Yep, it's all over and we're on our way home. 14 hours on the clock. We'll probably stop somewhere around midnight and get some sleep, that will put us home sometime Sunday evening.
Those last two events were real surprises! I know a lot of other people were surprised, but I have to say that I was, too! On the skidpad, my goal was merely to do better than I'd done in the Sentra last year (.966), I certainly never expected to get that close to 1.0 in the Yaris with no real development or testing... and no practice. I guess it just proves that once you know how to drive a skidpad and how to grossly set the car up, the big numbers are inevitable.
For car setup, all I did was set the tire pressures to a known good pressure (32 front/30 rear), set the front shocks stiff enough to give good feel, and set the rear shocks full stiff. (more rear stiffness transfers more weight to the outside front tire where it is most needed) The only other thing we did was run with a full tank of fuel and left the spare tire in the back to help balance the car better. Really, it's all the same stuff we did with the Sentra last year. It works. I wasn't surprised that I did well... .97 or so would have been expected, but .997... Wow!
The autocross was another story. As I mentioned yesterday, I drove conservatively AND I made a mistake that cost me at least a second. I carried first gear through the slalom and all the way through the first turn just to be sure I kept my speed in check and didn't overcook that section like Josh did, there was a good second left on the table there. As far as autocross runs go, it was pretty awful! When I saw that I'd finished 11th in that event, I was simply stunned!
I guess the autocross is sort of like the wet skidpad. People didn't take it seriously enough as an event (POINTS, Hello!), and it took a lot more skill than they gave it credit for. I heard of people going out and taking their ONE run on the autocross course without even walking the course first. I can't imagine such a thing. To me, that seems about as dumb as going out on any one of the race tracks we drove without ever having looked at a track map. Yeah, sure, you might get around it (or you might not!)... but you're sure as hell not going to be fast. And if you're only being given ONE shot at it... well, you get the point. Anyone who didn't walk the autocross course has no one to blame but themselves for their poor performance.
Gotta grab a nap before we stop for dinner.
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