[trackbird]

One of my buddies suggested that all three of us misfits drag our cars out to an SCCA autocross event to play. This would be Bill and Billy (Racerdad916) and me. We have a rather odd assortment of cars. Bill has a very nicely built 1992 Mustang. This is a full track car with a 331 stroker, flared carbon fiber fenders, etc (it's the car he was autocrossing when we met in 2000, it's actually how we met). We've been breaking stuff together ever since. Racerdad has a 3rd gen that was a bare stripped shell that we collected many years ago. It has a full cage and a particularly nasty small block (Jesel shaft rockers and all) with a T56 that we picked up in pieces in Kentucky one morning. (There were actually four misfits, Billy's neighbor brought out a supercharged Mustang that makes about 480 RWHP, he swapped tires and went to play in CAM and left us behind in CP).

The obvious choice was to go play in CP. Their cars were more CP car than mine (by far), but we knew it was a class we couldn't get protested out of.... Of course a real CP car showed up to play as well. The more the merrier. I took the heaviest car with the least HP and I fully expected to have a good time. And, we did.

I haven't driven an autocross event in 12 years. I'm really RUSTY. Rusty as in, I kept forgetting to look ahead and I logged a couple DNF's from blasting through a section of the course and forgetting to keep looking at the next part. My reflexes aren't what they used to be, but I still had some moments of solid mediocrity as a driver.

The real national level CP car ran 36.809. My friend Bill in his gutted track car Mustang (it's a built 331 stroker, etc) ran a 38.677. I clipped a single cone on a 39.141 (it was a cone I shouldn't have hit and the car certainly would have done that clean). Racerdad916 ran a 41.215 on some ancient Toyo Proxes that are likely old enough to drink in a bar.

Overall, it appears that I might still sorta remember how to drive....sorta.... The car was brilliant. It was well balanced and it did everything well. The UMI coilovers are amazing and I couldn't have been happier with the complete setup. I actually was amazed that the tires did as well as they did. They were 4 year old Hoosier "wet" competition tires on a nearly 90 degree day with no water in sight. I'm not sure they loved the weather, but they made good grip and didn't get particularly greasy.

So, I signed up for another event this Sunday....