This was the second time we've run with Autocrossers Inc. - the first was back in June - but the first time at our hometown minor league baseball team's stadium. We were set up ready to run like we expect to run, equipment-wise, for the long haul. I was making the competition debut of Captain Slow and Kate was back in her '93 Ugly Duckling.

The Duckling is still a very stock car, but after complaints from the MSCW autocross about sluggish performance, we swapped out the steel 14" wheels and Michelin all-season tires for a set of Enkei RP-F1 in 15"x7" wearing a set of Kuhmo Ecsta ASTs. I've run that combo on the '99 at Myrtle Beach and Texas in the spring and didn't care much for it as they got sloppy and loud approaching (or exceeding) the limit, but compared to what came off the '93, anything this side of Blizzaks is an improvement.

I was hoping that Blue Crabs Stadium's parking lot was going to be flat, smooth, and grippy. It had some elevation changes, but not nearly like FedEx Field's. It was smooth, which wasn't really surprising since the ballpark is only a couple years old. Whether it was "grippy" is debatable, but it's hard to compare when it's the first time I ran this particular car.

The course wasn't as wide open as the Autocrossers Inc. event we ran in June, with just one spot where I could go foot-to-floor for any significant length of time. On my first run I got off course and I knew it as soon as I did it, which really bothered me. I did the same thing in June but I was a raw rookie then; now I'm a seasoned veteran who shouldn't be making those lapses of concentration mistakes.

My other biggest goof was not thinking about tire pressures till it was too late to do anything about it. We got to the stadium in plenty of time, got registered, got the cars through inspection and thought there was plenty of downtime somewhere between some of these processes to plug in the compressor and air the Azenis up to 32 or 34 psi. But as soon as we were through inspection, the course opened up for walks and we did one lap by ourselves. Right after that was the novice walk and we did that one as well. Immediately after that was the drivers meeting, and right after that they had the cars in the first heat go to grid. Naturally, we were in the first heat, and that meant the time between the drivers meeting, gridding, and strapping in for the first run was measured in mere minutes, and that wasn't enough time to fine-tune pressures the way I wanted them. Also not helping was the fact that I left the compressor with our cooler and other stuff back in the parking area, which was not a short walk from where we were gridded.

So I gritted my teeth and admitted to myself that this was going to be just an R&D day, not a serious effort at being competitive since the tires were only aired up enough to ride decently on the street. Just for ha-has I took pressures and while they weren't all over the map, they weren't exactly symmetric. I think both right sides were at 29 psi while the right front was at 30 and the right rear at 28. Not bad, but not good either. But as the racers say, it is what it is, and we run what we brung.

After getting that first off course run out of the system, I settled in and made the next three runs count. I didn't whack any cones and each time out I made bits and pieces of progress towards anticipating turns better and being smoother through them. The biggest issue I've found - and as much as I'd like to think this might be a tire/setup issue, it's probably most easily fixed by adjusting the driver - is a severe push on corner entry. I imagine this can be fixed by not saving braking until the last minute or beyond. It's not nice to ask the front tires, already at 100% traction trying to slow down, to also make a hard left or right turn.

I think it was after my second or third run that I sized up the competition. Kate was still getting up to speed but catching up nicely. There was a couple sharing another older Miata, he in STS and she in STSL, and I think they were also pretty new to the game with a mostly stock car. I figured the leader of the class was a guy driving another stockish early Miata. I'd seen the car before and when I saw it on the course it seemed to be getting around pretty well.

Between runs I went up to the guy with the red car and asked how it was going. He said it was not going well and that, at least at the time, I was leading the pack. That was a nice ego booster and I have to admit I certainly didn't expect to be competitive, much less in the running.

So I made a decided effort to make the last run count. I went out and hit all my marks, even went down to first gear for the last tight right-hander before the finish so I could finish strong. In doing so I shaved another half-second off my times, and wound up with a 51.1 second lap. I was pretty confident that if the red car was struggling, even if he picked up a good chunk of time he'd still be behind me.

Fast forward to the end of the day. The results were announced and, while I shouldn't have been surprised, I was surprised to see I had slipped to second in class behind the red car. I could live with that, and with four cars in the division I still got a 'trophy' magnet, but what really got my attention didn't show up till a few days after the event. It turned out that the red car couldn't break 52 seconds in its first three runs, but then put it all together to chop two-plus seconds off his time and wound up beating me by a full second.

I can look at this two ways. The smarter way is to say that, for only the third or fourth time out and the first in this particular car, I'm already in the ballpark with the competition, although I think Captain Slow has more go-fast goodies than the rest of the field. On the other hand, I realize I have to make bigger strides with each run to chop more and more off time off my results so I can keep up with the rest of the guys who are also going faster each time out.

We get to run with Autocrossers Inc one more time this year. They run at FedEx Field in early October as the front half of a Saturday-Sunday doubleheader, with WDCR SCCA running Sunday. We're keeping our fingers crossed that we can run both days and get a bunch of seat time between the two.

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