June 3rd, 2001 (Steel Cities SCCA)
Now that the swimming pool at North Hills has opened for the Summer, the Pittsburgh AutoX scene jumps across town to the Allegheny County Airport parking lot, for the first event of the Steel Cities region SCCA season (the only "official" national-level AutoX series in the immediate area). In years past, we had the pits and the track on the same lot, but this year, to open up the amount of racing space, we're now parking back inside the airport near a couple of hangers, freeing up the entire parking lot for cone craziness. The lot is an interesting one, mostly flat, but with two distinct surfaces: most of it is concrete, which is magnetic to tires, but parts are asphalt; still grippy asphalt, but not as grippy as concrete. This means that you'd better be good at spin control, because what worked on one corner might not fly on the next one. Still, this is easily the stickiest surface I've ever raced on, and I'm still not on my Kumho race tires (gonna unmount my RE010s for a few weeks, and then put them back on when I hit Nelson Ledges, but that'll be another story). It was another rainy morning, but despite the chilly weather and strong winds, there was a very good turnout. And, it didn't rain a drop during the race, which is always nice. With my new Comptech intake, I'm firmly in CSP, and William Hutchens from West Virginia was on hand in his 2000 Black Type R to hold up the torch in G Stock (wearing some impressive looking Yokohama race tires). I managed a second in CSP, but Andy Waldman was untouchable in his CRX, blowing the rest of the class out of the water by several seconds...I guess he was making up for his improvisational course creation at the last Steubenville event :). William was lookin sharp in his Type R, and took the win in G Stock. Next event is at Steel Cities on the 24th of June, hope to see you there! (I had posted earlier it was on the 23rd and 24th, NHSCC prez. Jerry pointed out the error, thanks for the catch Jer! I can't believe we actually have viewers!)
Check out the results in this MS Excel Spreadsheet (They're not online yet) Right Here.
I'm a little pressed for time, so no witty commentary this week, just the pics. Had a few good places to stand, and I think I'm getting the gist of settings to use for the digicam to get the best pics. As for the lack of commentary, think of something delightfully clever and amusing to you for each picture, and that's exactly what it would be like if I had written the comments. EXACTLY.
Our new paddock
We need to convince Andy to give up his Hoosiers and run on his street setup. He'd probably still wax us...
Apparently, civics stop faster when you get them completely sideways and use the tire sidewalls for traction
bug repellent
Karen had some kickass runs
John Wagner was givin' it hell
My car sporting new numbers yet again...much more fond of these.
William has excellent choice in cars.
Mark Connely in his new ride.
gotta love the acceleration pose
those teeth are backed up by a supercharger
the RX-7 is too fast for the weak electromagnetic force!
digits peeling off everywhere
Randy secured 1st place in PAX standings, congrats! Yay VTEC!
Gotta love the sequential mode, catch that drift!
another sequential shot of Ryan's car, forget who was driving
This major hunk of sharp metal was making that sad "hissss" sound...those suckers are wide too! He's got backups, thankfully, hopefully Mr. Patch will bring this tire back to fighting form.
A spectator today, hopefully he's race with us next time!
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