Autocross #4 was another beautiful, hot day on the runways at Alameda Gateway. Chris Cox offered up a excellent, challenging course, although maybe with just one too many moral dilemmas. A finish line just before a tight turn is inevitably a test of an autocrosser's soul. Do I break before the light and safely make the turn, or do I wait to brake until just after the light and gain those precious tenths, nevermind that making the corner will take a miracle? It didn't take long for one of us to fail that test, resulting in a set of stickly race tires sliding across the timing cable and scattering the timing beacon.

That one incident was enough to prove the point, however. A design committe of a few thousand was quickly convened, and a safer, less tempting, finish was quickly constructed. Fortunately, the timing equipment came through unscathed. As the course was now different, all the previous times were thrown out and we started all over again. Everything ran smoothly the remainder of the day.

The planetary alignment of the summar solstice was a lucky sign for Chris Cox, finally snatching a TToD from Andrew Blyholder. Andrew had the last shot, lining up for his last run needing to find just a hair less than a tenth of a second to regain the lead. Flashing through the finish, he'd found that tenth plus two more...but oh, that cone! Congrats to Chris.

Chris' run was good enough for top PAX time too, again besting Andrew. The PAX contest was especially tight this event, with just three quarters of a second covering the first 6 places, and just 1.5 seconds covering the top ten.

Pilar Miranda, co-driving the 2004 GT3 with Chris Cox, took TToD Ladies.

A special mention to Terry Zaccone, Essy Fariab, and Dave Dunwoodie, who had a knuckle-biting finish in AX12, with Terry coming out on top by just 0.053 seconds over Essy, and Essy beating Dave by just 0.004 seconds! Now that's a tightly contested class.

Next event is back to Alaemda on July 19th.