Well, this past weekend I had a chance to meet 80's Oldschool who was up from Texas. We just happened to also have a race going on that weekend, so of course we had a bit of fun too. Jim (80s) is a really nice guy, and our group had a good time shooting the **** over breakfast with him. I made sure we sent him home with a club Tshirt. Next time he gets up this way, hopefully my car will be back on the road so he can race that with me.

Oldschool raced a Nissan Versa (sponsored by Budget Rent-A-Car, see photo), and forum member Jeffy was gracious enough to offer me a ride in his Silver 1984 fb.

Despite the fact that the Versa was a heavy underpowered grocery getter, 80s managed a very respectable mid-pack finish in H Stock, beating a Saturn, a Corolla, and a Subaru. His best time was a 51.44, which means he really put that tub through the paces!

Jeffy and I raced in STS, and our competition consisted of Miatas, Miatas, and for just a bit of variety, they threw some Miatas in there for us. A total of 4 Miatas and us (counting as 2 fbs) made up the class.

Thank you very much for letting me race your car Jeff! It was exactly what I needed to cheer me up while my car is broken.

Jeffy was hoping to get some pointers from me, so we rode along with each other on our runs. I'm not sure if I was any help to him, but we sure had fun. Jeffy finished with a time of 49.98 which was good for a 4th place finish (ahead of 2 Miatas). I managed a 47.78 for the class win.

It was very interesting driving a strange car in this event (while mine is recovering from a meeting with a drunk driver). And I think that there are some advantages to racing a strange car. Getting familiar with the car consisted of belting in, and pulling forward about 20 feet to the start line. But as it worked out, I had no preconceptions about the ability of the car, like I would have if I had been in my own car. I made my first run, judged the limitations of the car, then adjusted my driving to suit it. It certainly helped that Jeffy has a very well maintained car, even if it doesn't have all the whiz-bang tricky suspension parts that mine does.

We ran in the first heat, and it rained nearly the entire time. The course certainly didn't every dry up on us. There were some very fast cars in our run group, but when all was said and done I had the 2nd fastest time for that heat. The only car that was faster (by 3/10ths of a second) was a turbo Solstice. Not too shabby!

I've got a lot of video from the event, but God only knows when I'll have the time to put it all together and post it. But in the mean time, have some pics




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A few more. Forum is being funny, not letting me upload most of the pictures I wanted to. But these cars are pretty cool to, so I thought I'd throw them in for you....

 

That green Miata is the one with the supercharger that I'm always trying to catch (and sometimes I succeed)

 

Very cool event!!! I had a blast meeting you guys and racing up there. Hopefully soon I can bring my Mazda up and race!

 

That tiburon made me but sounds like a pretty good time. It would of been cool to see that versa run. There's a Focus hatch that always put on a show in our group.

 

Reminds me of back in the day in college. Our car club would have an event
called rent-a-car autocross.

We'd get someone with a credit card to rent a car from Kansas City or St. Louis,
drive it down, and then we all took turns seeing who could get thru the course
fastest. It would end when the tires started shredding, then we would swap em
front and rear and someone would drive it back.

Lots o fun and memories.

Sorry to hear about your car but getting seat time always makes things better