Before we get to recapping the Autocrossers Inc. event of Aril 11, we'll do a quickie recap of the previous weekend's race put on by Capital Driving Club.

The big experiment for that event was running on the Yokohama Advans that came on the Kosei K1 wheels bought over the winter. The experiment was not a good one on a couple counts. First off, they were scary tires to drive to and from the event, which was at Bowie Baysox Stadium. They followed every rut on Route 301 and generally required my keeping on my toes during what should have been a pleasant morning drive.

On the course, at speed, the Advans weren't much better than the various street tires I've been running on since Day One. One would think that tires with a treadwear rating of just 50 would be so full of grip (relative to 200 TWR of what we usually run on) that it would be a religious experience, but it was not meant to be. Perhaps I had the pressure too high, but I imagine it wouldn't have made that much of a difference.

I was going to run the Yokos at local events this year just to use them up, but now I've changed my mind. Those tires will get yoinked off the K1s and a new set of Bridgestone Potenza RE-11s will be mounted.

The CDC event, tires notwithstanding, wasn't that great overall. The course was short, with the fast guys dipping into 33-second laps, while my best was 37.25 after I finally got my head wrapped around where the course went - two "off course" runs to start the day didn't help the overall picture. I wound up 66th out of 116 drivers in raw time, which was a letdown. I like to run in the top half of CDC fields, and missed that mark this time out. We'll try again on more appropriate rubber.

After running the last few events at the Bowie mini-lot, it was nice to run the first Autocrossers Inc. race of the season at FedEx Field. From the tight confines of Bowie to the wide open spaces of FedEx, it's nice to find a wide-open course with no tricks, no first-gear corners, and a couple places where you can put your right foot on the floor and leave it there for more than a half a second.

This was the first points event for either AI or SCCA, so this was the first real outing for the new STR class. This is basically the same as STS (Street Touring Sports), but for higher-performing two-seaters. The '99 Miata is one of the eligible cars, although probably considered an underdog compared to the Honda S2000 and various BMW roadsters it'll be competing against.

Walking the course, I could tell it was going to be a good one. Behind the wheel, it proved to be true. It was laid out well with good sightlines and not too many chances to mess up. But there were parts where carrying too much speed might cause problems, and I found one of those on my first of four runs.

It was a fairly fast right-hander that emptied into a downhill slalom, and the penalty for attacking that too aggressively in that '99 Miata is the tail end getting all loosey-goosey. Normally I can catch a spin before it gets completely out of control, but not this time. The back started kicking out and the next thing I knew, I was pointing the wrong way with a mouth full of dirt and stuff. And this was heading down into the showcase turn where the spectators are watching.

After shaking that first run off, things got better. On a mere hunch, I figured the tire pressures were probably too high. I wound up taking air out of the tires after every run, and things improved as this happened.

Competition-wise, the results weren't bad. After three runs, I was fourth in class and I would have been real happy with that. But on the fourth run, Aure from France came up with a 67.XXX-second run, which was quite a bit better than the 69.2 which was my best at the time. I put in my last run and improved to 68.05, which was a nice pick up, but not enough.

On the plus side, we were in the thick of things. With just a little improvement I may have been able to run for a trophy, and I was working in that direction by the time we were done for the day.

Not that we're specifically looking at the spendy stuff to improve while we know the driver knows plenty of work and track time, but we're really looking forward to trying again on the new tires. RE11s are highly regarded in street tire classes, and I'd like to think that by getting them, we've eliminated another excuse for not doing well.

We made a big change to the season's plans after this past weekend. The original plan was to run the '90 Miata, "Captain Slow", in STS for WDCR-SCCA events while running the '99 in STR for Autocrossers Inc's season. But with the good outing we had in the '99, we're going to run STR with it in both groups. The decision came down to who the competition was in either class. In WDCR, the top half of the STS class is made up of people who have been doing this for years and have cars fairly maxed out prep-wise. In STR, a new class, I think we'll run with a group that's not as filled with drivers shooting to kill, plus only a couple of the cars have anything resembling the level of prep found in STS. There's a few Chesapeake Roadster members in STR and none in STS, so being able to compare notes and take friendly jabs with like-minded individuals played no small role in our desire to switch classes.

We're staring down a doubleheader weekend as the season really starts to pick up steam. The bonus is that both events will be on nice, big lots so we should see some fun courses. Up first is Saturday's race with NCCBMW. They've put together some good courses on the tight confines of Bowie so we're looking forward to seeing what they can come up with at Waldorf's Blue Crabs Stadium. Normally I'd probably skip a Saturday small-club event when there's something bigger scheduled for Sunday, but we'll always support clubs that run in Waldorf since it's so close to home. It doesn't hurt that we were third in class at the first NCCBMW event of the year and wouldn't mind pocketing another handful of points driving Kate's Mazdaspeed MX5. We probably won't run all their events since they will run some events way out at Summit Point and there probably will be schedule conflicts with races going on closer to home, but we'll put forth a good showing in the events we will be running with them.

On Sunday, WDCR SCCA kicks off its points season at FedEx Field and we'll be there to take on the best of STR with the '99. Kate will skip this one but maybe she'll swing by with a camera and get some nifty action shots.

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