Another year, A Little Harder: 2012 Season Review Part I

The final four AutoX events have come and gone and the final results are clear:

I will not get that championship jacket yet again for a 3rd straight year unfortunately.

Finished 4th in class, total bummer.

Whereas I felt that I practically gave away the championship last year due to some really dumb, boneheaded quest to make my car faster (which was NOT necessary), this year I was basically outclassed and outgunned by some good drivers and one driver who should not have competed in my class at all (dishonorable hack). And to top it off: I didn't even win one single event at all this year...none, zip, zilch, nada.

The highest I finished in any event this year was 2nd with the worst being 8th.  Doesn't help you out if you can't win one event while your competition wins multiple times. Talk about really sucky, sucky year.

Yeah, I felt like this guy did for most of my 2012 racing season

The year started out good with a 2nd place finish but then quickly went south as the car swallowed some water during a rain practice event in March which in turn caused me to break the starter in a vain attempt to get the car fired up. And so, the car was towed back to shop where we did some emergency repairs and got it running it time for championship the following day. Finished a dismal 6th due to changing track conditions which saw some dry running for some and wet running for mostly others.

Lowlight of the year: Getting towed from an event due to blown engine

The lowest point of the season came in April during the Super Regional however.  Car was running good as I was sitting in 2nd place after the 1st day of the 2 day event.  Then a little birdy (who happened to be my autocross "sensei") whispered in my ear and said: "You look slow out there...turn up the boooost...."  And so like an idiot, I listened to him and did.  You can guess what happened next (see pic above). 2nd time the car got towed back to shop for the year and instead of throwing up my arms and giving up, I dug down deep and got determined to rebuild the engine to make it stronger and better so that it would not blow up again.

More on the engine rebuild and rebirth plus the rest of the season in Part 2 of the review...

And she was running sooo good too up until the point she blew...