There are two parts ahead of this, running through the trip out. You might want to read them. Part I is here and part II is here.
My codriver, Sam Krauss, did not particularly want to get to the event site by 6:30. But I'm a little spastic in the morning, and since we were in group A, I wanted to get a few walks in, plus make sure everything was good with the car. So, we met in the lobby about 6:10, stopped to grab the ice I promised I'd bring for McCance, and we were on site by 6:30, easy... after all, the hotel Annie got was maybe a mile from the site.
So, with only a hair over 110 entries (similar to last year), the National staff opted for only two groups this year. ESP was in the second half of group A, which meant that as soon as we were done running, we'd be working. It was a little odd to only have two groups at a Pro, but usually the Packwood events are pretty laid back for worker changes so I wasn't concerned.
I was running first, paired up with Greg.
Notice how early I take off on my first left side run? Yeah, a definite red light. I would proceed to have problems with red lights and cones on my left side throughout the day, leaving me third after the morning (Greg had nothing on the right side).
Sam started off well with the car, running a 27.4 on the left (to my coned 27.7) and a 28.7 on the right (I had a 28.9). This would be good enough to put him in first for the afternoon runs, ahead of Kit Gauthier by 0.4.
We had almost 90 minutes for a lunch break, so there was time to grab something from the on site grill (which was a fund raiser for a local church youth group) plus walk again. Sam and I discussed how the car was handling, and it seemed fine to both of us, despite my two red lights.We prepared for the afternoon battle.
Pointing out the magnetic on the rear may have incited Greg to drive better
Annie had pointed out that the Packwood surface tends to deteriorate over the event, so that the afternoon runs weren't as quick as the morning, though I hadn't experienced that in the previous events I'd attended. Sam, however, wasn't able to match his morning times, while Greg and Kit improved, leaving Sam in third and Greg in the lead.
Meanwhile, I did have better times, though my red light/cone issues on the left continued, so for Sunday morning, I'd still be sitting on my coned 27.7 for that side. I also coned a 0.3 improvement on the right. :( I'd go into Sunday's runs DFL. I was particularly angry about my red light on my last left side run, where I thought I'd given myself plenty of time to be green. I guess I deep staged or something.
We finished up fairly early due to the two heat format, so we walked the courses, then sat and talked with McCance who shared some brews, including the Hellrazer IPA I'd brought. He relayed that he'd "detuned" his car to drive up on 91 octane (it was usually running E85), and that his driver side seat was miserable for a road trip. I sat in it momentarily and pronounced it unfit for even four runs in a heat at a Pro. Seriously, it has a weird hump in the lumbar area that is awful. I don't know how he dealt with it for however many hours of a drive.
Eventually, Sam and I decided to head into town for a quick bite, and ended up going back to the Blue Spruce. Things certainly seemed dead there this year, as there was no karaoke, and I think a lot of people just stayed on site for the Hymans' party, where we eventually went. Eric was gladly pouring margaritas for all -- heck, we'd barely come within the RV's perimeter, and he was already pouring drinks -- though even here, things seems a bit more subdued than last year. I'm not sure which key element was missing, but while we had fun, it was definitely not the same.
Sunday morning was do-or-die for me. I needed a clean left side time to get out of the basement. I was getting frustrated, especially after the last one caught me off guard, and wasn't feeling particularly confident that I could pull it off. My times were good, just dirty.
Sam started off much as he had when he ran my car at the NJ ProSolo -- he spun on the left. He followed that up with... I don't know exactly what he did. I just know that when he came in, there was a cone wedged under the car that didn't want to come out, plus my front bumper cover was so askew, the fog lights were ready to go BMW and fall out. He was officially credited with three cones, but it didn't matter. The time wasn't there on that run, much less the next two. Meanwhile, Greg didn't improve either ("BFGs aren't morning peoples" is what he says about his tires), but Kit dropped a few tenths on the left side.
The door was open.
I was starting on the right, with the knowledge that I had to get a clean left side time. I launched somewhat tentatively and got a 0.7 -- my slowest all weekend. Taking that into consideration, the 29.1 I ran was on par with the 28.9 I was sitting on. Then the left side. I waited, waited, and waited, making sure I had a good, green light (another 0.7), and then stayed off the cones. The result was a clean-but-slow 28.5 which put me into fourth. Another right side, and another mediocre effort that was no faster than Saturday's last run had me slide back to fifth when Jessy ran a 28.1. So, it was all on the last run, and I knew it. I cranked out another 0.5 light, and proceeded to run a respectable 27.642. Why couldn't I have done that earlier and been in contention for the lead?
I was a bit defeated by my performance, but I was given a chance to redeem myself.... I was chosen for the bonus challenge! Except.... I was up against an F Stock Firebird, of all things. Why did it have to be an FS F-body?
I tried, I really did. But we were on our own indexes, and so he probably had an advantage, especially being on street tires, while I was on cold A6s. Still, he went on to win, so I was okay with bowing out in the first round. Plus, any event where I can drive the WRX home is a good event. ;) I parked the car, then went to work the starter position for the Super Challenge, where Stephen Hui would take the win and McCance would go out in the round of 8.
It's truly a unicorn. It makes its own rainbow running board stripe.
While I was working, Sam graciously changed tires for me, then Greg and Sam helped me load the car and we enjoyed some beer while just talking. Since we were done so early, it was weird heading out by 4PM (the Challenges were done just after 2!), but it gave me the opportunity to get as far as Ontario, OR for the night.
So, yeah, I went to the SCCA Solo Nationals last week. In fact, last Sunday at this time, I was in northeastern Ohio, contemplating how far I wanted to drive before grabbing a hotel room (or stopping at a rest area). I was in my black Camaro Z28 -- not the car of choice -- so, a rest area was a viable option since there were no tires in the back seat, and the Camaro seats are pretty comfy to sleep in.
It was weird, driving a Camaro to Nationals. I haven't done it in over five years, and even then, it was the green car, not the black one. It also made packing very odd. As most autocrossers will tell you, there is a routine to packing, and when you disrupt that routine -- such as driving a car you hadn't planned on driving -- that's when things get forgotten. It probably took me longer to pack the Camaro with less stuff than the WRX because I kept standing in the garage and mentally thinking about what else I needed from there.
Ready to roll
I ended up staying the night in Elkhart, Indiana, at a hotel I'd hit on the way out to Packwood last year. With the SCCA discount, it was a reasonable enough rate, and I got a backup alarm in the form of a wakeup call for Monday morning. I wanted to be on site early enough to register on Monday, and I figured Elkhart was the halfway point so there was another nine or so hours of driving to go.
I arrived not too long after Drew did, and hit registration on the way through the gate. He'd already told Tracy Lewis about the change in my registration, so things were pretty easy there. It was just a matter of finding him in paddock and getting the car teched at that point.
Ready for tech!
The car passed tech easily, though they were definitely a bit more anal about stickers and numbers this year. We were fine, but I saw some other people actually get turned away because their numbers didn't contrast or they didn't have their helmets with the current sticker.
We walked the Karen Babb designed West course a few times, then Drew went up to the practice course where Christy Carlson told him that she could get him into the practice. He rode his bike back to paddock to grab the car and took three of his four runs, just to see if the car needed anything serious. His first run was all over the place, but we didn't touch anything, and the next run was better.
Around then I realized it was after 7PM, so I headed over to the hotel to check in, get cleaned up a little bit, then head to Lazlo's downtown for Holly's birthday bash. When I arrived, all the seats near her were already taken, so I was relegated to the back, where Jason and Heather Burns were sitting by themselves. Sean came up and tried to harass me, but I was having none of it, and a few more people showed up later. I hadn't eaten anything all day, so the two Vanilla Porters I drank went down way too easily, and the sandwich I had was nearly inhaled, I was so hungry. This no-appetite-until-food-is-in-front-of-me bullshit is getting old. We sang happy birthday to Holly as Crissy Weaver brought around cake, and then it was back to the hotel for a few hours of sleep.
ESP had the good fortune to run third heat, and since my work assignment somehow fell through the cracks, if I wanted to, I could have slept in. I wanted to walk the course and help change tires (Drew doesn't like driving on the competition tires to-and-from the hotel), so I made sure I was there around 6:30. We walked the course twice again, then he checked in for work while I just watched first heat and talked with people. We got one more walk after the second heat was done, and I did my walk with Lane Borg (who was leading AS by a scant 0.02 seconds) while Drew walked with Paul Brown. AS and ESP have extremely close PAX indices, so it made sense for us to walk with the Corvette guys.
I'm not used to running towards the end of the group...
I still hadn't driven the car at all when it came time to take my first run. Seriously, I hadn't even driven it over to tech or to the grid. So, I carefully let the stock clutch out to get a feel for the engagement point, then pulled up to the line for my first run. My launch wasn't very good; I didn't want to do a ProSolo style launch, but I hadn't planned on bogging so badly. The very first turn resulted in me pushing out and hanging the tail out, enough that I was wondering how loose this car was going to handle. It did it again in the next turn, then calmed down for the remainder of the run. Drew has BFGoodrich tires, and they evidently don't do so well when stone cold.
You can see me in the marbles here. Photo by Perry Bennett
I wasn't sure what to think of the car at that point. My time was horrible, but I knew there was a lot out there. Drew went out and coned his run, and there wasn't a whole lot to say at that point. We weren't blaming the car for our standings, and I went out on my second run and pushed harder, dropping over a second. It still was way off the pace, but I knew I wasn't driving particularly well either. I wasn't visualizing where I needed to go, and I wasn't really looking ahead (even though the video makes it look like I was). I just kept thinking about how I would have been doing in my own car, and so I pretty much was just going through the motions.
photo by Tom Reynolds
One more chance for me to start off the week in my "usual spot," one out of trophies.
Another 0.8s improvement, but still terrible compared to trophy positions, and Drew would be another 0.5s behind me. But before Drew could take his last run, there was a bit of drama in the ESP grid.
It seems that Charles Moss's Eagle Talon had a blown turbo seal, causing it to smoke heavily all weekend. After Charles's second run on the West course, enough oil had made its way onto the exhaust that there was actually a small fire as the car came into grid. This resulted in a few fire extinguishers being used (much to Eric Thompson's dismay, since he was gridded next to, and downwind from, the Talon), and Charles not getting his last run. Sam Krauss, on the other hand, jumped into Brad Owen's WRX in order to try to get a clean run, as neither of his runs in the Talon were coneless. It didn't work. Despite his being semi-familiar with the '06 WRX from driving my car, he struggled with Brad's setup and managed to tag a cone on the run.
I wasn't happy with where I was standing -- 17th of 32 -- but there wasn't much to be done. At least the car hadn't caught on fire. So, we went back to paddock, changed tires, and walked Roger Johnson's East course -- since they had finished well ahead of us -- before going our separate ways for the evening.
For the second day in a row, I managed to not eat anything all day, and while I tried to make sure I was staying hydrated, I soon realized I hadn't hit the portajohn all day either. This was not a good sign, and surely had an effect on my driving, but it most definitely played a role in the splitting headache that was developing. I wandered over to the Atlanta Region tent and Tom Shuman encouraged me to grab a bite there. Scott Fraser and Tom Kubo came by and took me over to the CP party, where Tony Espinosa gave me a bowl of heavenly beans that he'd made. I talked with Katie Kelly and Mary Espinosa a bit, then headed back to ATL to chat with a few people before heading off to the hotel and some blessed ibuprofen. I must have had a gallon of water when I got back, and my head was just throbbing. I honestly was starting to wonder if I was just going to die, it hurt so bad. Finally, the ibuprofen kicked in, and I was able to fall asleep, just in time for the alarm to go off.
Speedy was evicted from the car during Drew's runs.
We had an 8AM start for Wednesday, so I was back on site at 6:45, with four gallons of E85 in tow. We'd gone through the fuel Drew had brought with him, and so I went to pick some more up on my way to the site in the morning. Two more course walks, and we were as ready as we were going to be.
Again, I wandered around during the first two heats, watching and talking to STX drivers and then STU drivers before getting one last course walk in between heats 2 and 3. I didn't walk with anyone on the last course walk this time, and I don't know if that hurt me. I just know that I was kind of despondent about driving; I wanted to do well, but I was so far back, that it just didn't matter. I actually did visualize the course between runs, and I knew exactly where I was screwing up, but in the end, I didn't do very well. I wasn't as dehydrated so couldn't blame that, and Drew was a second faster than me (0.5 if you count my raw time on my second run, where I coned early and so pushed the car), so I can't blame the car either.
In the end, my head and my heart just weren't in it, as I knew would be the case. I was oddly at peace with it, however. I was very disappointed, but as Drew pointed out, the car didn't need to go home on a trailer. It also did not catch on fire, and we both finished on the first page of results. I had fallen to 22nd, and he had leapfrogged me to finish 20th, but it was not a good showing for either of us. It wasn't a good showing for Subarus in general, as Brad nabbed the last trophy spot -- 9th, which was down a few spots from last year for him -- and Drew was the second fastest WRX in class. Jimmy Perrin, driving Christian Nissen's 2006, was 21st. Christian and Matt Rosazza were behind me.
It came back for day two, but was quarantined to its own area of grid.
I hung out with a couple of the NWOR guys, and managed to grab a small bite to eat with them, then eventually went back to the hotel and stared at the ceiling. I should have left for home, but figured I could do the trip on Thursday if I left around 6AM. Reality was that I left closer to 6:30AM, got hung up in the backup from an accident in Omaha, and got home around 2:30AM. It was a long ride home, and work certainly sucked on Friday, especially when people asked how things went.
I talked to JJ before I left work, and planned to pick my WRX up from IAG on Saturday so that I could have it around for some of the locals before getting the off-season makeover done. Pat and I rolled up just after noon to get the car, and he took off before I'd even gotten the keys. I started the car up, let it warm up, then rolled out onto MD140 and realized that, yes, my car does have a decent amount of "go" to it, even if it's quieter than the other WRXes that were at Nationals.
Then, I smelled it again.... coolant. I glance down at the temperature gauge and see it 2/3rds of the way up. I'm less than 10 miles away, and there isn't a shoulder on the road at this point. I watch miserably as the gauge continues to climb as I try to get to an area I can pull off.
I pop the hood, and it's immediately obvious what has happened.
Not cool. Literally.
The brand new radiator hose has come off the radiator. I've got nothing with me -- no extra coolant, no tools to use on the spring clamp -- so, I call the shop and explain what happened. They send Ian out, but somehow neglect to tell him to bring something for the spring clamp, so we end up going back to the shop for tools and a "regular" screw-type hose clamp. Once back at the car, the hose is back on and coolant in the system withing minutes. So, now it's just a matter of "burping" the air out.
I sit in the car and rev it or let it idle at Ian's direction. After 5-10 minutes, the coolant seems to be done burbling, and I try to start back to the shop with Ian in his Kia in tow. I don't make it 10 feet before the temperature gauge climbs back to the danger zone. We ditch the WRX on the side of MD 140 and head back to the shop while I call Pat to tell him to meet me there.
So, it appears at least one head gasket is definitely shot. Now, it's just a matter of figuring out what else to do while the heads are off. The car only has 120K on the odometer, so I'm not sure valve springs and all need to be refreshed. The heads can be milled to Subaru specs or 0.010", and some port matching can be done, but really, there isn't a whole lot that is Street Prepared legal. Of course, I just want the car to run properly again, so that's my primary goal.
I don't know how long it will take to fix. In the meantime, I'm desperately trying to catch up on some suspension maintenance with the Camaros.
It's Saturday morning, thirty minutes into the ProSolo Finale, and I've come to the hard realization that all my work with the WRX this year has been for nothing.
At the last WDCR autocross (last one for them for the season too, due to scheduling difficulties at FedEx Field), the car threw a code for a "cooling fan rationality." I cleared it with the Cobb AP, ran the event, won my class, and finished sixth on index. The car felt great, and it was a relief to finally have the fuel system issues that were causing the random no-starts fixed.
Then I decided to drive the car around a little bit in preparation for Lincoln. I took it to work on Monday, the first day back for students, and on the way home, I smelled the nasty tang of coolant in the air while at a stoplight. While I was hoping it was the car next to me, a mile later, as I pulled into the driveway, my heart sank as I realized it was, indeed, the WRX.
The temperature gauge hadn't shifted, but the coolant reservoir was empty. I was running late to go to my hockey game (Red was playing Black for the summer league championship), so I just ditched the car and took the black Camaro to Arlington. Tuesday night being the first night of class at the community college meant I didn't have time to deal with it then either. So, it wasn't until Wednesday that I could take it up to IAG, and even then, I wanted to be home in time to get to hockey evaluations for the fall/winter league.
We checked the coolant levels in the radiator and the reservoir before leaving, and it was fine. Since it hadn't been leaking in the driveway, I thought it would be okay for the trip to Westminster. I should have known better, as twelve miles down the road, the temperature gauge started climbing, plateaued for a short time at the 3/4 mark, then began speeding towards the danger zone just as I was about to take the left exit from I95 north onto I695 west. I punched the hazards and pulled over, Pat in the black Camaro behind me.
We eventually got the car to IAG after Pat went back for the Lightning and the trailer, and, knowing how tight my schedule was since I'd planned to leave today, they graciously squeezed it into the schedule for Friday.
JJ called me yesterday with the news. The immediate and obvious problem was the upper radiator hose that failed. The less obvious and lurking issue was that a head gasket was marching towards failure. It wasn't leaking enough to manifest itself through filmy oil, white smoke in the exhaust or higher than normal engine temps. Using the leak detector, the indicator wasn't changing completely, so JJ said it wasn't critical... yet. But he also, rightly, couldn't guarantee that it wouldn't fail while in Lincoln.
If I knew how to tow, it wouldn't be an issue. Tow the car there, compete, tow home. But I've never towed before, and I know how much construction is between here and Lincoln. Even if I skipped the Pennsylvania and Ohio Turnpikes, there are areas in Illinois and Iowa that I would be extremely uncomfortable with.
So, I'm not bringing the WRX to Lincoln. All the time, all the prep, all the work I've done with the car this season, and it was for nothing.
One of my ESP competitors, Drew Little, has offered me a ride in his WRX, and I am 95% sure I am going to take him up on it. I know his car isn't as fully prepped as mine, but I don't particularly want to change classes, and I definitely don't want to run ladies class. It'll be more of a challenge to try to back up my open class trophy in his car, but maybe I'll see something with his setup that I can apply to my car too. I know he's got an opposite spring rate set up (softer up front than in the rear, which is opposite of mine), and he's also on the new BFG R-comps versus the Hoosier A6s.
I've also been offered rides in two different STU Evos, but my STU driving has left a lot to be desired this year, so I'm not sure I would want to shame myself there.
So, now I just need to decide how to get to Lincoln. If I'm driving one of the Camaros, I need to at least change the oil as they are both due. While I'd love to take the green Camaro, it needs front hubs and spark plugs, and I don't particularly feel like changing those in the driveway today.
Maybe I'll just get a rental car. That seems to be the theme of the week.
In between playing in the women's rec hockey league at Kettler Capitals Iceplex and trying to find a new teaching position, I am still playing with the cars, at least on occasion. After another control arm failure at the first Washington DC SCCA event (the practice event), and a rush job to finish the fix, I did finish first in L1 at the DC ProSolo back in April, and third in the Ladies Challenge.
best set of runs at the DC Pro
I've acquired a new codriver in Heyward Wagner (yes, that Heyward Wagner) and while the initial plan was to both drive ESP, I switched to L1 at the last minute because of the fear the WRX would break again. We figured we had a better chance of both of us getting competitive rides (if necessary) if we were not both in ESP open. So, I had Adam George's ESP Mustang (formerly Sam Strano's Mustang), and Heyward had Pat Griffith's ESP Camaro ("Barney") as backups. Fortunately, we didn't need them, and the WRX also was used by ESP winner Sam Krauss to go three rounds deep in the Super Challenge.
Sam loses to eventual Challenge winner, Michael Fineberg
Heyward's best set of runs
So, today, I'm using a day of my summer vacation to wait in the IAG Performance showroom while I have a new Competition Clutch flywheel and clutch installed. This is a new product that is supposed to be comparable to the ACT Streetlite series that is currently in the car. I will be posting up impressions and reviews as I break it in and drive it across the country and at the Packwood ProSolo at the beginning of July. Greg McCance will be codriving with me there, so he will hopefully be able to give additional feedback. He also has an ACT set in his ESP WRX, so it will be a good comparison.
Today, I have a special treat -- a guest blog from Pat! He was toying with bringing his B13 Sentra SE-R out to Nationals this year, but pretty much gave up after the rain at the last DC Region event. He also owns "Barney," a 1982 Chevy Camaro Z28 that's won multiple ESP National Championships. He also has run a plethora of V8 powered machinery in F Stock, including my green Camaro, my black Camaro, and two vehicles he's since sold -- an LS1 Camaro Z28 and an F150 Lightning. At the last minute, he decided to come to Atlanta with me for Points 8, and, more importantly, he even drove the WRX. And, without further ado :
The course was kinda “meh” – really a point and shoot type of course with an opening slalom where the cones were offset the right way, a short straight, a 180, then a full throttle “straight” down the middle of the course, another 180, a big sweeper into a “bus stop” then another sweeper into the finish. I was hoping for some more offsets and/or slaloms to see how the car was in transitions.
My first run, I went out and hit a cone pretty good in the opening slalom. The time was a 44.4, which was announced as leading the Pro class, and then the announcer corrected himself after the cone call went up on the screen.
My next run felt pretty good but I hit two minor cones (unlike the major one on my first run). Raw time was a 44.7.
Karen told me after the first run that in the Pro class in Atlanta, only the first three runs count, so my third run would be it for the final standings. I did a Tin Cup-style lay up and backed off a bit to get a clean run in. Also didn’t help grinding the 1-2 shift. I ended up with a 45.374, which put me about a tenth behind Karen and 11th overall in the Pro class.
For my fourth run, Bill Bounds wanted to ride along since Joel Fehrman was selling “Stompy,” and he never got a chance to ride in or drive Stompy, and Karen’s car is probably a good clone of the car’s setup, albeit not an STi. I wanted to get a clean run in and at least backup the fast raw times. I was a little late with the throttle coming out of the first 180, then I pushed a little too much in the 180 after the long “straight.” I still ended up with a 44.7 which was clean and put me 7th overall in the overall PAX standings. Probably could have gotten a low 44 or high 43 without mistakes and without Bill in the car (although he probably weighs 0.9 DiSimos).
The car felt pretty good. It has some issues with wheel spin which you can really hear in my videos going across the brick section of the first-base side of the old Atlanta Fulton County Stadium. Karen has front and rear differentials on the way, which should help. But it didn't seem to push too bad in the sweepers, although the two tight 180s are where I had the most issues.
A year after I came to the conclusion that I was actually going to own a car that I had, for years, foresworn even driving, I dropped it off at IAG Performance and picked it up a month later, subtly transformed.
the day I brought it home from IAG
Why on earth did I do such a thing? Some of the work that's been done to the car can't be reversed without replacing body panels. It's also been a lot of money in a tight economy.
I did it because I wanted to. I did it because I had three cars that were not competitive in stock trim, and one of them had to go to ESP. I did it because, yes, I wanted to have the overdog car for once, and not the outclassed also-ran.
In other words, "Yes, I did it because I wanted to **** ESP."
I was reminded of this by some friends after my last blog entry. I was reminded that I got exactly what I wanted -- people crying that my car was too fast for the class, and that it needed to be moved. Shouldn't I be happy?
And, to some extent, yes, I am. The car has gotten a ton of notice whereever it goes. It's mean-looking, it's aggressive, it's "hellaflush." But the one thing I haven't been able to do with it is show that it's an overdog in ESP. I've improved on the consistency of my launches, but I haven't been driving it anywhere near its potential. I'm giving the cones too much space in the slaloms, I'm on the brakes too soon or too late, and I'm definitely not on the gas soon enough coming out of turns. You can see any of that in the videos I've posted, especially if you compare my Toledo left side runs to the one run that Greg McCance takes in my car.
I'm ordering differentials. That'll help (somewhat) with getting on the gas coming out of turns, since I won't be afraid of spinning an inside rear. And I'm getting race seats, either Sparco or Corbeau, so I can shed some weight from the car (at nearly 3100lbs, it's about 150lbs more than McCance's bug-eye). And then, in five weeks, there's the National Championships in Lincoln, Nebraska. Let the best driver win.
And to all the haters out there, who think that AWD and turbo can't be beat?
photo by Paul Magee
It feels great to actually get that off my chest, and to reaffirm just why I converted the car to an ESP monster. I may never love the WRX as much as I love my green Camaro, but it's actually somewhat fun to drive now, and I'm not going to let the hypocrites keep me down.
"Gloomy" didn't just describe the weather at the DC points event today. After hearing several versions of the "OMG your AWD is going to dominate today," I was ready to leave even before the event was temporarily suspended due to lightning.
Gabe showed up during the downtime, and after much discussion, we decided to bag it. He didn't feel like hanging around all day to see if we'd even be able to run (SCCA safety regulations mandate a certain wait time after the last lightning strike), and I had come to the conclusion that, like at Toledo the previous week, I couldn't win.
In this case, the despondency stemmed not from a literally inability to win. Once I found out that, yes, my rain tires actually were on site, I could have bolted them up and run. But I wasn't wasting my Hoosier radial rain tires on a local event.
No, my despair was at the fact that no matter how I did, I "lost." It was like the complete opposite of running Mark Davis's car last month in Atlanta, where if I didn't do well, it's because I wasn't used to running an MR2, but if I did do well, it was in spite of it. Here, if I did well, it would be said that I did so simply because of the WRX's AWD and the wet course conditions. If I didn't finish well, it would be said that I must not be a very good driver if I couldn't use the AWD to my advantage.
So, I decided to go FTW and pack up my car and leave. Yeah, the fact that I wasted all morning and the entry fee doesn't sit well with me. But it's better than having to listen to yet more belittling and borderline cruel comments. :(
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