WDCR Pro Solo Recap: DNS, DNF and a quest to avoid DFL

In the movie "Tin Cup," Kevin Costner's character, Roy McAvoy, has a chance to win golfing's U.S. Open. Going down to the final hole, a difficult shot over a water hazard, his caddie, played my Cheech Marin, encourages him to "lay it up" and hit a shorter shot to set up an easier shot over water that would put him on the green. Instead, Roy goes for the hero long drive to get the ball on the green in one shot.

And his first shot goes in the water. And he keeps trying to make the drive on one shot. Again and again.

Driving last weekend at the SCCA Pro Solo, my first time at a Pro since 2014, I had car issues all weekend. And of course, cone issues. I had fixed a vacuum leak earlier in the week, the car idled fine going through tech on Friday. Then on Saturday morning, the car idled around 2,000 RPM during first runs. Then it started to run really hot. I didn't attempt my final run on the left side and just went to impound.

After turning the idle screw to lower the idle, it seemed like everything was fine. As I pulled up to grid, the throttle stuck. Not stick open but stuck closed! I had to hammer on the gas pedal for the throttle blade to open up. So on course for the afternoon runs, I'd start to breath on the throttle, but sometimes the gas pedal wouldn't move. And I still had issues with the car running hot. Again I did only three runs, skipping my final run on the right side so as not to melt the engine.

Apparently, the throttle cable needs some tension in it. If the throttle body flapper is fully closed, it has a tendency to stick shut.

So more adjustments Saturday night in preparation for Sunday morning.

Oh did I mention I didn't have a clean run yet? My left-side had a run with two cones, another with four, one DNF (a spin) and the DNS. My right side had a run with four cones, two with one cone and a DNS.

Watching video Saturday night on my fastest raw-time runs, the left-side run had a moment where I slowed too early for the right-hander heading to the finish, and the right-side run had a moment where I over-cooked a sharp right-hander.

I figure getting those elements right and running clean, I could move up. There was nowhere else to go anyway because I was DFL out of 11 cars.

I was trying to think of a national event where I drove this badly, and the only one I could think of was the 2000 Pro Solo Finale. For that one, I really hadn't driven a car -- let alone autocross -- for three months because I was deployed to Saudi Arabia. I flew into Kansas City that Saturday morning and missed morning runs. Then for my final eight runs, I coned seven of them and ended up DFL in a 17-car F-Stock class.

Everyone shows their fastest runs! Here are my first two from Saturday, which were slow.

For Sunday, I had a decision to lay it up like Cheech Marin suggested that Kevin Costner should do, or send bombs to the green.

I decided to lay it up.

It almost didn't work because I went in too hot on the left-side course after the opening offsets and almost slid into a wall of cones. This was my first clean run, though! But it was three seconds off my fastest raw time because I slowed down trying to save the tires. Then I hit a cone on the first right-side run. Now I was down to a single run on each side to get something clean. Oh and the idle for some mysterious reason was back up to 2,000 RPM. The coolant temp was climbing but not quite as high as Saturday, so I was going to send it and finish my runs.

Tip-toeing through the offsets on the left, went across the finish and I thought it was clean. Danny Kao was announcing, but for some reason you really couldn't hear anything in the car the whole weekend. I switched to the right side, water temps between 200 and 210, idle at 2,000, and took off. Again maybe 8/10ths? Maybe less? It felt clean but couldn't hear anything from Danny.

I drove to impound and checked results on my phone, and ....

[To keep with the golf theme] The last two runs were indeed cone-free. No late cone call from the Russian judge either.

Funny, that other than the Out Motorsports autocross at Summit (which results have never been posted anywhere, not even an old-school snail-mail), I have four clean runs all year. The very first run of the season with the WDCR, the last two at the Pro and the second-to-last on the left side at the Pro.

My 60-foot times during the weekend were decent -- a worst of 2.442 to a best of 2.001, but mostly in the 2.1 range. Reaction times weren't anything that I would brag about, but they weren't too hateful. A couple 0.800s on my first two runs on the right side, but then everything else was in the 5s and 6s (other than my last run on the right where I really made an effort not to red light).

I was going to do practice starts on Friday. I opted to announce for an hour to get four free practice starts, but as my work stint was ending, lightning was reported in the area, so things were shut down until cleared. But then it dumped rain, and all remaining practice starts were washed out. Really think that if I could have done some practice starts, it would have helped me mentally. You know, the whole no Pro Solos in 11 years.

Talking with some others regarding the almost-overheating issue, they suggested installing a fan shroud. The car has been in my possession for about 17 years, and it has never had a fan shroud. It was one of my off-season projects that I abandoned because I wasn't comfortable with how it was turning out. But I still have the material I had hacked up, so I cobbled something together using that and some thermal aluminum tape I had.

I weighed the car before Saturday runs, and it was higher than what I expected -- 3,370. Minimum weight for CAMT is 3,180 with driver. The last time I weighed it was three years ago when it was 2,930 (no driver) with just a driver's seat and dashboard inside.

Since then, I've added the rollbar (40 pounds), a passenger "race" seat, carpet, door panels and other interior bits (75 pounds), rear barn door spoiler (10 pounds). The Aisin AR5 is 30 pounds heavier than the T10, so maybe there iI'm around 235-ish, so it just doesn't add up it would be so far over the limit.

Aaron Shoe and John Vitamvas weighed their XA cars at the same time, and they each felt they were overweight, 100 pounds and 50 pounds, respectively.

It has to be 3,250 with driver for next month's Muscle on the Mountain, so we'll see what it is then.

After first runs Saturday morning, it was 3,359, so that seems logical burning about 1.5 gallons of gas.

The positives from the event were seeing a ton a people I hadn't seen in a number of years. Danny, along with Justin Neal, also got Shane Chinon to come out for a couple hours on Saturday. He was in a really bad mountain biking accident last year and was hospitalized up until earlier this year. He is still confined to a bed and has limited mobility but has improved greatly with his hand and arm movement since Karen and I visited him in November.

My work assignment was to announce, so it's always fun doing that. I joke that I have gotten more compliments on my announcing than my driving over the years. Maybe I'm not joking. I also announced the ladies challenge and the end of the super challenge, which was really cool. Back In The Day, only Howard Duncan did that, so it sort of felt like an honor to be a part of that.