ATLANTA REGION POINTS #7 - 08/10/2003 25 school runs Saturday, 4 autocross runs Sunday TOTAL RUNS ON TIRES: 29 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Awesome. What else can I say. That goes for the whole weekend. First, the Evolution School was fantastic. One thing I learned that you should never do, is think you already know how to autocross. I've done it for YEARS. And I was pretty good at it, but 12 years off does affect you! BUT, I had things taught to me at this school that I knew, but didn't know well enough! The two things that stick out in my mind are 1. Be PATIENT. It was so vividly pointed out to me on the back circle. I learned a lot about how to drive just by going in a circle. I learned patience and I learned looking ahead (much further than I was use to). All of the instructors were excellent, Jonathan Roberts, Darrin Disimo, and Peter Calhoun. Also, thanks to Tommy Pulliam for taking me for 3 rides with him, 2 in my car and one the next day at the autocross in his car. After the ride with Tommy, I dropped 1.2 seconds on my final run!! I just got the results!! I PAX'd 13th out of 210 drivers (I was within .07 seconds of getting in the top ten) and had the 9th fastest time!!! And out of those fastest times, I was within .4 of a second of 4 or those. Hmmm, that tells me though that if my car was 9th fastest, and I was 13th fastest, I was only 13th fastest because of my car!! Gotta work on that (me)! Yes, I'm thrilled!! First time out in 12 years. The school was the difference... ok and Sam Strano Jr's parts. I couldn't have been more pleased with the car. It ran flawlessly. I do need more power but that will come. Right now there is alot more in the car and I need to find it. I'm still 1.5 seconds behind Tommy's PAX time so I still have a long way to go. This is in order of PAX position order. They are all raw times. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PAX Pos Driver Name Class Yr Model Run 1 Run 2 Run 3 Run 4 Best ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. TOMMY PULLIAM FS 00 CAMARO 58.291 58.620 58.109 58.027 58.027 3. JIM FOSSUM FS 96 CAMARO DNF 59.160 60.043 59.652 59.160 10. JERRY GRIGG FS 98 Z-28 59.840 59.920 60.349 59.954 59.840 13. STEVE BRUECK ESP 94 Z28 59.592 DNF 59.973 58.476 58.476 37. JOE DAY FS 02 CAMARO 62.309+1 61.316+2 61.379 60.263+1 61.379 42. RANDY COPELAND ESP 70 MUSTANG DNF 60.215 60.328 60.330 60.215 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seconds Behind Leader Raw PAX Sec/behind leader 1. TOMMY PULLIAM FS 00 CAMARO 3. JIM FOSSUM FS 96 CAMARO 1.133 .868 10. JERRY GRIGG FS 98 Z-28 1.813 1.461 13. STEVE BRUECK ESP 94 Z28 .449 1.531 37. JOE DAY FS 02 CAMARO 3.352 2.701 42. RANDY COPELAND ESP 70 MUSTANG 2.188 2.968 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PAX (out of 210) Time Rank ------------------------------------------------------ Tommy 46.770 1 47.930 6th Jim 47.683 3 .913 48.866 24th Jerry 48.231 10 1.461 49.427 37th Me 48.301 13 1.513 48.301 This last two columns is what my PAX time and ranking would be if I ran their raw times. As you can see, the other raw times except Tommy's don't matter. Yes they out PAX'd me, I needed a raw time of 56.6 or so to beat Tommy's PAX time or I needed to run 1.427 seconds faster than him. Not impossible but not easy either. Compared to my June autocross on street tires I gained 4.61 seconds compared to Tommy. Is there 2 more?? The car feels like it, I just have to find it. Can't wait... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------