We've had a lot of moments like this in recent years. We read about some event at some far-flung location and, while at first it seems like a ludicrous idea, it doesn't take much convincing to throw caution to the wind and just do it. It's how we decided to make that first trip to Miatas at Myrtle Beach in 2008 as well as MiataWorld II in Dallas last year.

This time around it was the "Virginia Autocross Championships". When we first saw it mentioned in a forum post, the reaction was "neat", but far from "let's go". Driving 45 minutes to FedEx Field for five minutes of actual behind-the-wheel time is one thing, but driving four hours for eight total runs, then driving four hours home again, is another. So it didn't take very long to decide that we were going.

The VAC was put on by the Tidewater Sports Car Club, held at the ACU-4 hovercraft pad right on the Chesapeake Bay on the grounds of the Little Creek Amphibious Base in Norfolk. Virginia Beach has long been one of our favorite getaway spots, and while there was no guarantee that we'd get to sneak a little beach time in on this trip, it was still an attractive destination. That the Parsimonious Racing crew were still very much rookies and probably had no business being a part of any event with "Championship" as part of its name was a minor concern. We were going to try out a new surface (concrete rather than the asphalt we run on in the DC area), see some different cars, put in a serious effort, and see where the chips fall.

We wouldn't be complete strangers, though. A handful of DC drivers were also making the trip, though most were going to run in a different class. Noel, James, Aure, and Joe were representing STR, while James was going to run an E Stock Miata in place of his wounded Corolla. Les was going to play in his C Stock Mazdaspeed MX-5. We were set to run in STS and we were joined by Dan in his silver car that I've been making strides in getting closer to this year.

When we first signed up, I was going to run Captain Slow and Kate was going to run her Duckling as separate entries. But in the weeks approaching the event, we found the Duckling's clutch starting to slip. It might have been fine to autocross on (this later proved to not be true) but probably would have proven to be problematic on the ride to and from the event. Plans were changed and we changed registration to show that we were going to share Slow.

TSCC did their homework when it came to getting the event done right, including getting a very good host hotel and setting up social activities for the Saturday night after the first day of competition. But neither of those were as impressive as the race venue itself. We'd heard about the ACU-4 pad and it proved to be as advertised: a flat, smooth, uninterrupted sheet of concrete that promised plenty of grip.

We were in one of the bigger classes in the event, with nine drivers entered in STS. The entry was made up of mostly older Miatas like ours, with one wild card being a 4-cylinder BMW Z3. A couple of the Miatas showed up with Tire Rack windshield decals (semi-intimidating) and one was being tuned with a laptop in grid (very intimidating!). But we came to challenge ourselves and not worry about results till later, so we suited up and got ready for day one of competition.

Junior karts got the course first, but then it was us. As a two-driver car we were near the front of the line so there was no messing around, we had to get up to speed quickly. I will admit that I didn't like the course that much. It seemed like after every tight turn there was a single standing cone with a pointer not much further down the road forcing the driver to have to pinch off his corner exit, making it very difficult to build any serious speed before having to deal with the next serious corner. On the other hand, the much-heralded grip was there, though it's debatable whether or not we took full advantage of it.

We ended the first day in the middle of the results sheet, which didn't come as a huge surprise. We were only familiar with one other car in our class (Dan's), and he's been beating me regularly since we started doing this. The rest were wild cards, but they were fast wild cards. We were far from ruling out any hope of moving up, but a trophy position was severely in doubt.

Over dinner at a Japanese steakhouse and drinks later at a closeby eatery, most of the DC invaders compared notes and if I took anything away from it, it was the impression that I could have gotten away with being a lot more aggressive on course, and, most likely, the car would have stuck and I would have gone faster. Heading to bed, the only thing going through my mind was to turn up the wick for Sunday's runs and see how much trouble I could get into.

All bets were off, though, when I woke up Sunday morning to the sound of a steady rain falling. Some people don't care much for autocrossing in the rain, and I don't blame them. Working the course is miserable, everything goes slower, everything gets wet, etc etc. I was looking forward to running in the rain, though, since I did fairly well in the wet stuff the last time I ran entering the event, which was a WDCR SCCA autocross at FedEx Field. So while we were getting wet working the course and I hadn't even begun prepping the car yet, I thought I might have something to show everyone when it was our chance to run.

While we had run first on Saturday, the run orders were flipped for Sunday, and we were the last group to go. We watched (and worked) Sunday morning as everyone slogged through the wet stuff and I was actually licking my chops a bit. This means that the only logical thing to happen next is that the rain stopped and the sun came out. By the time it was our turn to run, the heat was back on and the course was 99% dry. My supposed (and mostly unproven) rain driving prowess strategy was put on the shelf, and we were back to thinking about how much more aggressive we should be out there.

The course was essentially Saturday's, but run in reverse. Running it in this direction seemed to be a lot better than what we dealt with the day before, and there were some legitimate foot-on-floor moments. I tried taking advantage of those in my first couple runs and was rewarded with not looking forward enough and picking up cones both times out. But by the third run, something had clicked and I was getting fairly close to being in The Zone. I was hitting my marks, braking without drama, not overshooting the corners, accelerating without pushing, and even putting up decent times. I was biting off big chunks of time, which was great, although the other fast guys in the class were doing the same. Since they started out going faster, that meant I couldn't catch them, but I wasn't letting them get too far away either.

When all was said and done, I wound up fifth out of nine entrants in the class. Saturday saw me fifth, 2.3 seconds behind the leader while I was a little closer 2.1 seconds behind, on Sunday. Combining the two days, I was half a second behind fourth place, which was the last trophy-winning spot. Still, halfway through the class was about what my goal was entering the event, and that's where I wound up.

Kate could have used more runs as she was still picking up big chunks of time each time out. She picked up nearly a full second on her last Saturday run, while Sunday she was more consistent. She was eighth in Sunday's rankings, though she fell to ninth when both days were totaled up.

It was a fantastic event at a great venue put on by great people. Next year the VAC will be run by a different club, but we figure there'll be enough people from this time around pitching in that it'll still be a must-run event. If they schedule it for a weekend where there's nothing going on closer to home, we'll gladly make a return trip.

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