playing the cut-out game on him, and a bunch of the STS guys were in the top ten also, including George (running Ross' Neon) and Ross and Richard West. It was a long day, but since everyone had fun and was happy, it was worth it. The next weekend would be the Peru ProSolo, which wouldn't be half so easy on us.
     We left for Peru as early as I could escape work on Friday, which got us out there around midnight. Ick. Thankfully, we had annual tech from Ft. Myers, so all we really needed to do was go through registration. We did that, walked the course, and then got ready to go. FS was some seriously stiff competition at this event, with no local slouches to count on being DFL. Yikes. I was going to have to work for a position above last place. Well, after the Saturday morning runs, I was feeling pretty good about myself. I was in the trophies! Granted, it was the last trophy spot, but it was trophies nonetheless. I wanted to stay there, and so I set out in the afternoon on a mission.... which I failed miserably at. I don't know what went wrong. Maybe I was just pushing too hard. But I didn't improve any, and pretty much everyone else did. :( I fell to 9th place. Pat passed me, so he'd be running with the group on Sunday, while I ran by myself because there were three codrivers and I was the slowest of the bunch. I wasn't happy about it, at all. The next morning, I managed to improve a bit, but everyone else improved too, so I didn't change my position. I finished 9th, Pat was 8th. But, when I analyzed the results later on, I realized that despite finishing 9 of 14, this was probably my best event ever, relative to the winners. It almost made me long for the days when ProSolo points were based on how close you finished to the winner, because otherwise, my ninth place looked pretty crappy.  But I knew I had a chance to redeem myself the following weekend at Petersburg....
     The Petersburg ProSolo. Last year, I'd run ESP in Marcus' Mustang. This year, I was going to actually run my own car in FS. And that I did. And just like the week before at Peru, I started off strong in the morning on Saturday, holding on to the last trophy position. And just like the week before at Peru, I finished Saturday off by running with my head up my butt, and falling several positions to 9th spot. I finished off the weekend, frustrated to tears, in 10th position, while Pat moved up to 6th, beating Dean Sapp by less than a tenth.
     Eric Peterson, codriving Tim's car, was also having a rough weekend, and I basically spilled my guts to him about how I felt. He and Tim hadn't come out to Peru in Tim's car because of the cut-out problems, but Eric had brought his own car out and finished respectively in BS. But this weekend, he was struggling, and then he had almost a catastrophic event where he put the car in 1st instead of 3rd. The car was okay, but he was kind of shaken up. Me, on the other hand, I was tired of running well in the morning and then self-destructing for the rest of the event. I was trying to prove myself as a driver, and all I was doing was making a fool of myself. It wasn't enough that I was doing a mediocre job in the open class, but I could be winning in the freakin' ladies class. Every freakin' time since I started running open in 1998, except maybe the Harrisburg Pro in '98, I would have made the challenge if I'd been running ladies class. But I didn't want to run ladies, I wanted to run open, and I wanted to do well in open. I was sure it was my driving that was the problem, and not the car; after all, Pat had just driven 1.6 seconds faster than me.
     Pat and I came home Sunday night to hear that there had been an accident at Summit Point, where NASA-Virginia was running a race and school. After making some quick phone calls, we found out that Scott Willard had rolled and destroyed his Eagle Talon, almost beyond the point of recognition, but amazingly was okay except for some bruises. His passenger, Will Johnston was a little worse off, having suffered a bruised lung and a fractured vertebra. But considering what the car looked like, they were amazingly fortunate. Pat and I went to the track the following day, me to work start, and Pat to.... I don't know what he was doing. ;) I saw the car there, and I'll put a link to a picture of it here , but don't say you weren't warned. It is truly horrible, but at least we all know that the driver and passenger are okay.
     The races were a little less eventful, thankfully. Elyse Politi and I were the pace drivers, with her driving her car for the first race and me driving my car for the second race. BTW, she let me take her car out for a first laps earlier in the day (since Pat and I corded tires at Petersburg), and it was a lot of fun; she has a lot of suspension work done to her car, and it handles very nicely even though it's on street tires. Wade Witmer won the Spec Miata race, and Dave Hunt came in third in SU1 behind two overpowered Porsches.

     So, that's where it stood coming into the Harrisburg Pro on Father's Day weekend. Well, that's almost the whole story. Waaaaaay back in February, Pat had heard he was to go on temporary deployment to Saudi Arabia for 90 days, starting June 10th (he's in the Air Force). Well, for a time, the departure date was pushed back to June 14th, meaning he likely wouldn't get back in time for Nationals. :( But as June got closer and closer, the date was finalized as June 5th. So, he would be around for the Petersburg ProSolo, but not much longer after that. Then, the Thursday a week before the Harrisburg event, I found out that my uncle, my dad's brother, was very ill and in the hospital. Added to that, his wife was also in the hospital to have a tumor removed. When I went to visit them that Saturday, my uncle had been released because there was nothing more they could do for him. My aunt, on the other hand, was in the ICU, recovering from her surgery. All week, I worried about them. She was in the ICU much longer than was anticipated due to the stress of my uncle being so near death (he was given two weeks to live), plus she was having a lot more visitors than was good for her. My uncle was taking things day-by-day. On Friday, the day before the Harrisburg event, my aunt was taken off the respirator and released from the ICU. When my uncle was told that, he stopped fighting his own cancer and began the downward slide.
     I had come home Friday night to make sure things were still "okay" before I ran on Saturday. I went back to the Farm Show Complex Saturday morning, and pledged that I would make these runs for my uncle. I was running Eric Kriemelmeyer's 1999 Subaru Impreza 2.5 RS, an STS car, but I was running it in L1. I didn't really want to run in L1, but Eric didn't want me to mess with the STS points (Eric, George, Ross, Vince and Richard all were on their third, and final, points event). Plus, Eric had this dream of his car being the only car in the Honda Street Challenge. Well, I wasn't as optimistic as he was, but I was willing to drive my best, for my uncle, and see what I could do.

     My first runs weren't all that great. I spun on the left, and I scared myself on the right. I drove a little faster, but a little more tentatively for the second set of morning runs. Imagine my surprise when the results show that I'm leading after Saturday morning! At that point, the grumbling about my running ladies class starts. So, the afternoon runs come, and Eric goes from 5th to 1st in STS, with some blistering fast runs. I spend two hours looking for him after my work assignment, so that I can figure out where he went so much faster. It turned out his wife had come up to see him, so he was with her; I got the dirt on where to go faster, and then I went and ran 1.6 seconds faster total, extending my already formidable lead on the ladies class. The complaining continued behind my back, and some people told me about the complaining and told me that they just wanted to see me win over the complainers. I didn't really care so much; I was trying to go faster because at that moment, I would be one out of the STS trophies with the times I had. Everyone was telling me I was driving great, but I was more concerned with driving the car to its potential -- at least as fast as Eric was driving it. So, Sunday morning runs come around, and it's wet out during the STS runs, and slowly drying. Eric tries to go faster, but it's just too wet. It's completely dry by the time I go out, and I go another 0.5 seconds faster -- and I would have had another 0.1, if not for a cone on my last left side run. Still, my times were good enough for the last trophy position in STS, and more than good enough for the win in L1, much to the chagrin of some of my competitors. Then, the difference between me and Renee Eady (2nd place) was great enough for me to be the top qualifier in the Ladies Challenge, and I went on to win the Ladies Challenge without exerting much effort, sad as it may sound. The STS index was soft enough that I only had to run but 80% to win, because all the other L1 competitors had to run faster than their open class counterparts in order to beat me, had I run right on the dial. The only person I was truly worried about was Audrey Harnish, who was running off of the more realistic L2 dial-in, and she's the only one who beat me back even on one side.
     To add to the excitement, I was also running against Eric for the Honda Street Challenge, just as he wanted us to do. Well, I was so determined to try to beat him in the Challenge that I cut my launch a little too close and ended up redlighting on the first side. Oh well. I still came home with a Peavey acoustic guitar and $650 in contingency money. Cool deal! Except that two days later, my uncle finally succumbed to the lung cancer that had been plaguing him for the last three years.
     The weekend of June 23-24, I just wanted to take it easy, but duty called on Sunday. NASA-Virginia was having a race weekend at VIR , and they needed workers badly. So, I drove down Saturday night and worked all day in the heat on Sunday. It wasn't too bad, except with so few workers, I had to be on a corner by myself. I also got to throw the red flag for the first time ever during the race. One of the Legends cars caught on fire in turn 1 (I was at turn "20", just past the bridge, where the North Course crossover turns off the main track), and so we had to red flag the race until that was taken care of. Unfortunately, the race was more than half over, and they were already behind schedule, so they called the race right then. If they had run even one more lap, Dave Hunt would have won SU1 because the Porsche that he is always battling had its ignition die during the red flag stop. Oh well.

     This past weekend was the Peru National Tour, which took the place of the usual Evansville event. I was supposed to drive Matthew Grainger's Olds Calais in STS, but there were some logistic problems with getting both that car and his Integra to the event. Plus, I started off fourth on the waiting list, but I found out just the Wednesday before that I was in. So, I'm ran Chris Lindberg's FS Mustang instead. What a different car!
     It took me forever and a day to make it to the event site. When I got onto 431 off of the Indianapolis Beltway (465), my car started overheating. I nursed it to US31, north of Carmel, before it got so hot that I didn't feel safe going any further. Imagine my surprise when a little rental car pulls up behind me seconds after I'd pulled over -- and John Thomas (multi-time EP National Champion) is driving. He'd flown into Indy and was on his way to Peru when he saw me and my stickered-up car pull over. He helped me limp it to Kokomo, and then drove me the rest of the way to the event site. What a great guy!
     Saturday morning, I'm out there in the Budweiser dress, much to the dismay of some of my FS competition (and to the delight of too many others, not only those in FS!). I start off dismally, as the Mustang is so close to the Camaro that it ends up being more difficult for me to drive than Eric's Subaru was. My second run is over 2 seconds faster, but still horrendously off the pace. Then, third runs come up, and I only improve a couple of tenths, while Chris -- driving shorts-less in just his bright orange thong -- improves by a second to be winning the class by 0.7. Tommy Pulliam is so disturbed by the thought of Chris in a thong that he only manages second place (44.7), less than a tenth ahead of his co-driver, Steve Waters, who so kindly pointed out Chris' lack of clothing. This all leaves me second-to-DFL, 2.3 back from Chris. Ick! The next morning, I was told to "continue distracting Brian Goodner," so I wore a similar dress, the $10 Toronto dress, which was actually more practical to walk around in, though it didn't deal with breezes as well as the Bud dress. Anyway, I was much closer to Chris' times on the faster-speed Sunday course (not necessarily faster in time), being only 1.4 back this time. Chris ran his first run fully clothed, but then decided to "cut loose" early, yanking the shorts for his last two runs. Once again, he improved immensely (didn't realize his shorts weighed that much!); though he didn't have the fastest time (that was Steve), he finished solidly in the lead. I improved enough to move up to 12th, but Bea Regganie drove very well on Sunday to make her 0.1 lead over me into more than a 0.4 lead.
     The fun wasn't over though. Since I was working impound, I had to wait for the third heat cars to finish running before my work assignment. So I was kind of wandering around the grid, talking to a couple of the CSP guys who were running then, when John Thomas comes up and asks about the whereabout of the Bud dress. I tell him it's in my car, clear across the paddock. Well, he's running with EPL so he can leave early to catch his flight back to Tampa, and evidently getting razzed for it. I tell him I'll go over and get the dress later. Well, just a minute later, his codriver, Tom Lombardo, comes up and asks about the dress too. So, I run back to the Camaro, grab the dress and run back to grid so that John can don it before his third and final run. When he put the dress on, poor Tommy Pulliam -- who already had the mental image of Chris in a thong to disturb him to no end -- got to see him just as he walked out of the portajohn. It was tremendously amusing to see John walk across the grid to the timing truck, stand there so that Debbie Fessler (who was announcing) could see him, and then walk back to the car. We were all laughing so hard we couldn't breathe. Well, John was going to run in the dress, but it was a little tight on him, plus he couldn't stop laughing either, so he goes to take it off, and then gets it stuck halfway up. Once again, we're all laughing so hard, we can't help him initially, but he looked so pitiful there with this dress pulled halfway up, that finally, I go over and help pull it the rest of the way off. ;) Several guys came up to me later saying that John had forever ruined the image of the Bud dress for them -- which I guess is good for me, eh? ;)
     After some help from Chris, Dan Popp and Jim Crider, I got the Camaro working again, and drove home, caravaning most of the way with Tim Aro, Eric Peterson and Jonathan Roberts. Whoa. What a mistake that was! I guess those four-cylinder drivers have to make up for their lack of manly cars with lots of, uh, "manly talk." I didn't think we were ever going to go to sleep Sunday night! In the end, the car made it back without even a hint of running hot, and now I get to contemplate replacing the water pump, and a couple of other things while I'm pulling it apart.
     I replaced the water pump the following weekend with the help of Wayne Edelen from the MAFB ... okay, Wayne replaced the water pump while I watched and learned something. :) It took all morning for me to locate a rebuilt water pump, but it only took about two and a half hours to replace it, once the motor had cooled down. Thanks Wayne!
     Wendover. The name conjures images of white flatness stretching off into distant snow-covered peaks. On Wednesday, June 12th, I started this year's trek to the land of the land-speed trials by driving to Pat's apartment so that I could be picked up by the SuperShuttle and taken to National Airport, where I was flying to Jacksonville. The first part of the flight was uneventful, but then we got delayed in Atlanta due to thunderstorms. Oh joy. I arrived over two hours late, and my ride, Scott, was worried when I finally did get there. Then, when we went out to the parking lot to the car he had brought with him, it wouldn't start. Fun! He went to look for a security guy for the jump start, while I sat in the Florida heat waiting. He came back about five minutes later, and tried to start the car again, and of course, now it starts. We're on our way out of the gate when we see Mr. Jump Start scurrying down the grassy lane, and Scott calls out to him to tell him we got it running anyway.... is this an omen for the beginning of my trip? Man, I hope not... We arrive at Atlantic Performance, what I fondly call Mark's "rice shop" about twenty minutes later. The shop is in a minor bit of disarray, having just received a shipment of body kits. They have a lot of stuff, including nitrous kits in stock, so I guess it's not all rice. I hang out for a few hours, talking with Mark, his employees and some customers, and about 8PM, I decide I should start on the 2400 mile trip. I get as far as Marietta, GA (just north of Atlanta) before I'm too tired to continue. The next day, I yank myself out of bed around 8AM, take a quick shower and then start driving some more. The Civic has no A/C or radio, but I'm too busy thinking about stuff to worry about the lack of tunes. The traffic is bad going into Atlanta, so I'm happy I got north of the city before calling it a night. It's not so warm that I'm uncomfortable (though most people probably would be). I just keep driving, and driving, stopping now and then for gas and pit stops. I am not very hungry, plus I brought some bagels and some fruit, so food stops are unnecessary. I give up the second day in the middle of Nebraska, some little town called Lexington. This was after I initially stopped in Kearney, only to find there were things going on there that filled up all the hotels. This hotel is much nicer than the one I stayed in the night before. When I look in the hotel guide, this one has five stars, to the one star the previous night. I get up around 8:30 the next morning (these times are all Eastern -- I don't like to change my watch; it helps me prevent jet lag), and roll on out towards Wyoming.
     Wyoming is beautiful country, despite the lack of trees. I'm wishing I brought a camera with me. I'm surprised I don't see any other autocross cars, but then I think that most competitors are coming from the west, and not from Florida. ;) I cross into Utah at around 6:30 (ET), and put a little bit of gas in the car. I'm less than two hours away! I hit Salt Lake's "rush hour" on their version of the "belt way;" it's moving briskly at 70mph, so I don't know what it's like during "normal" traffic. I arrive at the event site around 8:30 ET, which is 6:30 MT, and Mark and Wendi are surprised I'm there so early. We get the car teched, I get registered and I hook up with my roommate, Randy Chase. I have to decide if I'm going to drive Randy's MR2 in CSL or the Civic. There is a fifth person in CS, so Randy doesn't need me to fill the class, which is good. Mark "hires" someone to run his Cavalier rental car in HS so there is a full ES/HS class too. I can run L1 as I please. After much thought, I decide to just run the Civic like I signed up to do, even though I could probably have run a couple of different cars, including at least one FS Pontiac. In hindsight, I probably should have taken someone up on the offer of horsepower, but I had fun running the Civic for all it was worth.
     The course was fast. Mark started out with mid-class runs, not bad for an HS car in ES. He was really worried about tire wear, so when one of the STS guys offered a set of Yokohamas on CRX rims, I said that I would run the Yokes while Mark ran the BFGs, which worked out well. My first set of runs wasn't all that great; we were having problems with fuel starvation and had reconnected the front swaybar for my runs trying to get the car to handle and not fuel starve. We tried to mess with the fuel pump and the fuel filter before Mark's afternoon runs, but couldn't get to the pump. We took out the air filter in case that was restricting flow or something. Mark improved marginally, but was still 4th in the ES class. I improved to within 0.8 of Mark's times to be 7th in L1. That evening, I spent with Chris Lindberg, Dan Popp, and Kevin Youngers, primarily. Most everyone was pretty impressed with how I was driving the Civic on the Yokes, but they were also giving me crap for my car choice. 7th was pretty high, for an HS car. 2-6 were all horsepower cars. 1st was Renee in the STS Civic, of course, though she was faster than Grady in the same car, and faster than Steve Wynne in an STS Neon. I was wishing I'd had the guts to ask one of the STS Subaru guys about a codrive. ;) Chris was crushing FS, driving Kevin's TTA in the thong. Kevin wasn't too far behind, but Scott McHugh was tucked in between for 2nd place.
     Sunday, Mark went back to disconnecting the front bar. He warned me it would oversteer more, so I was like, "Oh, you mean like a RWD car?"  He improved greatly, to come within a tenth of first place in ES. The VW Potter boys didn't look too happy about that. FS, group 2, ran with Chris wearing my Budweiser dress!! I think the west coast F stockers are suitably freaked out by the Mustang driver now, and Chris should cruise to an easy win at Nationals. :) Kevin improved (as is normal for him on Sunday) to nip Scott McHugh for second. Me? I improved about the same about as Mark, 0.5-0.6 overall, but I fell back one position to 8th. That was still good enough for a 12th seed in the Ladies Challenge, but I was now running off of Renee's index. Talk about fair turnabout! As much as I was helped by the STS index in Harrisburg, I was crushed by it at Wendover. I was up against Jodi Fordahl in the first round, and I was back by 0.5 after the first side runs. I pushed too hard in the slalom on the right, and ended up waaaay out in the marbles -- Mark said he was surprised I caught the car before it spun, but that's the Camaro driver in me <grin> -- so I lost by a good margin. Oh well. I probably wouldn't have beat Laura Molleker in her Corvette anyway, as she was rolling -- her Challenge times were good enough for a mid-to-high finish in SS open! Mark didn't have a great first round either as he coned away his second side. Kevin made it the furthest of the FS boys in the open Challenge, but lost in the second round after going against Chris in the first round.
     Kevin and I left the event site around 6 (ET), and I got as far as Laramie before I was ready to drop. I probably should have stopped in Rawlins, but I was too stubborn. I took some pictures with a disposable camera on the way back; if any of them turn out decent, I'll post a few on here. The next day, I got just east of St. Louis, and then I rolled into Jacksonville around 11 PM Tuesday night. The flight back Wednesday was smooth and uneventful, and I got home Thursday morning to find my modem had been fried over the week I was gone. :( Obviously, I went and got a new one, so now I'm at 56K.
     It was a fun week, and I'm hoping that Dan Popp is still thinking about having me drive his BSP Corvette out for him next year. I would love to drive that beast!
     The next event? NASA-Virginia's MAAC #2 at VMP tomorrow! Jonathan Roberts and Doug Newhard are designing the course. I won't be driving my Camaro, but hopefully someone will offer me a good one. If not, I'm running BSP in Roger Garrett's ZR1, which is always good for a smile. :)