2008 Indy at the Park

As things are slowly getting settled in the Hizzle, I took the day Sunday to attend Indy at the Park! The weather ended up being spectacular after a not so hot start of major thunderstorms rolling through the area at around 4 am. Some were scared off by the prospect of more rain, but alas, the weather cleared up and the event was a success.

There was an air show next door at the ILM airport, which made for some interesting distractions.
I had two other cars in my class (C Stock). A 1999 Miata driven by Nick Arnold and a 2004 Mazdaspeed Miata (that's turbocharged for those that don't know) driven by Willie Stallings. Willie normally drives a turbocharged race prep car in another class but the prospect of rain had him driving his "street car" for the second straight event. In Kinston the weather was miserable (cold and wet) and my performance was worse! Willie beat me by two seconds! Two seconds is an eternity in autocross time. Well, this event Willie once again led me after three morning runs by 0.4 seconds. Still a substantial lead. On Willie's first run of the afternoon he increased his lead to 1 full second. I felt doomed. I managed to gain a bit of hope back on my second to last run, a nice clean one that left me only 0.2 seconds behind Willie. Well, on my final run, after some very helpful advice from Mike LaBor (SM2 champ for the day!) I managed to take the first place trophy by 0.1 seconds! It was great. This was my first serious win over someone with experience and my first really good time. It provided some nice drama too, I had many congratulations afterwards.

Below are videos of my best two runs of the day. Sorry for the video quality, its the best I've got at the moment.