NCR Autocross #2—June 21, 2008

by Joe Kraetsch, NCR Autocross Chair

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times... No, this is not a repeat of my column from NCR Autocross #1, but if that event was the worst of times, Autocross #2 was the best of times. The weather could not have been better. It was sunny, high 70’s, a couple clouds, a light breeze,… It was a perfect autocross day and we had a near record turnout. The event ran like clockwork. Seventy-four drivers, eight runs each and only a handful of reruns for over 600 runs!

We had a wonderful course set by John Mac Donald and Rob MacAlpine with help from Grant Reeve. It was a fun course for all levels of participants although it took the newer novices a few tries to find their way. It was a challenging course for the advanced drivers and I doubt anyone felt they mastered it in eight runs although they certainly had fun trying.

Most of the drivers had pre-registered allowing us to do a lot of the planning work the night before. We also had a record number of novice drivers including many first time autocrossers. By having the information the night before, I was able to plan the heats and subgroups more carefully, distributing the twenty-one novices evenly among the four subgroups and ensuring that we had enough instructors in each heat to help the novices. Between our regular instructors, a couple new instructors and a few excellent guest instructors, we managed nicely and most, if not all, of the novices left with smiles on their faces.

Our novice program, headed by Mark Schnoerr continues to draw new drivers to the sport and more importantly, keeps them coming back for more. We actually ran two Novice classes—the Novice Class that we always run for the Porsche drivers and new for this event, a non-Porsche Novice Class. We had eleven drivers in the Porsche Novice Class and John Fritz came out on top, graduating from the class in his first event with us. The non-Porsche Novice Class had ten drivers and Hooman Vassef, guest of Apollo Sinkevicius, also graduated in his first event with us. However, Marc Dove, guest of Fred deNapoli, did give him quite a challenge, actually beating Hooman in the afternoon but not by enough to erase the morning lead. This was our tightest race with the final sum of best AM and best PM runs just a quarter second apart.

Our guest list included, three autocross chairs from other clubs, most of the NER-PCA autocross staff, and most of the Miata Club autocross staff. They all had a great time leaving me feeling great about the event. We had a few guests from our experimental NCR Invite a Guest program and several guests from our reciprocity agreement with the Renegade Miata Club. The NCR Invite a Guest Program is open to all NCR members who wish to request an invitation from the autocross chair for a non-member guest to attend one of our autocrosses. The number of invitations is limited, so get your requests in early.

We also had a number of Father/Son and Father/Daughter combinations participating—Andy and David Case, James, Andrew and Jesse Fenn, James and Ian McGuinness, and Bill and Nora Seymour. Nora is participating in the PCA Junior Particpant Program and in her second autocross won a trophy. Just look at her smile in the preceding picture. Her dad said, “…and if Nora was happy in that picture, I would have liked a picture of her when she saw 88 seconds on the clock as she finished her best run….These two autocrosses have been very nice Dad/Daughter bonding events – thanks!”

Many thanks to my talented staff and for the cooperation of all the participants in running the event so smoothly. Thanks to Barb Talbot and John MacDonald for getting ice and water (we went through nine cases of water). Thank you, Sheryl MacAlpine and Jane Bennett for helping with gate duties. Thanks to everyone who put enough gas in my tank so I could make it to the bar after the event. Thanks to David Churcher for his great photographs of the event. Most of all, thanks to Miguelangel Aponte-Rios and his new company, Veloz Decals for sponsoring this event. Please visit velozdecals.com and contact Miguelangel Aponte-Rios for all your decal and car racing design needs as well as motorsport event photography/HD videography.