For all the sunshine, happiness, magnetic 'tophy' and confidence that went with it as we left Waldorf's Blue Crabs Stadium last time out, our first outing with the Washington DC Region SCCA was a tough ride back to reality. After being so competitive with Autocrossers Inc. in Waldorf, we were blown away at Fedex Field and left beaten and bruised at the bottom of the STS class results.

This shouldn't have come as a surprise, really. Even though a lot of people who run with AI also run with SCCA, it just seemed that the cars that showed up at Fedex Field were better prepared and the drivers of a more serious caliber. All along we had to keep reminding ourselves that we were still new at this, still sorting the cars, still learning the techniques, and we shouldn't expect to run with the big dogs right out of the box.

This isn't to say that we didn't try stepping up our game in anticipation of the event. For starters, both cars were wearing different rubber. I said I wasn't going to buy more tires, but the opportunity to get someone's take-offs for cheap money presented itself and I mounted the Bridgestone Potenza RE01Rs on our Enkei RPF1 wheels. Putting better tires on the best wheels should provide some improvement. Also, after reading recommendations to disconnect the rear sway bar for autocrossing, I did that too. The endlink that came out looked pretty shot, with the rubber bushings mostly obliterated, so I imagine we'll be leaving that off and getting new ones if the sway will be reattached down the road.

There are a lot of differences between a 45-second course and 65-plus-second courses. There's a lot more to learn and remember, and we didn't do a very good job at either. I think we walked the course twice but eschewed the novice walk. Not sure if that last decision was right, but we figured it'd be easier to walk alone rather than follow a herd looking only at other people's backs. Whether this worked or not is debateable.

The biggest problem - well, there were a number of problems, but this was one of the bigger ones - was that we walked the course, then sat on our hands while the first afternoon group ran. By the time they ran, we hadn't walked and we hadn't worked the course so what we might have learned got forgotten by the time we got behind the wheel. We've mentioned here before that we have to do a better job of absorbing information on our walk and keeping that info close to the front of our minds for when we strap the helmets on.

I even thought I was being clever when, once we figured out we weren't working the course for that first afternoon heat, I invited myself for a ride in the passenger seat of Be Whip's C-Stock Miata's first run.

So we strapped in for the first run and made that run. Later I had figured out that I had the 'Stones aired up pretty high, maybe that contributed to some lack of grip that I didn't expect. Unfamiliarization with the course led to some sloppy driving and a slow time.

Then it rained.

There was rain in the morning but the course had dried out by the time we got there. I thought that would be it for the wet stuff, but dark clouds were coming and I guess we should count ourselves fortunate that we got one dry run in since I don't think others in our heat were as fortunate.

The rain was brief but the damage was done. Grip was at a premium and I'd never run under those conditions before, it was a mess. Things got a little drier through the rest of the heat but the times didn't reflect that, plus we got cones for the first time.

Kate found the day frustrating. She went off-course for her first run, something I've done on more than one occasion, but repeated that on her second try. I'll admit that it was a cone-heavy course that was visually overwhelming, and on one of my runs I had to choose between whacking a cone or risk getting called off-course because I didn't pick up a gate till it was almost too late (I chose the cone). I don't remember running on a course so busily laid out, and others have mentioned this in their post-event comments, so maybe it wasn't just us having issues with it.

Kate got an instructor to ride along for her third run and that resulted in a clean run, a feat she repeated in her fourth try without instruction, but having lost those first two runs meant fewer chances at picking up speed. We saw in the photos that her Ugly Duckling is really leaning as it corners, so we definitely have to do some serious suspension upgrades once the season's over. We've sent it out there on better tires each time out, but when those tires are held onto the car by flippy floppy stock suspension, you know there are gains to be found.

I hadn't given much thought to autocross schools before this event, especially on the heels of something resembling success last time out in Waldorf, but after this outing I think it's back on the table. There won't be any held until the spring, though, so there will be plenty of time to talk myself out of it.

We return to action for a unique doubleheader on October 10-11. Both take place at FedEx Field with Autocrossers Inc. running Saturday's show and WDCR on Sunday. Supposedly the course will remain the same on both days, but run in the opposite direction on Sunday. Sounds intriguing.

We'll run Captain Slow for both days and we won't change anything from how we ran last time out. It's going to be like fixed-setup sim racing: you're handed a package and instead of tweaking the car to suit the driver, we'll work on the driver. We know the car's pretty close to right, so we'll stop messing with parts or suspension and see if we can get more competitively by modifying the driver's brain.

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