Another good day of autocross yesterday. At the practice a couple of weeks ago, I felt like I was getting better at understanding a course, figuring out how to navigate it, and getting it done with the car. At the autocross the next day, I found the course tough on the first couple of runs, but then figuring out how to smooth things out and improved a lot. Yesterday was similar. The course was extremely tight (even tighter than the usual courses they shoehorn into that parking lot) and on my first couple of runs I felt like I was thrashing against the impossible, unable to put any of the car's power to any use.

The course started with a 5-cone slalom that was really tight. On my first couple of runs, I did the usual thing of trying to start fast and immediately got behind on the slalom -- the important trick with a slalom is to get in a good rhythm and not get further and further behind the cones so you have to turn harder and harder. Once I slowed down and took it easy, that went much faster. I tried to do the whole course more smooth n easy and picked up a lot of time. After that, it was just a matter of figuring out where I could push a little harder and improving my time. My first run was about a 57.7, second was a 57.3. Then I took it easy and improved to 55.7. On my last two runs I just pushed a little harder in the places where I thought I could and got a 55.0 and a 54.6. go me. On the up side, I finished fourth in my class. On the down side, there were only four of us. But the people I'm running against are pretty good, and it's not bad that I'm not that far behind them.