HOW COLD WAS IT?

Gore-Tex by golly

Back in the Johnny Carson days on the Tonight Show, Johnny would often throw a line in his opening monologue like "boy it was cold today!" The audience would shout "HOW COLD WAS IT?" and then Johnny would deliver the punch line to a joke about it being cold. Back before the Internet, that was some funny, wacky stuff. This came to mind because it was 37 degrees today while we were kicking off 2017 autocross with the Tidewater Sports Car Club TSCC

The Italian meets a Swede

Despite the weather, we still had a good number of new drivers in the Novice class, so I hope they all come back when the weather is NICE too! The field was split into two run groups, and every driver had 4 shots at the fast course at Pungo (THE HOME OF AUTOCROSS IN THE FREE WORLD)! In the first run group, it rained/snowed the entire time, so the course was very slick. Just for the heck of it I started with slightly higher than normal tire pressures, and then reduced tire pressure on each run. Believe it or not, it made a huge difference, and sure enough, my last run was my fastest.

Rain, snow, sleet, whatever!

Of course, on 2 of the 4 runs I was going too fast for conditions and spun out, so the first run was VERY slow, as you can see below. But my 2nd run was about 9 seconds faster, then another spin on #3, and finally a faster time on run 4, putting me just 0.386 behind Chris in 2nd place.

1	HS	94	Keith Kasmire	VW TDI Wagon	Blue	47.864	47.396	48.281	46.361							46.361
																[-]1.424
2	HS	2	Chris Parsons	VW TDI		48.186	47.785	49.032	48.237							47.785
																+1.424
3	HS	77	Robert Nixon	2013 Fiat 500 Abarth	Red	58.355	49.241	51.784	48.171							48.171
																+0.386

Congrats to Keith Kasmire for taking the win in HS and Chris Parsons for taking 2nd. Apparently that leaves me as the bronze medalist on the day as the only guy in HS not with a VW Turbo Diesel.

Yes, it really was cold, 37 degrees cold and wet