The summer doldrums are upon us. No autocross dates at the "Q"-so what's a poor boy to do? "Go north, young man", to paraphrase some historical advice (we're already as "west" as we can get here in San Diego!)

In this case, it means about a 2-hour drive up I-15 to the Emergency Vehicle Operations Center (EVOC) in San Bernardino, to run in a Zone 8 autocross hosted by our Orange Coast and Riverside Regions PCA brethren on June 19th. This was actually a "make-up" date for the April 24th event that was rained out, but a welcome addition to the schedule, since there were no local autocross events in June at all.

So that Saturday morning I hit the road at 5:00 a.m. in a light, misty drizzle, with four race tires strapped to a pair of old surf racks stuck on the roof of my trusty 911, already loaded to the gills with tools, floor jack, air bottle, helmet, chair, cooler, etc. Sort of the "Grapes of Wrath Headed for Daytona" look. Very funky. Luckily, it is early and still dark, so none of my neighbors are up and about to witness my exit and wonder at the sight.

The misty rain finally clears up somewhere after Temecula as I head through Riverside County, and I take the 215 bypass out to Devore, pulling into the EVOC right on schedule at 7:00 a.m. Unload the car, mount the race tires, get teched and registered, and I am ready and raring to go by 8:00 a.m. The sun is out, it's turning into a beautiful day, and I am ready to race. Unfortunately, the old "hurry up and wait" syndrome begins to weigh in. There has been a bad wreck on the freeway, apparently, and some key people are caught in a traffic jam, delaying the finish of course preparation and the start of the driver's meeting.

Meanwhile, the sun continues to rise and shine mightily. In this high inland valley, the temperature rapidly heads toward the century mark, with no clouds or cooling ocean breezes to temper it. As the first beads of sweat rise on my brow, I begin to remember why I like living near the beach.

Lars Frohm, our ever cheerful and gracious host, as event director, apologizes for the delay and invites everyone to take some slow and careful parade laps around the course, in order to become more familiar with it, while we are waiting for the Chief Driving Instructor to arrive. I hop in my car and check it out. I had driven in one other autocross at this venue a year ago, and the course is set up identically, using part of the big track with it's banked sweepers, then darting into the infield on each side for some twisty sections, and even a small hill to climb. It's a very fun course, but not without some consequences compared to the stadium. The nicely banked, on-camber sweepers are lined with very unforgiving "Armco" retaining rails, just waiting to punish my tail-happy 911 for any high speed oversteering mistakes. If you go off the track anywhere else, you are in the dirt, weeds and rocks, or possibly, at wetter times of the year, a water hazard that lurks next to the high speed kink before the hairpin S-turn! The course is actually shorter and faster than many we have set up at the stadium, averaging around 70 seconds for a lap instead of 90.

After three or four parade laps, I'm warmed up and ready to go. I head back to the pits and park, getting out of my car just in time to see a brand new, red, 996 Cabriolet spin off the track in the first braking zone, throwing dirt and rocks all over the course. Hey, I thought Lars said "slow and safe parade laps!?!"

I have plenty of time still to wander around the pits and check out the wide variety of cars. There are at least 10 non-Porsches running in exhibition class, including a BMW, a Mercedes, a Nissan, a Honda, a vintage Mustang, a 550 Spyder replica, a Mazda RX-7 twin turbo, and two Lotuses-a Super 7 and an Elan 26R. Lots of familiar San Diego faces have shown up, including Tim and Tom Comeau in the San Diego Motorsports trailer, Bob Bertrand towing his yellow 914, Ron Groth with his hopped-up '73S, Jerry Sturm with his immaculate '67 911S, Charlie Kleinhans and Scott Carey with their 944s, the Hauptmans and Jim Bohorquez rounding out the 914 contingent, Tim Cheshire with his 911SC, and Gary Samad and Gary Barnhill in their Boxsters. I find out later that almost a third of the nearly 100 entries are from the San Diego Region-there were quite a few others that I didn't recognize. Sorry if I left you out!

The most interesting car to me is a white '73 911RS Lightweight sporting a "1ST RS" license plate. I talk to the owner, Richard Price, and find out that it is actually the first factory RS off the production line, and has been a racecar all of it's life. It has 9,000 miles on it and is in excellent condition. I am amazed and gratified that it is out running on the track instead of languishing in a museum or collector's garage. As I expected, Richard and his friend T. J. Wallace drive it in a spirited fashion, but well within its limits, not risking any damage by an off-track excursion.

In fact, that is exactly how I drive the course, too, when we finally start with full-speed practice runs about 10:00 a.m. Even though my mongrel '67S conversion is not nearly as valuable as such an historic, vintage racecar, I conclude that a prudent approach is the best strategy under these conditions. I begin conservatively, and carefully explore each turn for the limits of adhesion, working my speed up slowly each lap, going a little harder and a little deeper each time, but never over the edge. At Qualcomm, I am much more aggressive at pushing the envelope, often feeling that if I don't spin at least once, or drive off the course when I can't make a corner, I'm not pushing hard enough. Here, I don't even put two wheels off all day. I concentrate on being smooth and not upsetting the car in the high speed sections, but still get to do the throttle-steering dance through the tighter, 2^nd gear sections. OK, maybe I get a little bit sideways in the hairpin once, braking too late off the back straight, but I mash the throttle and pull it back in easily.

Others are less timid, it seems, as there are more than a few delays caused by having to clean up and reset the track after another "off." I spend some quality time strapped into my car in a motionless pregrid sweating in my helmet. Did I mention it's getting really hot by about now?

After my practice session I work the first corner station for two run groups, thankful for my broad-brimmed straw hat and a big mug of root beer. Luckily, there is very little action in my corner, and I just have to reset a couple of cones and sweep off a few rocks.

After returning to the pits, I seek out some shade to watch the action. Bob Bertrand is very familiar with the track and his runs are extremely impressive, as usual, and Jerry Sturm is coming up to speed quickly during his first session on this track. Tim Comeau is new to the track also, but uses his racing knowledge to quickly find the fastest line in his Sportomatic Targa. Tom Comeau brought his car up in the trailer with Tim, instead of driving it as he usually does, and there are no noise restrictions at EVOC, so he has fitted a new, open exhaust on his tricked-out RS America and it sounds brutally, lustfully loud, screaming around the course. Scott Carey has a new set of rims and tires that are giving him more stick than ever before in his 944 Turbo, but the fastest car I see is the Mazda RX-7 turbo, which seems to be set up very well, is very powerful and well-driven.

The most exciting moment in practice comes when Judy Joseph, a woman who lives only a few blocks from me in La Jolla, but whom I had just met that morning at the event, loses it in the S-turn, sliding sideways, over-correcting, and swinging back across the track as she crests the hill, going off and disappearing down the other side-her beautiful, silver 993 Carrera S doing it's best imitation of a Weed Whacker. Luckily, she and the car are unscathed, and she is able to continue.

The second practice session has to be cut short due to the earlier delays, and the timed runs begin about 1:00 p.m. The San Diego contingent acquits itself very well, posting 8 of the top 12 times of the day for Porsches. Tim Comeau puts on his secret weapon, an ice vest, and coolly collects the best lap for a Porsche of 62.63 seconds. The fastest time overall is by the RX-7, though, turning a lap just .55 seconds faster than Tim's. Bob Bertrand is second among the Porsches, only .31 behind Tim, and Ron Groth is edged out of third place by OCR hotshoe Don Bierce, with a mere 7 thousandths of a second margin, at 63.31. Steve Lutz from Santa Barbara Region comes fifth, and Tom Comeau finishes sixth with a 64.29, just in front of Gary Barnhill, who blazes a 65.39 in his newly lowered Boxster, running on street tires! I am surprised to discover, however, that Gary is officially an OCR member. He is such a regular at the San Diego events and has written such entertaining articles for our newsletter, that I think we should just ignore the fact that he lives in Newport Beach and claim him as our own!

Scott Carey and Tim Cheshire finish eighth and ninth, with times of 65.51 and 65.94, respectively, and in the oddest happenstance of the day, Jerry Sturm, Lars Frohm and I are all timed at 66.00 seconds flat on our best runs, finishing in a 3-way tie for the tenth spot. As a relative newcomer, I am ecstatic to equal the times of two such accomplished drivers and make the top 10 for the first time ever. The last time I ran this track in April of '98, on street tires, my best time was 72.14! I feel a warm sense of accomplishment flooding through me, a feeling that I may have made some real, measurable improvements in my car and my driving in the last year, but it may just be a bad case of sunburn coming over me.

Still, I can't get the satisfied smile off my face as I pack up my car for the long drive home. My heartfelt thanks go out to Lars and all the other Orange Coast and Riverside Region volunteers who worked so hard, under difficult circumstances, to make this memorable day of friendly competition and camaraderie possible. Here's hoping that we get some dates at the "Q" real soon, so I won't have to drive 300 miles to get in 10 or 12 laps at speed! See you there....

This '97 993 Twin Turbo S ran with me at the first autox I went to at EVOC. It turned a 70 second lap, obviously a little less than it was capable of running....

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