Chesapeake Region
Autocross Update By: Greg Hartke; Photos: Jim Mckee This last month has been eventful, that’s for sure. There were two Autocross events this month: on Sunday April 2 , we held Instructor Day (in the morning) and Test & Tune (in the afternoon). Because this is a double event with both morning and afternoon sessions, it makes for a very long day for those of us involved with both. On top of that, we held the massively important Introduction to Autocross (aka the AX School) on Saturday April 22nd. The AX School is a really complicated event over a long day and hugely important because, after all, this is how we get newcomers involved in the hobby. nd
With two events on the same day (I-Day and Test & Tune), there was certainly a lot of prep work to be done. This was the first time I had undertaken all the prep work on my own, but it went quite smoothly due to the excellent documentation that was left behind. Thanks, Meilyng! Instructor Day is a big thank you for the instructors who work at our events and at the AX School. Basically, we invite them to come out, break them up into two groups, and drive for a couple/three hours on the course that’s being used for the Test & Tune with timing set up so they can see how they’re doing. We don’t typically have a lot of Instructors showing up, so they get lots of runs and have lots of fun. It’s a great way for them to knock off the rust and prepare for the season.
Interestingly, I was racing at a Potomac AX the day before at Summit Point and from there managed to get three more Instructors to come out to our event Sunday morning. Funny situation: they had all been invited, but for one reason or another, had missed (or had forgotten to respond to) the invitation. All good – we wound up with 16
32