My former co-driver and main competitor said this to me on Sunday morning as he flopped out of his car:
"Jon, I want to congratulate you now for getting first place because I'm hung the F*CK over..."
A Prediction? Foreshadowing? Predilection?
 |
| Yep, 150 smackers and a nice gold (fake) medal. Totally worth it. |
Whatever it was, he was right as I did take first place overall in my class for the two days of competition that this "Tirerack SoPac Divisional Championship" was all about. Basically all the Autocrossers from the Southern Pacific region of the United States converged at El Toro (the former Marine Core Air-Force Base) this past June 25-26th for 2 days of autocross competition with payouts and nice shiny medals handed out at the end of it. And no, they were not chocolate medals either...so, starting off with what happened the first day...
DAY NUMERO UNO: "Sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees..."
SO, got to the venue a little after 7am and check in...walk the course and had a "social" course walk instead of a me, myself, and I walk. And so because of that, I didn't get the course down like I wanted to (**NOTE TO SELF: You are better and faster when you walk a course mostly alone instead of with someone who blabs about "Yeah ya go herrrreee and then gasssss herrreee." Ugh.**). The run-group gods smiled down on me and my fellow class competitors as he decreed that we run first in the morning before everyone else...not the most ideal of times since the track is dirty but hey, someone's gotta sweep up the track for everybody, right? Ah well.
Course ended up being a lil tricky as it was visually kinda hard to spot out where you needed to go. Because of that, I constantly felt like I was behind and couldn't get a good enough rhythm going to attack the course like I wanted. Nonetheless, I still drove as hard and fast as I could.
Long story short, I end up placing 2nd behind my former co-driver by a mere 0.618 (95.929 vs a 96.547). Not that far behind though and in good position for the second day.
 |
| Me and the former co-driver doing the F&F sticker pose |
DAY NUMERO DOS: "Once more unto the breech, dear friends, once more..."
Got to walk the course Solo finally! Was able to listen to my inner-voice and not have too many people speak in my ear about what to do and what not to do...I find I end up driving better and faster when I do that.
Fast forwarding to the runs: The first run I DNF'd (Did not finish) because I simply did not go through the starting lights! And I never do that....funny. I chalked it up to that I was A.) Being held at the starting line for a long time (while the sweeper car went through the course) and B.) I basically fell asleep and was "entranced" so much so that when the starter said "GO!" I just bolted off without looking where I needed to go. Won't let that happen again.
The 2nd run was much better as I posted a time and felt more confident about how to attack the course...at that point, I was sitting in 3rd place only a few tenths off first. And then came the 3rd run which ended up being like "Whoa..."
 | |
| The course I attacked... |
That 3rd run was magic because it felt like everything just came together; On my last run of the day, last run of the weekend and last run of the whole entire event, I posted my fastest time and got first place, beating out all my competitors by over a second.. My co driver placed second as he posted a 91.949 vs. my 90.239 in his shiny new white S2K.
One guy in my class later asked me: "How the heck did you do that?!" And I replied, "I guess I just did...I knew I had to get it that last run and knew where I had to go faster to do so...."
And so that capped off a great weekend overall...BRING ON THE NEXT EVENT!
Final Results, CST Class:
