I finally attended an SCCA event in my new region in the MC competing in STS. The event was held in Bremerton WA at a site that the NWR has been using for years. The Bremerton National Airport has an old runway that's been turn over to become the Bremerton Motorsports Park. It's long and narrow but it's still a good set-up. And this partitcular course was very technical. The start was a chicane followed immediately by what looked like a six cone slalomn. But the last two were the same direction. Half the people half the time went back to the right when they should have just stayed left. Then it was a decreasing-distance 3 gate slalomn. It required getting the car across the narrow taxi-way and back but if you accelerated, you were too hot to make the last gate. (Up 'til this point, everything was straight away from the grid and start.) This was followed by a left handed sweeper leading into a 135 degree right around a pivot cone. One of the so simple obstacles that can eat up sooooo much time if not done smoothly. Finally, the first moment to gather yourself. Accelerating out of the tight 135, you head to the short end of the runway for a simple kink left and two normally spaced gates. This never seemed long enough. It was hard in the brakes for a 180 on a 40' radius. It's fast but off-camber. Out of the 180 it was 5 gates that has you curling to the left. Nothing hard but you're heading up hill and it's very difficult to find the braking points and what's afterwards. What came next was a tight slalom back to the right. It made for a nasty bit of locked brakes etc. if you've forgotten. Get the slalomn right and it was only a couple of steering inputs. Wrong and you're sawing a 20" log. It's a jump back left a the end for an offset gate into a straight 4 cone slalomn with a last few offset gates, another pivot 180 but with plenty of room and the exit. FTD was 53s, most were above 60. The big thing was cones. 4 per run was not unusual. Course workers were running everywhere. A clean run was golden.

In my non-prepared MC, I was 3rd out of ? (9 preregistered, results have yet to be posted). FTD for me was 64.030 and there was more to be gotten. Motoring had a 58.7 in his HS Mini. I should have gotten down to 62. But I'm thankful for what I did get and that was only because of Junkman riding along on my first ride. I have always been told that I need to be smooth and he is the first to explain what that means. With the MINI, if you're smooth, the rear wheels will follow the fronts and you feel the lean in the car far less. To me, when I was finally able to be smooth, the car felt graceful rather than ill-mannered. On the first run, the rear of the car was loose and it felt as though it was steering instead of the front. Because I was kicking the backend out with my abrupt steering inputs, it was controlling the direction of the car and it constantly felt like it was out of control. Although I never had a completely smooth run, the improvement in speed and control was immeidately obvious. Multiple seconds and far fewer cones. Also, the rear tires were far cooler to the touch.

A fully kitted Subie GC8 won STS with a 59+ seconds run. I'm not certain if I could have beat that but I think I'll make him sweat a few times next year when the MC, and myself, are fully prepared.