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February 2004Tage Evanson makes another report from the Director's chair. Mark Johnson reports on the first event of the Spring 2004 Series.
A special autocross event is in planning for Sunday, March 14
and two events continuing Duplication allowed in whole or in part, provided full acknowledgment is given. Mike Driscoll, Editor Mark Johnson, Lead Reporter |
ARIZONA REGION –
Dawn Maxwell grew up in a Volkswagen family: it was always Microbuses,
Beetles, Squarebacks, and Rabbits in the driveway, never any other brands.
For a long time, she wouldn't even consider owning anything other than a
VW.
Volkswagen says in its ads that "on the road of life, there are passengers
and there are drivers."
Dawn is a driver, goal oriented and competitive.
Prior to discovering autocross, Dawn competed in running events, including
the Boston Marathon and short Sprint triathlons.
She spent her weekends teaching skiing on Mount Hood in Oregon.
When asked about her favorite driving moments, she recalls with great delight
driving her 1985 diesel Golf up to that ski area.
The Golf did not go up hills fast, so Dawn kept her momentum around corners
and around slower cars, rarely lifting.
If someone started to tailgate, she would step on the throttle hard and smoke
them out.
These behaviors earned her the nickname Mad Max from the other
ski instructors.
Dawn went to her first autocross in the fall of 1997.
Her first runs were not fast, so she was frustrated.
Not a good feeling for a competitor.
After an experienced autocrosser showed her things “that I didn’t
know my car could do,” Dawn began learning how to drive her car at the
limit and against a clock.
Timed precision driving proved very compelling for Dawn, and her competitive
nature led to quick improvements.
She was 1997 Novice of the Year in the SCCA Oregon Region.
Dawn sold the diesel Golf in 1995, having put more than 250,000 miles on it,
and bought a new Golf (gas, this time).
She took that car to her first Solo 2 Nationals, in 1998, and returned home
with a disappointing last-place HSL finish.
She has steadily improved since then, driving a variety of cars.
She drove a friend’s Miata at the 2000 Nationals and finished just one
position out of the trophies.
In 2002, in a different borrowed Miata, she earned a fourth-place trophy.
In 2003, she took her BMW Mini Cooper to Nationals and finished first in HSL,
fulfilling a goal she had set for herself years earlier.
Dawn's competitive athletic background is evident in her autocrossing style.
She pushes, hard.
(The gas pedals in her cars tend to conform to the shape of the floorboards.)
She leans into corners, like a skier does.
(At one venue, where the organizers required everyone to drive with windows
up, Dawn's helmet could be heard hitting the driver's window again and again
and ... as she ran a 15-cone slalom.)
Dawn continues her club support in 2004 as Assistant Course Designer and
as Chief of Driver Training.
Professionally, Dawn is a high school mathematics teacher and assistant
swimming coach.
Her students think it is really cool that their teacher races cars.
She thinks it is really cool to autocross year-round, even if it's not
in a Volkswagen just now.
ARIZONA REGION – What a great event on Valentine's Day. So many ladies showed up for their first time! I guess we found a right combination of incentives to get them to give autocrossing a try. We want to continue encouraging the ladies to run with us (and get hooked like the regulars are), so look forward to more incentives and encouragement. I'll be pushing the Steering Committee to approve continued discounts for those ladies who qualify as novices, with special prizes and recognition to make them feel welcome.
Don't forget that we've added a Suggestions link to the web site's sidebar menu, which you can use to contact me by e-mail. As I said at the January banquet, I may not respond to or implement every suggestion, but I will read and consider every single one.
I've said that you should look forwarding to more of the good things that work and money can provide. On the work side, we'll have a select individual chair each event – as Mark Johnson did this month – overseeing the event generally and adding a particular component or two that spices it up. The plan is to have a different chair for each event, to keep enthusiasm high and avoid individual burnout. If you want to test your organizational skills and are ready for a challenge, see me or one of the co-directors (Dave McCombs, Scott Meyers) about chairing an upcoming event.
On the money side, we still plan to make improvements in the club's equipment. But with track rentals and insurance costs increasing by approximately 50%, improvements will have to be at a slower rate than originally hoped. Nonetheless, look for nice trophies and a great banquet to cap off the Spring Series.
The evening began with two icebreakers from Sharon Roberts, namely, a caption
contest and a scavenger hunt.
The contest, to provide humorous captions for two photos, was won by
Marilyn Rohn and Greg Duncan.
The goal of the hunt was to find twelve separate people with certain
characteristics, ranging from the easy to the difficult:
having watched Wind Tunnel on the Speed channel, for example, or
currently being on a low-carb diet, or having been to Oatman, Arizona.
Brian Peters was the first person to complete this hunt.
After drinks and dinner against a backdrop slideshow of images from various 2003 autocross events, outgoing director Mark Shaw began the evening's program. He characterized 2003 as a good year for the Arizona Region, presented appreciation awards to members of the 2003 Steering Committee, and introduced the 2004 Steering Committee, inviting incoming director Tage Evanson to comment on plans and prospects for 2004.
Those appreciation awards are themselves worthy of appreciation: two-inch
pewter pylons (lead free), personally cast by Mark in molds he constructed,
and then individually personalized using his computer-driven engraver.
During this work, he also produced a Ted Lewis Collector Edition
two-inch crushed pewter pylon, which was awarded to (well, technically,
was won by) Richard Rippy during the evening's raffle.
Competition awards were presented first by Tage Evanson and then by Mark Shaw.
The awards presented by Tage, to all of those who placed in the four-event
Arizona Region Fall 2003 Series, were T-shirts bearing individual names &
the SCCA Solo 2 logo on the front (in chest pocket position) and individual
in-car on-course pictures (on the back).
During these presentations and the applause they engendered, Tage introduced
the enjoyable convention of having the audience allot each absent awardee a
single enthusiastic hand clap.
Mark Shaw presented the awards to the winners of the Arizona State Championship
series, newly reinstated for 2003.
Each of these awards had a glass information panel and a glass saguaro on a
glass base, the saguaro being constructed of small squares of glass stacked
off-axis from each other.
During the award ceremonies, Tage thanked Mark for his two-year directorship of the Arizona Region by presenting him with plaque-bearing desktop clock and an SCCA Solo 2 jacket. He also presented a Solo 2 jacket to Dave Young, who organized the 2003 drivers' school.
The evening saw two raffle sessions, as well.
(Everyone present had received some free tickets and could purchase more.)
The first raffle, conducted by Jodie Warren and Michael Rohn, had a plethora
of useful small items: tire gauges, chocolate, air tanks, wine, floor jacks,
and such.
Jim Rohn handled the second raffle, which was for major items: a one-hour
professional massage, won by Mindi Cross; two dynamometer runs at Extreme
Motorsports (donated by them), won by Richard Rippy; and an evening's stay
at the Four Points Sheraton Hotel, appropriately won by Glenda Meyers.
The grand prize was a $600 gift certificate toward Yokohama tires at Discount Tire (partly a donation from them). The semi-finalists for the grand prize – that is, those remaining after all but the final digit had been called – were Ted Lewis, Tom Dukerich, Brian Peters, and another person (whose name will appear here if he emails me a reminder of who he was). Jim Rohn called these four people to the front of the room so that the audience could applaud their support for each. The clear favorite was Brian Peters, seemingly because he was competing with his single gratis ticket while the others had all purchased additional tickets. The winner, in the end, was Tom Dukerich.
A great evening. Those who put it on also pulled it off.
The course itself incorporated the Valentine’s Day theme. It featured a drag race start, a small tight heart-shaped loop early on, which led to a short slalom up the middle. The slalom terminated in a tight 180-degree left. A short straight led to a 180-degree right that opened up to a big corner and fast straight leading across the back. A challenging double offset slowed the pace just before the finish.
It must have been a G Stock kind of course because these guys were on fire. Not only did Campbell claim Top PAX Score, everyone in the class was running 930+ PAX scores and class is seven drivers deep. Only 0.379 seconds separated the second through fifth place drivers and those PAX scores were 978 through 970! Mark Shaw pushed the Beetle Turbo S to second place over Scott Meyers in the Sentra SE-R. Kevin Gleaton drove the wheels off his Neon to tie for fourth place with Jeffrey Schultz in his Cooper S. Larry Dues and Chris Vasilakos turned in outstanding performances at 939 and 932 PAX scores. G Stock is class to watch this spring!
Dan Martin scored the Novice of the Day trophy with his 921 PAX performance in Novice 3, putting his Sentra SE-R in first place. In second place, at 906 PAX, was Matt Van Dusen in an Integra GSR. George Marstanovic placed third in his 240SX, just ahead of David Mann in another Integra. It was a full Novice Ladies class with Teresa Michael overcoming a tough D Street Prepared factor to turn in a lovely 863 PAX score. Beth Balducci was tearing it up in her WRX with Christina Nguyen chasing her in a Mini, both showing good form and big smiles. Jillian Miller seemed to be having a blast in borrowed Prelude. Dawny Nicely had expert coaching for her runs as she pushed the big Malibu through the tight sections. For many of the women in this class, it was their first autocross runs ever!
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(Posted 25 February 2004.) |