Holy Crap. I forgot to mention the best part about this weekend. There was an autocross school the day before this event at the same site. I happened to know the event coordinators, and knew they would do me right. One of the guys is Couture, who is damn good on the national level, so I thought I would be a shoe-in for his tutelage. Well, I got there and was introduced to this guy I have never seen before at any of the events... Pearson somebody. *shrug* The first couple things out of this guy's mouth were great info. I started scratching my head. I run a few laps in the wet (it rained the day before this event) and was right on the ragged edge. He kept saying, be smooth, brake later/harder. Third run, I let him behind the wheel. He took 3 seconds out of my time. It was un-frikin'-real. He was so smooth it made me wince. He was full throttle through places I had to let off, simply because smooth inputs allowed him to straighten the course. Don't get me wrong, the guy was totally at the limit. I knew he was going to loop it any second, but he never did. I was stunned. 3 seconds. So I saunter over to Larry, and ask what's the deal with this guy... He said, "Oh, that is Dave Pearson, he is a former national champion in HS... yeah... in a Saturn!
Yeah, they said it couldn't be done..." I fainted at this point. When I came to, I was a sponge. I soaked up every word this guy had to say. I felt very priveledged to be able to pick this guy's brain. I *think I learned a lot. As I mentioned earlier, I got spanked on raceday, so there is lots left to learn, but that was by far the highlight of my AutoX career to date.
I wish I could make it to S-Zing, but there is no way to make that happen.
