Originally posted by tooler
How did the Sebring autocross go???
Not as well as I would have liked. Garry and Cheryl had a family emergency and could not go to Sebring. Tim Reardon asked if i could help out so I ended up drivng the SCCA truck w/timing trailer to Sebring. Man I hated driving that thing. The steering was very loose, the exhaust leaked, the AC barely worked and the windshield whistled like hell. After I got to Sebring I helped set up the course with Tim and some of the other guys. It was almost 1 mile long and very fast. Brigitte and I helped with signup on Friday night too. I was beat by the time we got to our hotel room that night.
We helped with signup again on Saturday morning and I didn't get a chance to walk the course, bad mistake. I had one hell of a time staying on course Saturday. We only got 3 runs and I blew past on the wrong side of the same gate my first two runs. On my 3rd run I made a bad mistake that cost me at least one second and tried too hard to make it up and missed a slalom cone and ended the day with 3 OC's. Damnit!
It rained during the second session and we had a serious mishap due to the wet track. Dat (the asian guy with the white Prelude in STS) spun out and did a header into a concrete barrier. He wasn't hurt, luckily, but his car is a mess. Front end smashed, radiator and condenser toasted, popped 2 airbags it was pretty serious. All this excitement delayed events and we got done real late and then the sky opened up. I got soaked to the bone taking down the canopy and putting everything away. We couldn't do a printout for trophies so it was postponed until Sunday.
Sunday I concentrated better and made up my mind I would drive the course easy and insure a score even if it was slow. My first run had me in 3rd behind Ian in the EVO and TJ's Mustang. My second run moved me ahead of TJ but the Trans-Am sneaked past me and Ian for first place. That is how it all ended up after the 3rd run as well. Actually I think Ian should have won on Sunday but there seemed to be some timing inconsistencies that I don't feel like going into right now. I would have much preferred 2nd place points in stead of 3rd but there isn't much I can do about it at this point.
It began raining just as the last car finished so I got wet again. I helped take everything down and stow it in the truck. Jerry (the Lincoln guy) said he and his wife would get the SCCA van back to Melbourne. (thank God!) We put all the trophies in the back of the timing trailer so we could hand them out over at the SCCA HQ building instead of standing in the rain. Somehow Jerry did not hear that part of the discussion so they drove off to Melbourne with all the tropies!
Would I go again? Hell yes, it was a blast!
I hope your weekend went well.
He's the guy who usually helps out in the timing trailer at Palm Bay, right? He seems like a pretty nice guy 
The G-force musta been pretty high, to pop the airbags. Not many cars stand up well to a concrete barrier.
