Autocross - A New Adventure

There aren't many legal driving occasions when the goal is to go as fast as possible. Autocross is one of those glorious occasions when those of us with sportscars can rev the engine and spin around turns. I had my first autocrossing experience this summer at The Roadster Factory in Pennsylvania. (This excludes racing around corners in Champaign to avoid being crushed by the SUVs and buses that ride my tail).

The autocross ran in several races, depending on the type of car. My mom and I raced the Spider, and dad ran the Stag in a different class. When we got to the "racetrack" that was set up in a school parking lot, we unloaded the cars of everything that wasn't bolted down. Even the spare tires came out of the trunks. After the movable objects came out of the cars, there was a tech inspection. This is a safety precaution, mainly to see if the brakes are working properly. Mine had been "out of sorts" the day earlier, but they were working great in time for the autocross.

While we were waiting for our particular race, we walked the course. The race lane was wider than I had expected, which was nice. Actually, I thought the cones would be set slightly wider than the car, leaving only inches between the tires and imminent penalty points. Luckily, there was a foot or two of space on either side of the Spider, not exactly the narrowest of Triumphs. When the time came to race the Spider, I let the timekeepers know that my mom and I would be using the same car, so other cars were placed between us in the race lineup. We had our own helmet, rather than sharing the "community" helmets (a good thing on a hot day). Strangely enough, I've suffered more head trauma when I'm nowhere near a car than when I'm inside one-still, the safety measures are a necessity.

I was definitely nervous for the first of my three runs, especially since I couldn't really see the cones that were directly in front of me. The Spider is a lot lower to the ground than the Honda I had been driving during the school year. My dad had given me a few pointers, but I forgot most of them as soon as it was my turn to edge up to the starting line. I did remember that he said to keep the car in second gear, rather than try to shift between second and third. There was a point near the second large turn when the engine was racing pretty high, but I wasn't concentrating on shifting, only on moving as fast as possible around the turns. Immediately after that large curve was a nearly hairpin turn before turning again into a slalom. After that there was the 15-foot homestretch and a quick braking to avoid hitting the registration table. I went fairly slow on my first time around, I think my time was 42 seconds. Apparently I hadn't gone as fast as I thought I was going. My second run was much better, at about 33 seconds. I knew the turns that were faster and which ones required braking, but I still wanted a lower time. The third and final run gave me a time of 31 seconds. Good enough for my first time autocrossing, but I expect to go much faster the next time around.

By Jenny "Spider Lady" Pawlak