<VV> School/autocross

[Levair@aol.com]

All,

   There was a song tiltled "Where do they all come from?"
  We had 53 students at Fort Wayne and then 47 students at Columbus a week 
later.
   It always amazes and thrills me at the turn out. Some of the students 
attended both schools. It makes good sense since the two venues offere different 
aspects of the sport. The Columbus school offers the great high concentration 
of efforts in individual training while the F.t Wayne school offers the 
greatest amount of non on the track training--specialities, etc. 
  At Columbus , since we have the room , we get to practice on single 
maneuvers such as pin turns, slaloms and gates,and then get to put them all together 
as one course in the afternoon. 
   I believe that this one weekend is worth three years of undisciplined 
practice going to autocrosses. 
   It's a long weekend for the instructors starting on Fri afternoon with 
course and timing vehicles set up and continuing through Sunday afternoon. 
Thankfully we have a full squad of willing volunteers, who  unasked , make the event 
flow smoothly , almost as if we were professionals. We even had persons show 
up to assist who should have been home in bed sick with pneumonia. I've have 
to say that they were sick in more ways than one., but thanks. We tend to 
ignore the regulars who are always there to assist in any manner---again , thanks. 
   Oh, and thanks for the lady hugs for this fellow who is missing his mate. 
    The student field seems to consist of young folks, guys and gals , with 
either Minis, Neons, or some sort of four door sedan with a huge wing on the 
back and a huge engine in the front. They all look the same to me, but go like 
stink. We used to step DOWN into  our sports cars and now we step UP into them. 
It's a crazy world. Mmaybe the wings are really just handrails to hand on to 
for some of the older racers. 
   The greatest difficulty that inexperienced and very experienced students 
had was developing the discipline to go slow in the tight areas to set up for 
speed in the open areas---instructor included. 
    Mark Lamb showed us the fast way around this year aagain in his Formula 
Ford..
   My only personal victory was that for the third weekend in a row (fingers 
crossed) nothing broke on the roadster. Now I can concentrate on getting it 
ready for the Hershey Vintage Hillclimb this week in Pennsyvania. Michael 
LeVeque, Mark Gilispie, Jeff Rapp , and I will be going and racing vintage Corvairs 
--look for you there.
   For you weenies that stayed home Sunday because of threatening rain 
(always a threat in Indiana) . It started raining at the finish of the runs Sat. 
evening, rained all night, and quit raining at 9:00 AM Sunday morning, just 
immediately after our small church service, and was beautiful all day-----oh, ye of 
little faith.
Warren