This past weekend was the first autocross put on by the Susquehanna region SCCA in Hershey, PA. The event was held on the lot just east of the Giant Center stadium. On Friday at the close of pre-registration, there were 97 entries, but there was somewhere close to an additional 20 walk-ups on Saturday, per my estimation. This autocross was just a stopping point for my planned weekend long journey taking me from my home in Warfordsburg, PA, out to my in-laws in New Tripoli, PA where I would meet up with my lovely family for an over-night stay, then down to Pottstown, PA to attend a ballet produced by the non-profit dance company my young niece belongs to, then back home. The weekend’s mileage totaled 407mi between Saturday and Sunday according to this google map of the route:
It was great to get that amount of seat time, but back to the autocross… I left the house at 6:00am Saturday morning and arrived at the damp lot in Hershey around 8:15am. The skys were overcast all day and temps didn’t get out of the 50’s, but by the end of the first heat, the leggy course was dry. The three heats ran that day were apportioned according to SCCA classed groupings and my grouping, XP with 8 entrants, ran in the third. The expansive lot from front to back has a crest in the middle of it which the course designers took advantage of to include some interesting off-camber turns. With temps in the 50’s and nearly 50 cars in the third heat, the A6’s didn’t have much of a chance to build and retain much, if any, heat. (At least that’s my excuse…lol) My result from the day’s effort produced a 5th place finish in XP behind a very well sorted FFR co-driven by 1st and 2nd place finishers Larry Casey and Mike Moran. These guys were running a good 3 seconds faster than me on old R888s, so some driver mods are in order for ERA#2124. Here is a nice pic somebody snapped during the event and two in-car vids taking during my first and second runs. Sadly, the camera ran out of memory and the second vid is cut short right before the blast to the finish..
(Oh yeah. My little niece….she’s going to be a great dancer some day. It’s great to see her progression and improvement with each performance. Seeing little kids performing such a beautiful art form puts a lump in my throat…)
Hershey Auto-x 1st run:
Hershey Auto-x 2nd run (cut short near end):
- Allen.