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Snowing at Blackhawk Farms in late April!!

To make matters worse, the rain turned to snow. There is no top because of the roll bar. You MG drivers can picture driving your car with the top down on a highway while it’s snowing - It’s not pleasant and it briefly brought back a thought that maybe I should be enjoying bass fishing. I asked my instructor to let me go solo. It didn’t take too much convincing as he was exposed to the same elements I was. I tried a couple of more laps and was fish tailing all over the track. I told the director that snowflakes were cloudy up my helmet visor and I am having too many aw- sh#t moments on the track. So, I packed up and headed home with a snow-covered dashboard, cut nose, and a sense of pride that I finally accomplished a quest - driving the B on a bona fide racetrack.

Rest of the 2019 racing year was a disaster. Clutch problems, stuck exhaust valve, and conflicts of races with personal dates i.e., vacations kept me off the tracks and actual competition. Before you knew it the race season for Autocross was over - looking forward to 2020.

Damn the COVID-19. In the spring and early summer tracks were closed, races were cancelled. I got my first real taste of High-Speed Autocross competition during the July 4th weekend at Blackhawk Farms. I ran three separate timed laps about 45 minutes apart. My time were slow, but I was consistent. There was only 0.8 secs difference in the quickest and slowest lap time. I won my class over competition that - let’s say was rather light.

Next race: Aug 29, The Milwaukee Mile.

The Milwaukee Mile is a one mile-long (1.6 km) oval race track

The autocross track consisted of being ten turns using about ¾ of the mile-long banked oval. The remaining track is winding serpentine design in the infield. Not having an instructor available, I had to learn by the seat of my pants to navigate the corners. During practice when I felt bolder with speed, I overshot the exit off the oval into infield creating pylon road kills. I never felt comfortable with that turn the rest of day. Anyway, I did my three separate laps. This time I didn’t want consistency, I wanted improvement. Still rather slow but knock off about 3-5 seconds per lap Again I won my class, but the competition was -rather light.



Next Race: Road America—Elkhart Lake, WI
Third event was the pinnacle of the season and if I quit now and I could rest on the memory. Historic Road America, Elkhart Lake, WI. A whopping 4.1-mile track with 14 turns. Indy car drivers still have a race there. Drivers who won there went on be Formula 1 champions.

This event did not include High Speed Auto Cross. So, what was I doing there? Well, if you have a car that can pass tech inspection and have the money, you can sign up to do noncompetitive laps on the track. To me it was a now or never moment considering the combined age of the car and the driver was reaching an index of 121 years.

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