And I’m not joking, either.

In March, my husband and I are taking off for nearly two weeks of blissful vacation to Disney World in Orlando. Since we skipped a honeymoon and it’s our fifth anniversary this year, we figured it was about time for a nice big trip like this.

In a way, this was going to be a non-car-related trip at all. We often travel because of cars or something to do with cars, a la Miatas at Myrtle Beach or my excursion with the Porsche Club to Canada. Even when we visited Seattle last fall, we had to include the Ferrari dealership as a stop in the trip.

Well, trying to fit in attendance to the 12 Hours of Sebring didn’t work out well. The dates, yes, the rest of the travel plans…. Not so much. We decided that that would be left to its own trip someday and to just do the “touristy” Disney thing for now, sans cars.

That is, until I found the Exotic Driving Experience. And I just couldn’t say no. I mean, who could?!

Pricey, yeah, but so is everything else like this that I’ve looked into. And believe me, I’ve wanted to plan a trip to Las Vegas to do one of these things for quite some time. (Vegas just because it’s somewhat close, cheap to fly, abundant places to stay and, well, supercars!)

Perhaps my only disappointment was the lack of a 911 Turbo, which, as you all should know, I’m completely obsessed with. Sad, but I’ll get there someday anyhow, even if it’s not this year.

I pretty much zeroed in on the 458 Italia from the beginning. How could I not? My first Ferrari love was the F430, but I even have a fondness of the 360 Modena, so of course I’m going to love the next evolution of the line. That and, well, I don’t ever see myself owning a 458, though I expect I’ll become rather smitten with the car.

My husband will be commandeering the wheel of the Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 Superleggera. She’d have been my first choice, if I wasn’t just a total Ferrari > Lamborghini girl. But I’ll get to the Lamborghinis eventually. I mean, I have to drive them at some point… I have zero desire to own one after all. (While I don’t think I’ll ever own a 458, it’s not because I wouldn’t want to!)

Of course, I’ll be sharing my experience here. I have my trusty iPhone 4S to have snaps of the day, and we’ll be purchasing whatever souvenirs/photos/video they have to offer. It’s just going to be a super special day, I already can’t wait.

In the meantime, I’ve been doing some extra research on the 458 Italia. I want to kinda get to know her before I *really* get to know her. So I found a couple of videos on YouTube that I enjoyed. Hope you like them too!

My second autocross wasn’t exactly the best day out for me, I had a hard time trying to be fast and just didn’t make it happen.

June, however, was great to me! I somehow became competitive and was running times up there with people, not at the back of the pack the entire time… I was even excited to be beating people. (I was faster than a stock Mini Cooper! Don’t judge, those things can be wicked autocrossing…)

My Results

Once again, going without my support system (the husband) isn’t fun, but it’s also extra motivation to do really well and make him proud of me.

At the end of the day, I even made myself proud — I came home with a 3rd Place trophy!!

My awesome little 3rd Place Trophy!

And I wasn’t 3/3 either, I was 3/4! That means there was actually somebody who was slower than me. Really, that hardly ever happens…

Definitely a proud and surreal day for me. July’s autocross is coming up quick, and I’m wondering if I can’t pull it off again.

The Videos

Once again, I’m either waiting in line for my turn at the course or chasing cones, so I don’t really have time to play photographer if I want to play racer too.

It’s quite alright with my GoPro, though! I might put it on photo mode one of these days and see how that goes, but for now I’m enjoying the video I end up with.

I had nine runs on this particular day, and managed to only screw up the recording of one… So there are eight videos to share.

If you want to see my fastest run of the day, that’s the fourth video down. (My fifth run, I botched the video on the third run.)

There are good race days, and then there are bad race days. Sadly, this particular day fell into the latter category for me… It just wasn’t my day.

Regardless of having a very slow day, it was a ton of fun! It was great to get out and autocross at Spokane County Raceway. Definitely different than any other course I’ve ever run — It was cones set up on the track itself!

It was probably nice for the novices — There was really no way to get lost. Though for anyone who’s first day was out there, I think it’ll be way intimidating when we go back to Deer Park next time and you’re staring at a sea of cones.

Since my amazing sidekick and adorable husband of mine is deployed, I ended up going to the event solo… Which meant that I had no time to bother with taking photos. My poor Nikon had to stay home. (I decided to leave it at home rather than worry about someone walking off with it.)

Instead…

Since I knew I would be hard-pressed for any photos, and I definitely can’t take photos of myself racing, I made sure I got a GoPro camera.

While I will always love photography, I’m finding my venture into the world of video to be an interesting one… Hey, it’s fun because I can do both video AND drive, at the same time!

Naturally, I forgot to turn the camera on for what ended up being my fastest run of the day… *Sigh* Hopefully next time I won’t forget to do that!

Overall, it wasn’t a very good day for me, but I think everyone has bad days where it just doesn’t come together. That’s how this day was for me, definitely! Anytime I would try to do something it just wasn’t working.

Next time, I’m going to figure out how to better read my tires to see what’s going on… I have a feeling that’s to the point where it’s making a difference to me big time and I need to get on it.

Here’s my video results from the day!!

Yup! I have finally entered the world of video… I got myself a GoPro camera for an early birthday present.

My own GoPro wasn’t my first experience with the camera, though. Some friends of ours got two of them over the winter to use autocrossing, and they let us record some of our own autocross laps with them!

It was crazy cool to watch my husband drive the S2000 around and awesome for me to see how close I can get the Miata to cones.

My First Autocross Videos

Since I love sharing, here are my first autocross videos! These weren’t my super fast laps by any means, but you can see the course (I never got lost, yay!) and in the one view I found it really cool to watch my suspension during the run.

Of course, after watching these I knew I had to get one. I was already planning on it someday, but it definitely expedited the process. The fact that my husband was deploying (he’s now deployed) helped it along too — it would be awesome to share video of my autocrossing with him while he’s gone. (Since I won’t be able to take any photos of myself, lol.)

The Karting Test

Surprisingly, my own GoPro showed up a couple of days before my husband left. After outfitting it with a 16GB memory card, I wanted to test it out. We set it up mounted to my helmet and decided to see how it did recording a go karting session.

We headed over to the local indoor karting place and proceeded to beat ourselves up for 15 minutes of fun. (The soreness lasted a few days, the price of fun. Ouch.)

The camera did fantastic! But don’t just take my word for it, view it yourself:

This isn’t the true HD setting, either. I plan on testing out the 1080 setting at my next autocross, and maybe a couple of other settings just to see what works best.

At any rate, I’ll be sharing plenty of video in the coming months. Feel free to check out my YouTube channel for all of my videos and to catch them as I post them! (I won’t be posting ALL of them here, just like I don’t post ALL of my photos here.)

Or just like my Facebook page, where just about everything is posted as soon as I get it up.

One thing I missed terribly was racing. While I’ve never been fantastic at it, I also know I have potential… And I want to develop this potential. It’s important enough to me to work on it.

Plus autocrossing isn’t terribly expensive, so I can easily afford to do it. (Especially with my job.) As long as I can get the days off for it, I’m going to be there!

First Autocross of 2011

My last autocross was in 2009, which was also the year I did all of my racing… I think my first autocross was in December of 2008 and I ran the entire season in 2009. (Save for one autocross event I missed when I was doing my first track day.)

In 2010, I didn’t do anything because of our moving. It was also hard for me to afford it without a job…. So here I am, finally ready, willing and able to get back into it in 2011.

My Miata and I out on the course!

I had a blast racing, that’s for sure. It was a great day out for it, clear, mostly sunny and dry! The Miata handled great and I finally got to enjoy my Kumho Ecsta XS’s racing! It’s only what I got them for after all…

Results

My personal results were both good and bad.

I say good, because I nearly shaved off 12 seconds from my first run to my last run. That’s pretty good. I improved and my final time of a 52.9 was completely unexpected.

I also say bad, because I didn’t quite do well enough to place. I have no idea where I ended up… It’s kinda sad for me. I really like competing and winning, haha. I strive for that. But I’m at a huge disadvantage going up against people who have been doing this for so much longer than I have. The competitive times were nearly all ten seconds faster than my fastest time. Ouch.

Then again, I wasn’t the slowest person out there either! And that’s always a plus in my book.

And some photos!

I even managed to have some time to take some photos of the cars. My awesome husband worked for me on the first shift so I could play with my camera too. That was nice.

Three wheel cornering!

This is a car I never knew of until we got up here, a Nissan NX2000.

One of the new STi sedans doing what ours will be doing this fall.

I had a limited space of the field to shoot with, so I tried a few different things. Not sure if this is working or not, but I really like the mountains in the background.

The background mountains also look good here, though I kind of wish I had a slower shutter speed so the WRX didn't look like it was sitting still.

I kind of like the framing of the cones... (Not our S2000, but very similar!)

Prior to Hallett, I have never been to a “real” racetrack. Well, not a road course, anyways. Nothing like this.

And this…. This was pure love. I swear, if I had a calling within racing, this is it. This is what I would love to do, day in and day out. I would forgo every other type of racing just to do this. I think. I haven’t tried enough to say that for sure yet, but I can imagine I would.

Overview of the trip

We left late Friday morning, sadly too late to make it out to the track at all on Friday. A close friend and mentor had offered to take me out in his Miata and see the layout of the track if we made it, but we kinda left a bit late. Thankfully, we made it in time to sign in, check into our room, get me to the novice introductory mandatory meeting and be around for the pizza party.

When we first pulled into the parking lot, my heart stopped. I swore I saw NSX tail lights, but I also shook it off as me being overly optimistic. Wtf would an NSX be doing here? Now, of all times? But it was, it was!! And the guy she belonged to was rather nice, if not a bit odd about the car. She was a 1991, and of course made my husband wish our S2000 was with us. (Alas, we just brought the Miata again.)

Saturday morning was killer. 4:30 am is a time I thought no longer existed, and yet here I was, crawling out of bed and forcing a danish down my throat, knowing that while I wasn’t hungry yet it was sure to beat the alternative. We then made the ~40 minute trek from the hotel to the track, mostly in the dark but getting to kinda sorta watch the sun rise. The driver’s meeting got in the way of that, sadly.

Thankfully, the horrible class room stuff was done! The first group of cars lined up and was off, and I was in my version of heaven… Only with just Miatas. I’d like heaven a lot more if I get more than just Miatas, but definitely have to have Miatas.

Saturday wore me out so bad that we went back to the hotel and went to bed…. Quite literally. We slept through the Saturday night banquet, and just woke up Sunday to make the five hour drive home, only stopping once.

But Saturday!!!

Watching the Intermediate 2 group out on the track for the first time was awesome. Listening to the cars running, sounding as giddy as kids at a carnival was just pure joy for me. After their first run, it was my group’s turn — the novices. As a novice, we each got an assigned instructor, who’d be working with us the whole day to get us used to the idea of driving on a track. It’s a lot different, that’s for sure… It’s even way different than autocrossing. (Though some bits are similar, I suppose.)

I crossed my fingers for an instructor that I knew, and had about a 30% chance in getting that wish. I was super lucky in that, not only did I get someone that I knew, but I ended up getting paired with one of the Spec Miata drivers, Chris Edens. (I think he’s around my age, but I’m not for sure on that. He doesn’t look very old to me.) He had to leave early on Sunday to get home, only to be leaving for Wisconsin and a Spec Miata race.

I was definitely in heaven, for sure. I had on my bucket list to talk to a SM driver, so I’m counting this as that. I spent most of the day talking with one.

And riding with one. And that was the crazy awesome scary cool part. As I said, us novices were taken out on the track at first by our instructors, so we could get a feel for the layout instead of just getting thrown into it. And it was the coolest thing I’ve ever gotten to do…. Ride, in my car, driven by a Spec Miata driver. It was insane. Insanely cool. It was fast, and my car did awesome. (She did awesome the entire trip, really. She loves racing.)

We were even complimented, as he said she was well balanced. From a guy who gets to drive a fully prepped race Miata, this was a huge compliment for us. And believe me, I’ve seen his Spec car before… I love getting to see her when I stop by the shop. (We’ve known his father for a while because our mechanic rents a space in his shop, and he started being there when we showed up a few months ago. We show up a lot…. Three cars keeps us busy.)

So I got driven around a bit in my first session. I started out driving the second session, but about halfway through turned it over so that I could watch and memorize a bit more. I drove for the entire third session, which showed that I had gotten the lines down, the braking down and all that good stuff. All that was left to do was go faster and get a bit more aggressive.

The forth session I was sent out solo, to see if that made me go faster. And it did! I went fast! Maybe not as fast as some people, but definitely fast for me… Sadly, I seem to have problems going fast. (I am constantly getting told to put my foot down in autocross. How many racers do you have to tell that to?!) This time, I did… And it was wonderful. I had a blast. I loved it. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to drive forever like that.

While it all seemed overwhelming at first, I felt like I was getting the hang of it by the end of the day. It was great to feel awesome after finishing my fourth session and to hang out, watching the Intermediate 1 group and then the Experienced group, where most Miatas were either turbos or supercharged.

I just love it.

I could go on talking about it forever…. It was a fantastic day, and it made me fall in love with the Miata all over again. I had been wondering about the car up until that point, but now I know that I want her with me still. She’s my little race car, and she’ll always be that way. I can’t imagine racing any other car, she’s perfect for that and she’s perfect for me. (My Silvia will just relieve her of the day-to-day duties of ordinary cars, so she can focus on being my cute little racing roadster!)

Did I mention that I loved it? I’m definitely going back next year…. A few times. It’s kinda expensive, but worth every penny of it. Plus I got the Hallett shirt I’ve been coveting ever since I first saw people with them. And I sure did earn it!

Only one low point to the whole trip — I lost one of my autocross magnets during my fourth session! Guess I went too fast and blew it off…. When, funny enough, I had joked about that earlier in the day. Will have to get it replaced now! (Or get better magnets, I guess.)

Pictures for proof!

Not that I think anyone would doubt me… But I’m sure you were all waiting to see some pictures! (And some may just skip to it, which is fine with me!)

This is no Miata....!

One of my pics that seems to sum up the day well.

Us novices stopping to get in the driver's seat during our first session.

Wheeee!!!

I thought this was a kinda cool, race day type of picture.

I was in picture heaven with all the different things to snap pics of.

Oh, and the cars! They made for awesome pics too, especially the full-time racers.

I liked the checkered print on the back of her... Made me think of a dalmatian though.

She made our paint look fantastic!

Poor Fuji Racing -- this girl's engine went bye-bye. (Damage from going off the track after the engine failed.)

I was loving every minute of my time out on the track.

I love having these pictures to show that yup, I did it!! My Miata also has a Hallett sticker that she now proudly wears. Can't wait to go back!!

I love being able to hang out with our Miata club, they’re a fun bunch of people. I just don’t like it when my own Miata acts up…. Some days she’s good, other days she’s just not so good. So when we had this drive come up, I was a bit hesitant to bring her along… It’s not fun when she just doesn’t want to run quite right.

Thankfully, this bunch is extremely understanding. Coupled with the fact that we had just gotten our S2000 back, it was deemed that the Miata would sit this out and the S2000 joined a nice-sized group of Miatas on a drive to Perryville to get some steak!

Great drive…

Group drives are always fun… Well, unless you get separated or lost or something. But usually they’re lots of fun. Because our S2000′s not exactly quiet, we were voted and willingly drove in the back of the group. The entire drive went along nice and smooth, with the hardest part being the initial leaving from the parking lot and actually parking at the tiny restaurant.

Being at the back also afforded me plenty of great photo opps, so I took the liberty of snapping dozens of pictures to eventually sort through. I like driving, but I like taking pictures… So I like to switch off a lot. It’s hard to do both at the same time…!

Better people.

While the drive was great, dinner was also very good. We sat with a couple who have been with the club from the very beginning, who were much older than my husband and I are. Despite the age difference, it was great to chat with them and swap stories and all that… When you all have a common interest (an appreciation for cars, especially the Miata) it’s not hard to get along swimmingly.

I always find us being some of the youngest people involved in Miata gatherings… Which is odd, considering just how affordable these awesome little cars are. I’m just glad that I can be another generation that the Miata has touched, and hopefully pass it on to others. My car seems to be a hit with six year old boys anyhow!

The pictures

Without further ado, the pictures to go along with my story. Plus my commentary.

One of the many pics I managed to snap on the drive there.

Since we were in the back, I got pics of all the Miatas in the group.

The best sign to see on a fun drive.

Part of the group, just arrived at the restaurant.

The second half of the Miata group.

Yup, we took our S2000. Lucky for us, everyone pretended she was a Miata!

I have to say, that until recently, I never really realized just what a difference tire pressure makes. I know, it’s pretty sad that I only recently had that revelation… But better late than never, right? Besides, my “racing career” is very young at this point, and I’m definitely in the lots of learning stage. While you can always learn and improve, I’m learning and improving by leaps and bounds. Eventually it’ll slow down, but that day feels very far away.

Better late than never.

To get my feet wet, I started autocrossing in December of 2008. She’s been relatively unchanged since that first autocross, since I felt too weird wanting to race a stock car. People do it all the time, but I didn’t feel so serious without having something done, plus I was worried about looking funny.

Well, I still look funny, but I’ve since realized that nobody’s bothered by it. Most people are way too supportive and encouraging to notice that I’m the slowest. (Or usually the second slowest… I tend to beat one person, but only one.) Actually, it’s fairly nice. I get advice dispensed all the time… Once I start catching up, I’m sure it’ll be harder to come by!

Who, not always what, you know.

Yes, what you know is important. I knew that tire pressure was key to autocrossing, but I didn’t really know what I should do. Thankfully, the people I know more than make up for this lack of knowledge.

I knew that tire pressures could help the car handle better. I know that you can adjust them based on how the car’s driving. In my case, I was faced with massive understeer. Understeer to the point of it not being fun… It’s never fun though, I guess. The point is, it was horrible that my RWD car was refusing to turn, nearly at all, and it cost me dearly. Autocrosses are measured in seconds, so each fraction of one counts!

Solution? Adjust tire pressures, of course! Typically, cars do better with a slightly higher pressure in the front. Instead, I made the call to raise the pressure in the back. This was confirmed, since the raised back pressure should counter the understeer, but if I added too much I’d be facing oversteer. No way to be sure until I drove the car again.

In the end, I decided to go with 30 PSI front, 35 PSI rear. Bit high, but I figured if she was feeling really squirrely it’s much, much easier to let air out than get it in, and I could adjust it in grid if this was the case. Instead, it made her a tad bit tail happy. While drifting isn’t the fastest way to corner, it’s a rush to slide the car!

While adjusting, it was obvious why she didn’t want to handle quite right: My front tire pressures didn’t match, one was a bit higher than 30 and the other a bit lower than 30. The rears were sitting at roughly 27 each. I’m pretty sure I could have been a tad bit faster had I decided to bleed some air from the rears and adjust pressure to 32 or so, but I was enjoying the bit of sliding we were doing. It was all well controlled, and as I said before, it’s a rush!

Practice, practice, practice…

I’ve been told I should start a logbook for my Miata, but I’m still not entirely convinced. Logbooks are normally for the “real” race cars, the ones with the full cages, fire extinguishers, gutted interiors and kill switches, not for my street car turned weekend racer. However, it might do me some good.

While practice is the only way to improvement, it would be good to document my learning along the way. I could see myself drawing tiny course maps in a notebook, to make sure I don’t get any DNF’s. (Did not finish, what you get when you get lost on course.) Typical logbooks record: Time and day, track, temperature & weather conditions, any other misc. driver’s notes and the car’s readings, anything from tire pressure to gas to oil, oil pressure, air:fuel mix, boost, etc.

Like I said, it seems a bit overkill for us at the moment. I don’t plan on being nationally competitive in autocross, it takes quite a bit more than I think I’m willing to give… Especially when I can take the money and spend it on a high performance driving event on a track. And end up with more seat time. For now, autocross is my introduction to the world of racing… Even though I’m not fast, I still have fun. Solo is about competing against myself and the clock, nobody else.

Eventually, though, I can see a logbook doing us some good. When the Miata’s a bit more modified, when I’m a much better driver, when we’re looking to be a bit more competitive. For now, the most I care about is improving my times, working on finding the limit of my car and having fun.

However, I won’t ignore the easy things that help me improve my times. Tire pressures, I won’t forget about you again!

Who knows, next it might be removing the spare for me… Something else I’m convinced won’t impact my times. There’s always next month, I suppose…!

Sorry, but I’m somewhat excited here… I get to do my first (albeit amateur) car review! Also unofficial, because it’s a car we happen to be babysitting… A 2003 Nismo S-tune 350Z. Our friend got deployed, and we convinced him that it was better for us to take care of her and drive her every once in a while than letting her sit for four months.

Overall: It’s a great car, but it’s not for me. Right now, anyways. It doesn’t give me the feedback that I like from my cars, and it would need quite a few upgrades to get it out of one.

Here’s the one I drove. Nice, but maybe too nice for me.

But, if the price was right… Can’t say I would ever mind having one in my stable, someday. I’m sure I could appreciate the GT qualities someday, I just like my very raw sports cars right now.