What happens when you allow for true variety at the autocross? Amazing fun. That's what. The July autocross at ADSI had a little bit of everything you could ever want! 700+ hp? Yes, that was there. A full-on airport fire truck running the course? Sure. Kids in a Polaris gas buggy? Absolutely. 24 Hours of Lemons race cars? Check. A hill climb car that would kill you just for looking at it? Uh huh. We saw it all.
It was a nice cloudy morning and there was even a chance of rain, which would have promised some slipping and sliding. The clouds kept the heat at bay as we did some morning drills and enjoyed warming up our tires with some sideways action.
But the clouds dissipated and the sun started baking people and machines. Mettle and metal were well tested. And some cracks started to appear. Meanwhile, the variety of vehicles looking to play was astounding.
We had the crazy JDM import machines from Blacked Out Motorsports. We had a sinister Z06 C7 Vette with over 700hp.
I added a couple of Porsche's to the mix (with help from David Baker of Baker's Dozen Racing fame, fresh off his maiden New England Forest Rally!).
The Lemons car was a crazy looking stripped down RX7. Rich had his belle-of-the-ball M3, made super quick with great driving and new RE71r's. We had an Acura Integra that looked like it lived a hard life in Miami.
An old Mount Washington hillclimb Dodge Dart with no front bodywork...that scared the crap out of me to be anywhere near it. The owner, Dennis, tried to reassure us with his famous line, "trust me, I'm a Dennis," but I wasn't having any of it. It had a 440ci V8 in there. Nutty.
Fred had his very cool Miata. Stephen had his tidy 328 BMW. We had a Mitsu Evo that sounded very angry with it's external wastegate. The obligatory Fox-bodied Mustang.
And even a little Polaris offroad buggy for the kids. Anthony shut down the course so they could go out and run some laps. Very fun.
My poor little 944 ran well all day eventually putting in a 1:36 lap time. Not bad for a 30 year old car that hasn't gotten much love in it's life. In mid-afternoon, she started leaking blinker martini fluid. Looked a bit like coolant, through. My power steering belt had started chewing through my lower radiator hose.
Race, break, repeat. But at least my repaired cooling fans were doing some good during the morning. Fred's cooling fans stopped at one point, his Miata shared coolant with the track, and needed a fuse adjustment to get back out there. After I had packed it in, word has it that Rich was laying down consistent 1:30's! But then his pesky coil packs decided to give up a ghost or two. Misfire time. The hillclimb car looked broken from the start but ran periodically. One of the Blacked Out cars had some electrical wiring fun. But other than that, it was an impressive day for the machines.
The fire truck put in a lap time of about 3:18 on the first try but bettered it to about a 2:30 later on. Some say the cones will never be the same and that everything was a straight. All we know is that you stay out of the way of something that is that large and can shoot water at you.
It was a very memorable day out there, for sure. Many thanks to the ADSI crew for pulling it together and for braving the heat with us!
Wake up, Jesse!! Thanks for the sandwich and the help figuring out my leakage issue!!