Racing Southwest

By Tom Reynolds, with editing by Michael Sepulveda

When Will (“Fox”) asked me to start writing a monthly column on racing, I was really not sure what to write about and how to make it worth reading.  Lets face it, I don’t have any serious experience – I’m an amateur autocrosser and run time trials when I can. If you subscribe to Doug Hayashi’s “Pyramid of Speed”, I’m not even at the top:

The above image is courtesy of NSXfiles.com

I’m just an “Average Joe” trying to race out of the same budget I feed myself, my family, and pets, and in the same car I drive to work in.  However, the reality is that if you are reading this, you probably have a lot in common with that sentence.

If you have ever tried to stuff eight tires into something not classed as a wagon, truck, or minivan, you might understand my sense of humor.  If your garage smells like tires and you have more sets of wheels for your car then you do pairs of shoes for yourself, you will appreciate where I am going with this.  If you have driven 5 hours to drive for less than 5 minutes of racing, you might have the same sickness I do.  If you are still reading this, you obviously don’t mind my grammar style starting that many sentences in a row with the word if.  With that in mind, I’ll start at the beginning like any good story should.

In 2000, I was pretty new to Albuquerque, NM and really was interested in racing my car. It was a fairly modified DSM and, when it ran, was somewhat quick and seemed to handle well enough.  Or so I thought.  From friends back East, I knew about the SCCA, PCA, MCA, and BMWCCA holding events but holy crap they were impossible to find in New Mexico.  I would search Alta Vista (yes pre-Google domination back then) and what little I did find was that default webpage you can spit out of FrontPage98 with the basic PC skill set of a 5th grader.  So I verbally started asking around and finally I found someone who heard a rumor – that the SCCA does events at the Tailgater #2 Lot at UNM.  I guess they didn’t nick name the “Secret Car Club of America” for nothing!  Luckily it was that same weekend and I was able to go and check it out.

What I witnessed was amazing! “Stock” Toyota MR2 Turbo’s and Mazda Miatas dominating some pretty modified Chevrolet Corvettes, Ford Mustangs, and the like.  I thought, “Surely they are not ready for my DSM and my skills that had been perfected on back roads of North Carolina!”(Think “Tail of the Dragon” and more recently the off ramp from I-25 south to Gibson east)

With that in mind, I made plans to show up to the next event.

Three weeks flew by fast – and I was present at my first event.  Car was clean; there was air in the tires (probably at 35 psi because that made sense with my vast knowledge on the topic at the time).  The Electronic Boost Controller was set to 20 psi because I figured I really needed that extra grunt out of the corners.  I was excited – and surprisingly not nervous – because I knew I was just going to shock all of these people and introduce them to a good old fashioned DSM beat down – at least if the car didn’t break between the paddock and the grid, or from the grid to the starting line.

The planets aligned and the car held together as I made it to the starting line. Thanks to my recent practice at the drag strip, when the starter said go I launched like I was trying to run a 1.8 60’ in my GS-T on street tires. Needless to say, it was probably one of my best launches of my lifetime!  And I know this because I managed to shoot 50’ beyond the first cone which  represented a sharp turn to the left!  “It’s OK,” I thought, “I can make it up. I just won’t lift.”  I probably imagined the beauty of the Quaiffe front torsen doing its job and the money well spent on that mod, never mind it classed me in “E / Street Prepared”.  I remember hearing the tires begging for mercy as I floored the gas, pushing wider and wider around the turn.  “It didn’t matter,” I thought, “it will hook up and shoot me to the next corner,” which I could now see.

I set my sights directly on the cone that marked inside of the turn and turned 20 psi loose.  I imagined by now I was way ahead of anyone else at this point in the course as I reached the cone and applied the brakes.  “Uh oh, this corner is tighter than I thought.  I’d better put some extra steering input.”  And then it happened – so quickly and without warning – a tire blew out which caused me to spin in my FWD!  So, I stalled the car, which saved time as I suddenly couldn’t remember where the parking brake was.  I get out of the car and walk over to the right rear of the car.  “That’s odd, that tire isn’t flat.  What is that noise?”  Oh, that’s my novice instructor having a verbal seizure, who I guess had been too scared to talk until now.  I think he’s wondering why I got out of the car and screaming something about a red flag to the corner workers nearby.  Back I go to looking at the tires – WTF (sic) – none of them are flat or even low on air!  We, yes WE, as the instructor is a slow learner I guess and wants more, get back into the car and I’m pushing harder since I have to make up time for my stop to check the tires.

I know the stop is going to cost me.  I’ll probably be a few seconds slower than the top guys now.  With my other two runs that day, each I believe more or less was a repeat of the first run, minus the spin and pit stop.  When the results were published, I’m pretty sure there was an error in calculations because I don’t understand how I was last place in my class! Some guy with a stock Foxbody (Mustang) with a set of sway bars just beat me by 8 seconds; the Miata guys were 15 seconds faster, but I don’t recall seeing any turbos or blue bottles in their cars.  Weird!

I get to look at the weird overall ranking they call “PAX results”. Since I had no idea what “PAX” was, I decided to ask various people what it is and how it is calculated.  After the fourth person in a row begins to describe it like posi-traction (they don’t know how it works, it just does), I decide to just read the listing.  It takes me a while to find my name on that list as well, until I learn a useful trick: start reading from the bottom up.  Sure enough, I’m dead last.

Despite the results, I’m hooked and smiling (stupid is as stupid does).  I’m already plotting what I need to fix on the car to ensure better results the next time.  At least, I was hoping you didn’t have to time my runs against rings in the trunk of a tree for reference.

The rest of the 2000-2001 season saw me modify that car (and repair it) more than I ever had in my life before or since (mostly repair).  I never finished outside of the bottom third in PAX and never won my class, unless no one else showed up to compete in it.

This is why my passion for autocross continues eight years later: I can get my butt kicked and still have fun.  I ran my first open track event November of 2000 with Wallace Bow.  This is a problem because I now realize: I like the track as well!  Unfortunately, I like the track so much so, I go back for more events.  True to form, the DSM breaks every track event.  I prove I’m a slow learner and keep fixing the car.  Then, during the winter of 2001 and confident in masculinity, along with being sick of attempting to swap transmissions in my apartment complex parking while telling them I lost a contact under my car and that’s what I’m looking for, I bought a Mazda Miata.

But that’s another story …