I went to my first TCRA event last weekend for some gymkhana action. It was very interesting, to say the least… I learned a lot about my car: It needs a lot of help!! I’m really considering moving my stuff over to a new chassis… the car is very very tired and it has a strange problems.

The day started out with some donuts and then figure 8s. Then we started to do more of a gymkhana style course with donuts, 180s, and slaloms. Man… my lack of e-brake response was really hurting me out there! It’s time for a caliper rebuild!

Lunch passed, and we started qualification… qualifying is based on time and style points. Drifting is encouraged, but so is time… so I was freakin CONFUSED. Anyway, I just said f-it and I drifted everything, even though it made me slower in some areas. Steve was totally rocking it in his ae86 and he was feinting and doing really tight donuts. I did okay… I was frustrated about my e-brake not really working and I kept spinning my tires when other people could just exit the drift without the wheelspin.

I qualified 2nd… Marc qualified 1st (bastard). But it was awesome because the top 10 consisted of us 2, Nadine, Noelle, and Scott. All of us but Noelle We were all first timers!

They offered the top 10 drivers the chance to drift the Big Willow track. Man, I wasn’t too sure, because my car has been really weird with its problems and I haven’t really had faith in my car for a while now. We went out, and I wasn’t expecting to do anything unless I felt comfortable. I took a few laps to get a feel for the track since I’ve never been on it. I looked for the danger spots, the speeds, the racing line… man… I don’t think this course was made for cheapo drift cars! The course is a 3rd to 4th gear course the whole time with huge elevation changes and huge high speed sweepers. I started to warm up to the course and started to play… my car is so unpredictable and shaky, but I was doing top of 3rd up and downhill… 90mph manji is so funny!

Anyway, after having fun at Big Willow, we went back to gymkhana for bracket style competition with the other top 10 qualifiers. I beat Scott, but I think I was lucky though, because he ran over a cone. Next round in the bracket, I tried too hard and was going too fast into my 180, feinted too hard into my donut and I ended up losing to the guy that ended up winning 2nd place. Noelle and I had to battle it out for 3rd and 4th place. Noelle was doing really good! She’s like the next donut queen if Nadine ever gives up that title!

Noelle and I went through THREE one-more-times and I THINK it was best of 3. I won a no-battery-required flashlight and a sticker (yay!). Gymkhana is fun… but my car isn’t really good for it. My car was just sitting still while spinning my tires and my e-brake doesn’t work very well, so my spin turns were crap.

Now I think I’m going to have to make use of that extra shell I have sitting around doing nothing. I used to call it my Just-In-Case-Of-The-Wall car, but now I think it’s the So-You-Can-Have-Faith-In-Your-Car-Again car.