Went to my first autocross yesterday, definitely had fun. I’m in the beginning stages of my motorsports journey so trying out as many types of events as possible to find an area I'd like to focus on. Have done 4 HPDE/track days so far. David’s tips were spot on, thank you: Why do we still autocross. One thing I would add is show up earlier than you think. I thought an hour before first run would be enough time, but no. Totally got lost on where to go, where to register, where to park and empty my car, where to grid, etc. Didn’t know the mandatory drivers meeting was 30 min before first run and thankful the organizer let me walk (more like light jog lol) the course since I was new and missed doing that earlier. Didn’t know I could leave my crap at the grid so had to walk back and forth to get water or other things. Just a lot of little things you don’t realize unless you are out there. Shoutout to my new buddy that also came late and helped me get organized and complete tech.
We did 5 runs. First run out, the sweet SW20 that went before me had some type of malfunction and had smoke covering over half the course. Wasn’t sure what happened and was looking for flags and didn’t see any, but out of caution just ran through the course at a slow speed since I couldn’t really see and just in case of debris or fluid leak. The exit worker understood what I was doing and let me go on another run. Last run was the best as it started to come together and dropped 3 seconds from my first official and slowest run.
Shoutout to my other new buddy that showed me the ropes on how to work the course. Went to pickup a cone and wasn’t aware of the timer, sorry red NC dude. Hope you enjoyed your free run lol.
- Was it fun? Yes, absolutely
- Would I go again? Sure
- Would I like to go regularly and compete? Maybe. At this point I’m more interested in learning car control and how to be a better/smoother driver. Not sure adding competition is a good thing at this stage, but will think about this some more.
Hit the goals of having fun safely and socializing with other car folks. Met someone that was involved in rallycross in our local area so definitely something I’m going to try. Gonna need another car for that, don’t want dirt in all the fake vents on my CTR lol.
