Something's not right.
Chuck Christopher unbuckles his seatbelt and steps out from behind the steering wheel of his 2000 Mazda Miata. He struggles to push it the remaining 10 feet, reaching the rear bumper of the nearest car in 50, all lined in five tidy rows. Corvettes, Porsches, a Dodge Viper, souped-up Japanese sports cars and more. He admits his Miata isn't the most intimidating sports car of the bunch but a "girl's sports car," he jokes.
"Guys needing a lot of horsepower have a lack of male equipment," he said about a minute ago, purposefully in earshot of a friend who owns a red Corvette, and moments before we reached the starting line, with me sitting shotgun. "Some guys can't get a song out of their head. You know? 'Little Red Corvette.'"
One lap down and we're back in line waiting for our next turn. But something's holding the car back.
Christopher lies back-down on the pavement and looks up into the front, right wheel-well as if he's familiar with the problem. He pulls out a two-foot tall orange cone, melted, torn and scarred with tire marks.
"How to kill a cone," remarks the driver of a 1964 Corvette Roadster walking by, adding that it's not uncommon at Sports Car Club of America's autocross races.
Cones designate the winding course across a large stretch of Friedman Memorial Airport asphalt, held for its second year here. And cones were an especially common casualty Sunday morning as the asphalt was cold and so were tires, meaning less grip.
Leo Brandt, 40, was one of the day's first drivers, wheeling up to the starting line in his 1993 Mazda RX-7, modified to push out 400 horsepower. He was a drag racer for 15 years but started autocrossing three years ago, and says he now prefers it. He says dragging is just about pushing the pedal to the floor, quick shifting and going straight, but autocrossing is much more technical, requiring throttle control and braking.
The track design makes this especially true. A straight line doesn't exist. Even the beginning isn't straight but a hard lefthander. Drivers are either maneuvering a tight slalom or hairpin turns, constantly testing the limit of lateral force their tires can take before breaking lose of the pavement, evident in the squealing at every turn. Every inch of the track is laden with rubber streaks.
When the lateral limit is exceeded, rear ends slide round—as was the case for Brandt through the hairpin—but rollovers are a rarity on bare asphalt.
This toying with losing control is autocross' challenge, according to Bob Roark, owner of a 1998 Corvette that had 345 horsepower stock, but now provides 500 with his changes.
"It's not [just] about how fast the car is," he said. "It's about how fast the driver is."
He said he allowed someone else to drive his Corvette and, in one attempt, had a time two seconds shorter than any of his runs.
The true competition isn't in beating the others for shortest time. A lot of this does depend on horsepower, which varies from the mid-100s for a Miata to 600 for a supercharged Corvette.
Christopher said what matters is how well a driver drives his or her particular car. Did he/she reach the car's full potential? The club ranks this by factoring into lap times statistics derived from historical racing data for a particular model. This puts all vehicles on an even keel, despite power differences, in its PAX standings. And, it turned out, No. 1 was Eric Stoltz, driver of a 1992 Mazda Miata. All the drivers were talking about him throughout the weekend.
However, no fat purse waits for the driver with the shortest time at the end of the weekend. And no fans cheer them on—it's just drivers watching drivers. A jacket and modest trophy can be had at the end of the year for best in a class. But that's it. And that's how Ted Fitts, driver of a 1999 Porsche 996, likes it.
"That's what it's all about. Getting a little scared. Getting the adrenaline up," he said after completing the course and rushing to a stop. "I almost lost it there."
For ex-motocross racer Earl Esson, he's here to teach his 15-year-old son, Erik, how to drive.
"It's a bit hard because I've only been driving, period, for three months," Erik said.
Here, the consequences of Erik's mistakes are just a toppled cone.
PAX results for top five:
Eric Stoltz—1992 Mazda Miata
Lynn Proctor—2005 Dodge Viper
Brian McGaha—same Dodge Viper
Blair Reid—2006 Chevy Corvette
Tim Nichols—Mitsubishi Evo
Raw results for top five:
Jon Schultz—2002 Radical
Mike Billings—1984 Lola
Lynn Proctor—2005 Dodge Viper
Brian McGaha—same Dodge Viper
Blair Reid—2006 Chevy Corvette
Trevon Milliard: tmilliard@mtexpress.com
Brian McGaha takes a 2005 Dodge Viper through a hairpin turn at the Sports Car Club of America autocross race at Friedman Memorial Airport on Sunday. Idaho Mountain Express reporter Trevon Milliard sits in the passenger seat. Photo by Willy Cook
