Autocross Season Finale

by Joe Kraetsch, NCR Autocross Chair

September 8^th was the last NCR Autocross of the 2012 season. We had 60 drivers who were treated to four morning and five afternoon runs on a fast, fun course by Scruffy. The course resembled the second day course from the PCA Zone 1 Autocross. It looked like we were going to have another rain-free NCR Autocross—a rare occurrence this year. However, the wind would give us another challenge. We had some fairly heavy and steady wind which seemed determined to turn our new aluminum EZ-up tents into kites. The weights did not seem sufficient so we had people holding the tents down. We finally took one tent down and transferred all the weights to the other tent. This worked for a little while but the wind was relentless and threatened to rearrange the metal frame if we persisted so we surrendered and took the last tent down. This left the timing equipment unprotected. The computer screens are hard enough to see in the shade of the tent but our timing crew was amazing and kept us running. As our luck would have it, a rain shower came through a bit later. We had to use umbrellas to keep the computers, etc from getting washed. Once again, the timing crew, like the Pony Express, persevered and we were able to finish our afternoon runs.

On the course, Aaron Walker became our newest graduate from the Novice Class, winning the class in his GT3. Meanwhile our most recent Novice graduate, Adam Blauer, continued to improve and win by taking the 1S class. After losing to Lisa in the morning session, I was able to improve my afternoon times enough to steal the win. Ollie Lucier decided to try more horsepower and drove Jeremy Mazzariello’s Cayman and the two of them dominated class E. That left class C up for grabs. Georges Rouhart won the morning session and Neil Halbert took the afternoon session but when we added the times, Georges won the class. Scruffy annihilated the race class and took FTD in the process although Ed Moschella beat him for top Porsche PAX (handicapped time).

In other news, Jack “Hot Shoe” Saunders, fresh off his win at the Zone 1 autocross decided he still wasn’t going fast enough, so Lisa agreed to work with him. With Lisa’s instruction and coaching, Jack shaved over twelve seconds off his times from the second day of the Zone 1 Autocross! Jack will turn 90 in November but he is not done racing. Jack is already planning on improving even more next season. Go Jack!

Congratulations to the 2012 Season Point Series Winners. The Season Trophies will be presented at the Annual Banquet in November:

I would like to thank the autocross staff for all their help and hard work. Without these people, NCR would not have such an incredible autocross program. Thank you:

Edgar Broadhead, Safety and Equipment; Chris Darminio and Scruffy Lefebvre, course design; Jeremy Mazzariello and Tom Pelton, Timing and Scoring; Suzy Kelley, Registration and Grid; Ed Moschella, Sound Measurement; Ollie Lucier, Chief Instructor, Novice Captain, Timing backup and Operations assistant; and Lisa Roche, Registration, Timing and Scoring, planning, preparation, packing, heat splits, work assignment, Autocross Chair sanity and any other support I needed.

I also want to thank all the participants and volunteers for all their help and cooperation in making NCR Autocross run so smoothly. In spite of the weather challenges this year, this was one of the smoothest running years we have had. Thank you all for a successful autocross season!