Well, I took my truck out to the autocross today. Today was just a practice day for the competition Sunday, so I went to brush up. If I remember right, It's been over a year since I autocrossed last. The weather was excellent, clear and 80 degrees, couldn't be better. We were divided up into four groups. Each group ran for 35 minutes in morning and afternoon sessions. My first run, I had WAY too much pressure in the rear tires and boy did the rear end want to pop out. I really had to work not to lose it into a nice flat spin. My time for the first run was 67.031 sec., respectable for a truck considering stock C-4 corvettes running on street tires were getting ~ 65 sec. Throughout the morning session, I continued to improve with better driving and less pressure to 66.198 sec . In our afternoon session, I let a friend of mine ride with me for the first run. I began my run thinking I'd slow down with the extra 200 lbs. The run felt really good, I was using the throttle-off oversteer to correctly position myself around the tight turns. After crossing the finish timer, they announced my time...62.766! WOW! that was quick. I got back to the staging grid and immediately had several people walk up and ask me if they heard correctly, that I had run a 62. Yep! I ran an outstanding time. I continued to improve to a 62.29. Great if you consider that the prepared corvettes, camaros and RX-7's with autocross tires ran from mid 50's to low 60's.
I had a blast. It's always fun to go out and thrash some tires. Thanks to Mike Burgess from the DML for coming out to check out the event. He had a wedding to attend, so he couldn't race but he came out for a little while. It's supposed to rain tommorrow, so I'll see how well I do.
Gary Pinkley
97 reg cab, V-6 5-spd
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