Atlanta Doublecross Event Review

So it is Monday now, time for a review of the 2008 Doublecross SCCA ProSolo event that was held at the Atlanta Motor Speedway this past weekend. Nick and I left St. Louis Friday morning around 3am, pretty darn early, though we almost needed to leave even earlier. The trip went okay, but north of Atlanta we ran into some construction on 75, it took us about an hour or more to go 5 miles as they merged 3 lanes down to 1 lane so they could do some emergency bridge repairs.

We rolled into AMS around 4:30pm, so it was a 12 hour trip (1 hour time change), but that included a quick carwash once we were in town. We unloaded the car from the trailer and quickly got it teched, then changed the tires to get up to the line for some practice starts. Friday evening we walked the course a few times, I’m a fan of getting some good course walks in so I can visualize what I want to do, Nick takes fewer walks as he doesn’t like to overwalk/analyze the course. To each his own.

Saturday morning we headed off to the site and I took a few more walk through’s. We were working the first heat, I headed off to the trailer to be the announcer. Runs on Saturday went well, I was in third place after getting to take 1 run on each side, the morning session.

Saturday afternoon didn’t go as well, but I still was happy with my position. After the 2 runs on each side on Saturday I was sitting in 5th place. I think I had the 2nd or 3rd fastest clean time on the right course, and would have had 2nd or third fastest on the left had I not red lighted a run, I actually took off from the line after the redlight with the thought of not running the rest of the run, but then decided I would push the car to the limits and see what I could do. I was happy to find that I ran a 41.7*, though I did also pick up a cone on the run. I believe I could have turned a 42.0* clean had I one more chance on the left course, assuming I wouldn’t screw up.

That is one of the biggest things about this sport, the more I drive the better I get, and the more confidence I have, though I still have a long way to go in regards to consistency. I need to get better at putting good runs together more consistently, not randomly as I do now.

Sunday morning we went into bracket challenges. I was seeded 48th overall, which meant I was lining up with lane choice in my first run. I chose the left side as I was confident I could drive that faster, and closer to the index time that I was up against. I managed to do that, up until the last 50 feet or so. For some reason I couldn’t see the finish on Sunday and I completely hosed it up, getting a DNF. Lucky for me the brackets for Sunday morning were double elimination. I actually probably got myself further along in the brackets by losing that first round. I went into the loser’s bracket as one of the higher seeds, so I got my choice of lanes for 3 more races. I managed a few lucky turns (of events) in those races, at least once I was asleep at the light and managed a 1.0+ reaction time (.500 being perfect), I had at least one competitor who red lighted as well.

On my fourth race I was lined up against Jinx Jordan, one of my Evo instructors from the KC Evo school in early April. He was seeded higher than I so I figured I was going to run the right side course. When Jinx pulled up to the line he went right, so I got my favored left course again. For that run I thought the car was acting funny, the rear tires seemed to have an issue coming around corners, it felt like my 350Z did spinning an inside tire.

I think we figured out what the issue was, we found a missing lug nut when changing the race tires back to streets, I believe that we lost a lug nut and had a few others loose, causing one of the wheels to wobble a bit on that run. That will teach me a lesson, always recheck the torque every day for an autocross, if not more frequently!

Jinx managed to make it back to the finish line before I did, so I figured I had lost, I also think I might have clipped a cone towards the end of the course, but I’m not positive. After the finish I managed to screw up any chance I had of winning. It was announced that Jinx had a cone, so I got excited and after the finish I managed to somehow immediately turn left and plow right through a cone. So If I hadn’t picked up the cone on course, I killed any chances I had of moving on right there.

After losing out of the bracket Nick and I changed the tires on the Corvette, he ran off to work the 4th bracket and I ended up working again for the 5th bracket. I managed to take a few pictures at the event, though only of two cars! I had hoped to shoot the 5th bracket and part of the super challenge after the brackets but it was so late in the day I had to get to the airport for my flight. (Pictures below)

Right now I am sitting in Washington DC, working for the week before heading back to Atlanta Friday afternoon for the National Tour down there. Sunday evening I’ll start heading home, and probably still stop half way so that I can go to Lynchberg Tennessee to the Jack Daniels’ distillery. If anyone else is going to Atlanta and will be heading back up through Nashville on Monday wants to join me let me know.

Later in the week I’ll try to get up some of the video from our Chasecam device we had running in the car this weekend!