August 2002 In this issue, Mike Driscoll profiles our worker chief, Pat Fisher. Garry Swanner and Scott Meyers recap the August 10 event that ended the Summer 2002 series. And D.N. Effer reports on web site problems. The next event, first of the daytime fall series, is on Sunday, September 8. Copyright 2002. Duplication allowed in whole or in part, provided full acknowledgment is given. Mike Driscoll & Garry Swanner , Co-Editors

A friend, who'd let him ride along during a race on Firebird's east track, spoke of driving skills learned in autocross. So Pat Fisher gave autocrossing a try in May 2000. He's been hooked ever since. So much so that, when the position of Worker Chief opened up a few months later, he volunteered for it. Pat completed his on-the-job training quickly, and soon found unexpected benefits from being Worker Chief: learning the various aspects of an autocross event, from set-up through tear-down, so that he could assign workers to all of them; more quickly getting to know other autocross participants, as he gave them their assignments; and, generally, becoming more distracted from daily concerns and into the autocross experience. During his first two years, Pat ran a gray/blue Ford Probe GT, trying it out in ST2, STS, and GS Open classes. He's now traded that in for white 2002 Nissan Sentra SE-R Spec V, which he'll run in ST2 or in DS Open. Professionally, Pat supports distributed Unix systems for Motorola's Global Infrastructure Solutions Group.

The only thing hotter than the temperature at the third and last event of the Summer 2002 Series was the course, which was very fast and challenging. In fact, all of the courses for this series have been well marked, subtly challenging, and fast. The decreasing radius turn on the backside of this course was deceptive. A long stop box allowed hot approaches to the finish line. Consequently, several drivers found it challenging to cross the finish head-on. One lucky individual actually passed through the lights sideways and still managed not to hit any cones. Others were not so lucky. The results from this event have been posted. Final two-out-of-three within-category standings have been tabled. Within class comparisons are the most popular, of course, but across class comparisons are also interesting. Take a look for example, at the winning PAX times in ST1 versus ST2.

On to the results. In AS Jason Isley is still "The Man" locally as he prepares for a shot at the National title. He is mentioned in "SportsCar" magazine as a contender. Second place Dan Sniezek had his work cut out for him, but improved each event. If a few BS Street Tire folks would join ‘walk-off" winner Aaron Taylor in BS Open, he’d love it. No competition is no fun. The CS crowd has no such problem as they have plenty of competition. And would you look at this — a new "Top Dog" in the Miata kennels! Yes, Brian Peters has taken this Series by a scant four points over perennial champ Carol Anderson. Perhaps his youth also brings better night vision? The Fall Series will tell the tale. ES Champ Garry Swanner, FS winner Don Hyland, and GS top gun Dave Vasquez all are looking to the Novice "graduates or Street Tire folks to move up to their empty Open classes. Good luck guys.

The results show an interesting situation for ASP Open Once Corvette and Lotus Territory, Jason Boles’ BMW has burst upon the scene and taken the Summer trophy with excellent 922 and 930 Pax scores. But, looking farther down in the results, one notices the Novice 1 winner Erik Davis with a 93 Porsche RSA running ASP and scores of 938 and 953. A very good ASP battle looms just ahead in September. Stay tuned! ESP this Series finds Brian Weikert again at the top, 40 points ahead of Abraham Jones and Dave Mingus a little farther back. But, they are closer to him. Ah, progress. Right now the FSP Open contest is a tight battle between the Shapiro 96 Accord, the McPeek 95 VW Golf and the Murray 00 Golf. Only 20 points separated this pack. Looks like a fun place to play. Mark Shaw might rejoin next Series depending on the H Stock situation, and rumor has it that a stealthy 1983 Dodge Rampage might be ready to try its luck in this pot. The "Lonely Boys", aka: AP Tom Errickson, EP Steve Brannigan, and DM Joe Curry are looking for a few good competitors.

One of our healthier and most competitive classes is STS. No doubt about it, David Rock (00 Celica) has a lock on the Subaru clan and took them by 24 points this summer. Just in time for Nationals, too. Nationally the Honda Civics seem to do well in this class, but no one’s tried them locally yet (hint, hint). The similar but different STX class is growing, and Mark Goerner’s 01 Type R Integra likes the waters just fine, thank you, as he reaped a 45 point victory over Geren Smith’s Subaru. Let’s see, that makes it "Rice Burners - 2, Sweden - 0" in this arena. Maybe if it rained more here? Some might overlook SM more than once, but not me! The Steve Steele Mustang seems to have found its niche as he scored the top times in both events he entered. Anthony Ohmer's 97 Accord seems to be nibbling away at his margin of victory, however, so Steve better stay sharp.

The PRO group was shown the way by Chuck Voboril’s Zink, but Ted Lewis (Elan) and Steve Ryan (Vette) were within 50 points. Pax Ladies’ winner Deb Eymann (Vette) hopes the daylight Series brings back the other ladies so she has someone to play with again. Great battle in Sportsman as Steve Eymann (Z-06) held off Dave Young (02 M3) and Tage Evanson (95 M3). Dave and Tage were only two points apart.

The Street Tire and Novice entries usually make up 60% to 70% of our overall entries, and the same was true this Summer. Street Tire 1 had fourteen folks in the trophy hunt, and Jim Rohn's BMW 4-door 'seedan' (I love saying that) spanked the Rob/Ryan Yantzer Corvette, hard. Jim was the only ST1 contestant scoring in the 900's this Series. Jim better watch the 94 Supra of Shaun Neddermeyer, however, as he is looming large in Jim's mirrors. ST2 had nineteen qualified for the Series, and at the end Bill Zerr’s Fiero GT was 16 points ahead of veteran Mark Shaw (VW Beetle). Dwight Smith was in third only one single lonely point behind Mark. Pat fisher’s new SE-R Spec-V climbed to a fourth place, another 13 points back. A good battle.

Erik Davis, winner in Novice 1 class, seems more than ready. He hammered the field by 133 points and would have finished first in ASP Open had he run there. Welcome to the fold, Erik! Kim Kemper (Vette) was second and Chris Parks (CRX) was third. NV2 finds Brain Kozan (Altima SE) the winner with Dave Reuss 2nd (Cavalier) and James Frink (Subaru) third. NV3 was the only place that Subaru could pull a win this Series with Kris Castner the class of this field. Steven Waugh (Subaru) was second and Robert Rose (Miata) third. Nice to see a few ladies in the Novice arena as Kat Kemper won Novice Ladies over 2nd place Kristin Pfauser and 3rd place Susan Smith. Keep coming out ladies, it only gets better and more fun.

Autocrossing is a fun sport with numerous positive side effects that add to driving pleasure and safety when not on the course. If you haven’t brought out your wife or significant other, you might want to try again. Autocrossing is a sport where everyone wins.

See you in September!

Or, more correctly, the new software package called DOORS, which Microsoft developed as a substitute - well, they called it an upgrade - for the common alphabet. Company spokespeople cited simplification as a major motivation for DOORS. They noted, as an example, that the replacement of "l, m, n, o, p" by "mmmmm" would make it much easier for young school children to sing The Alphabet DOORS Song. But they denied that this was an attempt to strengthen their foothold in educational computing.

Spokespeople did, in fact, deny that DOORS was an attempt to gain hegemony of any kind, even while presenting it as a "(copyrighted) world-class set of phonetic icons that will allow unified replacement of all past and present systems for recording human languages." When asked whether that goal was anymore attainable than, say, a unified field theory in physics, the spokespeople suddenly went totally mute, resuming the presentation only after all their microphones had been shut off and then simultaneously turned on again. Twice.

But there has been a problem. Several problems, actually. These problems caused certain web servers, even some using operating systems other than WINDOWS, to lose integrity. The previous www.azsolo2.com server was one of these. Also, many users were complaining that they really liked the common alphabet, and were content to remain insufficiently sophisticated to appreciate DOORS. Facing ever-growing customer dissatisfaction, then, Microsoft elected to close all open DOORS windows. But not being quite sure about this decision, the corporation reserved the right to re-introduce DOORS at a later time and strenuously warned against copyright infringement by any competitive alphabet substitute that might be introduced in the interim. As if.

That's the good news (so to speak). The bad news is that some web hosts found their servers did not recover, even when all DOORS had been closed. Similar difficulties plagued individual users, until Microsoft finally issued patch instructions:

• for Unix/Linux: The corrective shell script, issued pro bono by Red Hat as a favor to Microsoft, uses 'tr'. But, as is typically the case under these operating systems, there are several ways to proceed, and scripts based on 'sed' or 'awk' (or, especially, 'm4') are more elegant.
• for Macintosh: Reboot.
• for WINDOWS: Enter the command '\doors\recall\teehee\big.fat.western.alphabet\patch\qwerty.exe' after, of course, working your way through WINDOWS down to a DOS prompt. Respond YES to the question "Are you sure?" and respond YES again when asked "Does your mother know about this?"

At least our web site is online again.