Chesapeake Region
Autocross Update By: Greg Hartke; Photos: Jim McKee Ah, the racing life! You just can’t beat it for fun! CHS PCA Autocross #5 was contested on Saturday August 12 at Prince George’s Stadium in Bowie and I’m happy to say the weather cooperated and the event went like clockwork. Although I cap the registration at 65, at one point I had as many as 68 or 69 Confirmed for this event. That happens when special people and ardent supporters wind up registering late for one reason or another – I always try to accommodate our regulars if at all possible and I know there will always be a few late cancellations to bring the registration down to around the cap. Besides, how can I possibly not accept someone like PCA Executive Director Vu Nguyen when he finds he has an opening in his schedule and registers late? It’s tough on Vu because the PCA is a volunteer organization and he frequently has obligations to meet that might be anywhere in the country on the weekends because he’s working with people who have day jobs. I sure was glad to have Vu in attendance, too – haven’t seen enough of him out there racing with us this year. th
Since we’ve been filling the registration early this year, it’s quite legitimate to ask why we don’t cap the registration at 75 or 80 (or more) and run three heats. (Three heats doesn’t really work with 60 to 65 drivers – there are simply not enough workers available for each heat.) There are multiple reasons, but the most important one is that Prince George’s County requires that if there are more than 100 people in attendance at an event at PGS, the organizers are required to hire Police for the event. That’s just too much for our modest endeavor, so we stick to a 65-driver cap to avoid going over the limit, which results (with spectators) in no more than about 90 people or so in attendance. Good enough for us! In the end, we had 64 drivers with 31 Porsches for AX#5. The attendance of Porsches was a little thinner than usual for this one, but we’re happy to have everyone come race with us, no matter what they’re driving. A lot of those non -Porsche drivers are regular participants and good friends. In fact, some PCA members drive non-Porsches in our races for various reasons. It’s all good! In fact, Michael Ricketts came out with his 997, but had some car trouble and had to go back home to get his Volvo XC40 (an EV) in order to compete. He barely made it back in order to drive in the first heat, too. Now that’s dedication, but I would expect nothing less from Michael.
Set up went quite smoothly (as usual) with John Cho, Phong Nguyen, Pinto Soin, and Doug Slocum doing their usual fabulous work to get us ready. Co-chair (and course designer) Mark Hubley got back from swapping his truck (used to bring the trailer to PGS) for his model 981 Cayman GTS just in time to put the finishing touches on the course build. Marilyn also brought everything I couldn’t fit in my car for the event: 32 lbs of
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