Sunday, May 13, 2007

Long time, no updates...

...and still no updates on the Pontiac. However, I have been busy.

I spent this past weekend at O'Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis. I entered my Buick into the Winged Warrior III Challenge, a performance auto event with all the proceeds going to the Riley Children's Hospital in Indy. Worthy cause, and the format of the event looked fun.

It was a three-segment points based competition. A drag race portion contributing 40% of the score, an autocross contributing another 40%, and a concours judging comprising the remaining 20%. Cars were classed according to modifications made.
The first picture is me launching on the drag strip. The car was wonderfully consistent, clicking off 13.5s at 102mph. Good enough for first place overall in my class in the drag race portion of the event.
The second picture is my car at the concours judging portion. Every car started with a perfect score, and then points were deducted for stuff. I had no points deducted at all.
The third picture is on the autocross course. The course they set up was huge. The average time was somewhere around 70 seconds. A normal course would be near 3o seconds long. It was a fun, but relatively simple course. Easy enough for newcomers to navigate without getting lost, but plenty of spots for experienced people to pick up some time. I finished fifth in my class in the autocross, being beating by MazdaSpeed Protoge NASA road race car, a Mini Cooper, and a few other much better handling, lighter cars. However, behind me were also much lighter, better handling cars.


However, at the end of it all, the dominating performance on the drag strip, the perfect car show score, and the surprisingly competative autocross performance granted me the overall first place in my class. The trophy is huge, and it's actually silver-plated metal, no plastic.
Posted by Picasa