ED9man

I finally got to my first auto-x. It was a blast, met some cool people and saw a bunch of nice cars. I ended up in SM2 as a novice, I didn't get to see other times, but it didn't really matter cause all 3 of my runs had a missed gate or two, the way the course was set up lots of people were missing these gates that were a sharp left after a slalom cause there was another gate not too far in straight ahead. It was a fun course, I'd say the average times were in the 60-70 second range with some in the 50's and and some slower ones.

The car drove great with the rears pumped up. The novice instructor rode with me once and told me my throttle and brake work was good and I was pretty good at picking lines and my car stuck pretty well. He said I had a pretty good feel for it, I guess because he ends up telling most novices to push harder. I just needed to work on making sure I knew the course and tighten up my lines some, I could brake later into the slaloms too. He said it would all come with time and practice but I have a pretty good base. My goal next time is to get one run that counts. Worrying about missing gates and taking bad lines made me a lot slower too I think. There was supposed to be a second set of heats but it didn't happen, I was pretty sure I could've done it because I knew the course pretty well I thought after 3 times. Next time I'll be sure to walk it a bunch and maybe draw it on a piece of paper, that and sunscreen. Next one is in two weeks.