SoPac Divisionals at El Toro 2010

Let's see, where should I begin. I'll start with Friday. Any time there is a 2-day event like the ProSolo or a Divisional, I try to arrive on Friday to do tech, find a pit spot and get settled in. Traffic on a Friday afternoon always seems to be heavier than usual. Now that I have some flexibility in my schedule, I decided to leave a little earlier to see if I could avoid the traffic. All of us left at around 10am and promptly ran into traffic and the trip took 2+ hours. I also wanted additional time because my kids were coming along to race their go karts also and I wasn't sure what I'd end up doing to help them get ready.

We are heading to my favorite SoCal race site. It reminds me of Seneca Army Depot in the Finger Lakes. Lots of fun there too. The only consolation for the trip down is that we are not in a hurry and able to take our time and not get frustrated with traffic. When we arrive, there is still lots of room in the pits and we are able to find a spot fairly close to grid. We find our spot and start unpacking. The go karts stay on the trailer for the time being.



Mike arrives with the car and we get ourselves registered and buy tickets to the test and tune. It's been about a month since I last raced the Civic and needed to get some seat time in. The other ST competitors have been busy racing almost every weekend and will have an advantage in terms of seat time. It seems like there isn't all that much to do, but it always seems to take a long time. We get our tickets and do the test and tune. Mike goes out first and does a nice drift around the far sweeper with the tail hanging out. Not fast, but pretty fun. The test and tune is uneventful and it's nice to be back in the seat again. Mike takes the work assignment and I help Steven with his RSX to see if there is anything wrong with the setup. He's only autocrossed 3 times. The first two times were in Alaska. His car feels ok. The biggest weakness is his tires.

Then it's on to get the kids all set up with their go karts. A separate kids course has been set up for them to do their own tuning. We spend a little time there and before we know it, it is already 5:30pm. Time to pack up and go to walk the big course.

This course is huge. I heard it was 1.3 miles in length and the kids were complaining walking so far around the course. They only did the course walk once. The course is big, flowing and looks like it will be very fast. At least it won't be too technical for the kids. Mike and I had a good walk around the course and we break it down into key sections that build upon each other.

I'm looking forward to racing on Saturday, but the kids keep me up, waking me up almost every hour during the night and I arrive Saturday morning tired. The kids are scheduled to run the go karts first and ST is in the first heat. Mike takes care of getting the car ready and into grid. I'm off to get the kids and go karts ready. It's quite a treat seeing the kids get ready and actually follow instructions and stay on course. It's all over way too quickly.

While I'm waiting for Bijan to come back from his last run, Mike is already lined up, ready to go out for his first run. Let me say again, this is a BIG course. I wish we had video of the kids runs. Next time.

Mike is learning the car - first time in this car at a race and learning new tricks. He is adjusting to everything but is still a little frustrated. He isn't going as fast as he would like. That will change. I'm off with a very fast first run, around 1.5 seconds faster than everybody else, but the run is dirty. My second run is just a little bit faster, but still very dirty. Meanwhile, Jeff has moved into the lead. I'm up for my third run and need to stay clean. I make it a point to stay away from cones and end up still going clean AND faster. This clean time puts me ~ 0.3 seconds ahead of Jeff at the end of Day 1 and I'm in first place.








For Saturday night, the sleeping arrangements are modified and I get a good nights sleep this time. Mike has looked at the data and video and we go over some changes to his approach. He is much faster today and also much happier with his driving. He ends the day 0.1 seconds behind Steve Ekstrand. The course for Sunday seems to be faster with more spots running at the top of the RPM range. This is confirmed by running on the rev limiter out of the first and second sweepers for quite some time and the shift light is going off quite a bit. My first run is dirty and Jeff takes the early lead. He posts a better second run time and I go make my second run, coming in with a very nice 88.5, which puts me 0.5 seconds ahead of Jeff. Jeff is dirty on his last run, Jon is 1/10 faster than me, but DNF and nobody else is able to get any closer to me. That leaves me with a victory lap to close a wonderful weekend.

The car worked flawlessly. Thanks Jason for your attention to detail. The tires held up to a great course, thanks Bridgestone and thanks to Mike for taking care of all the little details while I made sure the kids were ok for their races.