The 2021 Autocross season has begun in the North West. Last weekend Bridge City Autoports kicked off their season with an Event at Portland International Raceway using the paddock to set up the course. It was a great event with 6 runs for the points session and a fun run session afterwards. Lots of great cars and drivers showed up to blow the rust off of their driving skills. Ryan Otis who is a National champ set the fastest time of the day in his ZR1 Camaro. Yes, he beat the crap out of the Miatas, proving once again, it's mostly the driver in this sport. It was fun watching him throw that beast around the course. I was working the course when he ran, therefore, no video of one of his runs.
The other long time club I run with, Emerald Empire Sports Car Club, held their Icebreaker non-points event yesterday. We were blessed with good weather despite the gloomy forecast. We had a great turn out including a bunch of guys from a club called Toxic Mopars that showed up with their various years of Dodge Challengers. Among those were 3-4 Hellcats. It was entertaining watching them try to utilize ~ 800 HP on a very tight Autocross course. Both events I ran on my street tires. I will get the RE71s back on my car when the outside temps start to stay above 35 degrees. I don't have the time to take tires off/on before each event.
The clubs in the NW have posted their schedules and it looks like we may have a great year of racing, provided, people keep the Covid numbers down. Everything here depends on that happening. The mask wearing was strictly enforced at both events. The only place one could be without their mask was in their car.
Some video clips from the BCA PIR event.
Shelby GT 350 R on course. By the end of the day he was better utilizing a very fast car.
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A regular attendee with BCA in his Ferrari 488. You don't see many Ferraris at Autocross events.
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A roof mount camera view of one of my runs on this course.
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And a couple of videos of my runs shot yesterday at Valley River Center running Icebreaker. The session I drove in had a fast time of 42.511 in one of the Prepared class cars. I ran a 44.285 in my F Street GT on street tires. I ran first thing in the morning with mossy, damp pavement and cold temps. I barely had to adjust tire pressure over the session because the tires just didn't warm up. In the external video of my run you can see the green hue to the pavement. That is moss. By the end of our session we had pretty much removed it all from the fast line of the course. The later run groups ran under much better conditions. They had dry pavement and 55 degree air temps with the pavement soaking up the sun and finally coming up to temp.
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