Idaho Racing News

By Robert Lundbohm
(SRRSCCA Board Editor)

Memorial Day Weekend Racing

oohooo…

Ah, the sites and sounds of two days of racing… Engines Exhaust tones, laughter and smiles, joking – ribbing, the undeniable novice look of excitement, trembling fingers, tire smoking starts and spins, the smell of a hot engine and distinct smell of burnt clutch and brakes…. this all REFUELS the Racers soul as Biscuits and Gravy fuels our body. If none of that just doesn’t put a smile on your face then slap my feet ‘cause you ain’t no Racer… Now tell me I’m wrong?????

What a weekend huh? If you didn’t have fun or get your EEHAA fix for SRRSCCA AutoX racing Memorial Day weekend … then you need your head examined.

Saturday gave you a challenging 6 runs of Enduro and Sunday produced 9 lightning fast runs by a Newby course designer.

Saturday’s course did exactly what it needed to do. Make you think and drive the undulating surface. DJ made it interesting and fun. Right at the split to bring you back to your second lap was the really first place you had to pay close attention and think where the course was…I flubbed it myself the first two times out.

The finish was pretty tight and after a few runs even DJ commented it was nasty…AH, it really wasn’t that bad…you just had to DRIVE…you were forced to set your car up JUST right at the entry or you messed it up. Folks, that is EXACTLY what AutoX is all about…”CAR CONTROL”, “PRECISION DRIVING”. Any of that sound familiar?

The finish did just exactly what it was supposed to do…slow you down and make you drive. As a driver you had to put all of the following together in quick fashion…Set and align your car within three or four inches of the cones on the left side to get a shot at making the right angle turn to the right. Braking, Steering, Throttle Control and it just flat-out forced you to THINK yourself through the finish. There was absolutely no room to just bonsai it in there and hope to make it stick. Personally, I liked the finish. DJ even put the Checkered Flag to good use. Drivers were shown the Checkered Flag on their second and final lap to indicate they to were enter the finish corner…”Yeah Baby”, I haven’t seen a Checkered Flag out my windshield for a W H I L E. (Don’t even ask…) That was Awesome…

I put it to you…If we didn’t have any challenging sections in the course then what are we out there for? If you don’t like being forced to maneuver your car through challenging courses then what’s the point of it? Those tight, nasty, hard sections actually teaches you to drive better…just a thought…???

What? You don’t think Sunday was lightening fast? While the mean times were in the 45 and 46 second range. Neal Stanley smoked the course with a “CLEAN” Raw Time of 36.632…I don’t know about any of you but that’s just flat “Haulin’ the Mail” if you ask me.

With the layout of the course there was room for three cars to be safely on the course at any given time. The morning session of four runs flowed quickly enough that we all got five runs in the afternoon session. 70 drivers getting 9 runs in 7 hours…Hummm…now that’s some serious seat time in one day.

Sundays course was a contrast to Saturday. Neither better than the other but just what they’re supposed to be…different.

Sundays course was loaded with long Sweepers, two giant slaloms, a left 16-foot wide 90-degree into the second 100-foot slalom. One sweeper was positive-cambered and the other was negative-cambered… I heard tell that a few drivers even got into third gear on their later runs. Even Cars on Street tires were pulling inside tires off as traction was “Far-out”, “Off the charts”, “Crazy sticky” in the afternoon.

A quick re-cap of two days of SRRSCCA AutoX racing. Saturday produced 6 exhilarating Enduro runs with a Checkered Flag Finish…Sunday gave everyone the chance to let the dogs loose with 9 runs. Total of 15 runs…a befitting tribute to a Memorial Day weekend. So not too shabby if you ask me.

We all hope you got a re-fueling of your Fun-Factor-Fix.

Oh yeah, One last thing. Did anyone else get sunburned? LOL