Saturday, July 11, 2015

Competition

The worst thing in racing is to be the only person racing. Without competition, it's just not much fun to win. This year, I don't lack for competition. Practically everyone in the class (who has showed up for more than one day) has a season championship. I'm pretty much the only one without a local jacket, and just recently, Johnathan Leith (Leafy) made me the only regular driver in the class to not have a trophy at a national event outside NER. (Congratulations to him!!). There's a danger that come September he'll also make me the only regular competitor to not have a trophy at nationals.

I have a wealth of good competitors this year which is excellent. So far this season, I've been pretty lazy about updates here and I finally took some time to update my standings page. Not surprisingly, with the improved competition, my results are not as good at this point in the year as last year. That said, my times simply haven't been as good as last year either. I ended my streak of hot season starts, and this time I had pretty crappy days for my first few events.

Things are beginning to look up however, I fell short at our national tour, but I was in the hunt until the middle run of the second day, and in fun runs at the last Renegade Miata event I posted my first ever FTD (fastest time of the day). There is one really fast person (Grant Reeve) who didn't show up to that normally does, but I've had that opportunity at least half a dozen times in the last few years and not been able to take advantage. Next goal is to do it when Grant is there, and BEFORE fun runs :).

The other likely significant thing about the last event was that it was the 3rd weekend in a row, and 4th day Autocrossing in 14 day span. Seat time helps! So tomorrow, I'll be at the Evolution Performance Driving school challenge school to work on the seat time and get feedback from their excellent instructors. Lets hope that helps me take it up a notch. With this crowd I'll need it!