Just returned from a great weekend of racing at the 2018 Tirerack SCCA Championship Tour in Mineral Wells Texas where I was competing in E-Street against a very competitive field of Miatas and Toyota MR2 entries.  There were 11 total in the class, and while I did not drive the way I wanted, and ended up in 7th of 11, I still had a great time, learned a lot and have many positives to build upon.  Here is a video from my best run on Sunday, this run was pretty fun and I got some pretty big opposite lock as I was flying through the sweepers in sector 2.  That probably cost a little time on the run, but still good to feel the car handle this challenging course well. 

Our next National Event will be the SCCA Pro Solo in June (1st-3rd) at the same site Mineral Wells.  So this was a great warmup for that and always fun driving the Miata!

Throwback: First Time I Ever Took a Video Autocrossing

As I've been posting things on the blog, I started to look back at all my youtube videos from various drives, and this is the first run I think that I ever got on video with a GoPro.  This was my rookie year in the Texas SCCA Region, in the last third of the season which had 9 events.  This was event 7 and I was starting to figure a few things out.  Running on an All-Season tire still at this point, and really muscling with the car.  This run was pretty satisfying, because I got really close to the class win, and ended up finishing 2nd place of 24 Novice Entries that day.  I was only bested by my very good friend and amazing driver Grant Watkins.  We were both Rookies this year. 

Throwback to 2016 Mini Cooper S Pro Class Win at Texas Motor Speedway

Here is a run when I was driving my Mini Cooper-S JCW in D-Street with SCCA.  This particular day I was competing in our local X-Class Pro ranking and took down the win 1st of 8.  It was such a great win and fun drive, as it set me up to go the following week to Spring Nationals in Lincoln, Nebraska in the car with a lot of confidence. 

2018 SCCA Club Trials Opens up with Double Points at Cresson

The 2018 season will officially open up for me this coming weekend, January 27th and 28th at Cresson, Texas in the Club Trials with SCCA.  I do plan to run in more of these events in 2018.  The plan is to enter the Miata in as many of them as possible in the Street 2 Class.  Here is a short video of a few laps on a very cold December day in 2016.  This was my first time to get the Miata out on the track and I loved it.  I returned a month later and set a PB of 1:33.125.  It will be interesting to see how things go this time around, as I will have been familiar with the track and CCW layout, but will also be running on a different tire this year (The Continental Max Summer Tire).  More to come after the event.

2017 in Review: the College Station Texas SCCA Champ Tour

One of my better performances last year on the SCCA National Autocross circuit was in Texas at College Station, a venue and surface, I really love and thrive on.  I was in my Miata for the first time at a big national event and managed to drive to a 2nd place overall in E-Street, and a trophy.  It was a really fun weekend.  Here were my best runs for that weekend and the great thing about Mazda is that they have a really strong contingency program and because of it we took home more money than the first place car (Toyota MR-2).  Gotta love Mazda.  Car is on Bridgestone RE71R Tires. 

Day One Run

Day Two Run

Looking back at 2017 Texas CAM Challenge Chevrolet SS

Looking back on 2017 and some of the highlights of my racing season.  This was another one, where I was invited by a friend Taylor Burnidge to drive his Chevrolet SS at the 2017 Mineral Wells CAM Challenge.  Taylor and I were the only competitors in the CAM-C class that were running a non Camaro or Mustang, which meant we had a big weight disadvantage against the rest of the competition.  However, we didn't let that stop us from having a good time and giving them hell.  This was my best run of the weekend, on Day 2, where I drove the car into the Shootout Match Bracket, and ended up with a solid overall finish, of 12th place out of 30+ cars in this thing.  

Thanks again to Taylor for the co-drive ...