Autocross School with GGR PCA

Well I was lucky enough to attend the Golden Gate Region PCA event known as the Porboys Autocross School at the Alameda naval air field. This is a once a year event that they run to help new or relatively new people enter the world of Autocross (AX for short). Unlike their normal AX events they run during the year, this event includes a Skid Pad circle as well as a simplified course where times are not kept or recorded. So it's just a fun way to learn and practice and get better.

This was my third AX event and it was a blast. They pair you up with 2 instructors, one of the morning and another for the afternoon. The late afternoon runs you can do solo which I did. I had some great instructors. Ken Jones took me and the other student around the course for the walk and then talked about various issues. A great driver and very clear logical/technical. He was great to have for the first part of the day to help me get used to the course and was followed up by Doug MacKenzie another great instructor. He helped me find areas to try things and areas to improve during the afternoon, so it was a great tag team.

I also met and worked with other people during the event. Previously I always did course work. This time I learned the inside of the trailer and timing system and bit and was the announcer. The trailer was nice to stay out of the sun but no breeze wasn't fun. Usually Alameda seems really cold, it was hot today. For my last working session I asked for course work and got to be the flag worker to start the cars onto the course which was also fun.

During lunch I got to ride twice with Ken in his "true California 911 Targa" :) I also got a ride with I think it was Will Campbell in his Datsun 2000. Apparently these cars were used quite a bit for race training at the Bondurant school. He actually has Bondurant's signature with others on his dashboard. Amazingly quick... I didn't feel like he was braking at all during the run haha...just lightning fast.

One other note I finally turned Traction Control off for the car... I actually enjoyed it a lot more... I could feel more of what the car was doing without fighting it... definitely was easier to lose it a bit more and I had one fun accidental trail brake that I oversteered on...heh. But cool!

Here are some pictures followed by a video of my last and I think maybe clean run at the very end of the day... Some of the photo credits go to another new friend I met "Hao" who was driving his White Cayenne S I believe.