After months of previously scheduled commitments and numerous delays in getting my new suspension figured out, I finally made it out to my second autocross event. This time I was heading south to the River City Community Church parking lot in Selma, TX. Compared to my last autocross event, the drive was a bit of a trek, but once again, I grabbed a coffee and threw on a podcast.

I was more excited about this event than my first time as the nervous jitters were all gone, and I focused more on the course itself. As this was only my second event, Texas Spokes still considers you a novice for at least 6 events or 1 novice victory. Confident but inexperienced, I looked forward to the mandatory novice course walk. As I walked the course, the first thing I noticed was that without the confines of COTA’s parking lot, the course was much larger than my first event. It made the course walk significantly harder for me. It was not physically any harder to walk, but there were more corners and gates to follow, increasing the challenge of the course. I did my best to plot a race line and figured I’d just wing my first run to get my bearings straight.

Once we received our run order, I hit the grid. I was in the first heat, so I had to prepare quickly. I knew I loved autocross after the first event, so I invested in some magnetic graphics for the side of my car (numbers and class information is required). Unfortunately, I didn’t want to buy an “N” just to remove it in 4 more sessions, so I found some duct tape and slapped it on. Nothing looks more professional than mostly complete graphics. Due to this extremely loud “N” on the side of my car, I attracted a lot of attention from the seasoned veterans looking for free spotting runs. Since I was still learning, I let them hope in for ride along on 4 of my 5 runs on the day. I can’t stress enough how helpful this is. I got 4 different types of feedback, including “just be more aggressive” for the 4 riders. Hearing this made me realize that I am not driving on the track and speed is more important than smoothness. It totally changed my approach, and I started to let it rip after that. Unsurprisingly, my times improved each session, with my fastest time coming in my final run. Who knew that getting knowledge and support could help you do better?

As I crossed the final timing laser, I saw my final run time, 55.924. My first run was 62.377. This was a massive gain over 5 runs. I couldn’t believe I had done it; I was 1st in Novice Class. I was proud of what I accomplished and felt slightly vindicated. I wasn’t just good at racing video games and talking about cars. I was actually pretty handy with one as well.

But what I was more proud of was that I improved my time on every run. I felt as if I was learning the course each run and applying a new technique each time. It’s tough to keep that type of improvement going, and improving your time is essentially all autocross is. There may be a faster car at every event, and that is out of your hands. But if you can improve your time, that is all that really matters. Unfortunately, my GoPro died before my last run and I left my spare battery at home. I was able to capture some good footage which leaves me with some review homework.

End of the day, the GTI was faster with the new coilovers and rear sway bar. I can’t say for sure what it was, but the GTI was faster. My assumption is not the car itself is necessarily faster, but it is a more planted car. And being a more planted car, I was able to push it more confidently. The GTI is definitely a track weapon now, and I just need to keep learning from it until I fully understand how to dominate in it. Or so I can hope…