Alyn Family » Autocross

Weekend at Oma’s

egg — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 03:02:35 +0000

Oskar and I are home from our weekend at Oma’s. Xavier’s staying until Patty comes up this next weekend. They boys had a great time Saturday burning off some steam running laps in the basement of the old house (still for sale if anyone’s interested), the mall and finally exploring the Elgin Public Museum. After that Chris and I went to the SCCA Chicago Solo awards banquet. I picked up my 9th place trophy (Wahoo!) and some Hoosier Tire door prize SWAG which the kids put to good use this morning. Some commented photos below.

Boy’s are happy to get out of the car Friday night.

Run run run run run run run run run run run run run … okay, we’re ready to go to the mall now!

Scary T-Rex head!!! Roar! Xavier wasn’t pleased with the sound effects or the moving jawbone.

The museum is hands on and displays – a good mix keeping everyone pleased.

Xavier learned to swing for the first time (notice he’s not in a baby swing) and he started kicking his legs to make it work (anything to be just like Oskar.)

The awards were numerous!

It’s the Hoosier Tire Ghost! ~ Spooky ~

Oskar reading up on the Phantom Hourglass strategy

Of course the full resolution photos (these are all cell phone pics because I forgot my camera) are on flickr as well as a few more from Saturday and Sunday too!

The Twin (Updated)

egg — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 22:27:09 +0000

This weekend is the SCCA Chicago Region’s twin – events 7 & 8 wrapping up the autocross season for 2007 (for me anyway). Heading into the weekend I’m in 7th place with a few competitors breathing down my neck. The field of competitors is much smaller than last year. Last year I finished in 15th place out of the 16 competitors who were eligible for the class during the season. Heading into the weekend, it looks like 12-13 people will have completed enough events to be eligible for the class at the end of the season (assuming they all compete). I would like to move up one more position, however, not falling back is certainly more important to me at this point.

The way the points work for this series is that you must compete in a minimum of 6 events in the class during the season. Your two worst events of all 8 (assuming you completed in all of them) are then dropped. So if you miss two events, the zero points you accumulated are then dropped and your final standings are based on your total points accumulated. This season I only missed one event, however, event 1 and 4 were both very bad events for me, so I’ll be looking to do better this weekend to erase one of those events from my record. Wish me luck!

Update on Standings

Well Saturday and Sunday both turned in better times than my worst events, however, overall I ended up dropping back two places in Street Tire. The pending final audit information has me sitting in 9th place (of about 27) in Street Tire for the 2007 season. While I did loose ground in the final weekend, I am pleased and hope to be able to continue improving my skills in some way again next year. Thanks everyone who was cheering me on in the back of their mind, and the biggest thank you to my wife and family who put up with my 3 1/2 day absence.

Misc

egg — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 11:55:00 +0000

I survived another two Chicago Autocross events. I finished poorly overall in both, but am starting to feel like I know the car. Chris had an alignment put on the car based on someone else’s recommendations (who is currently running first in our class in the same type of car) and after wearing the tires into the setup, the car felt good. I forgot the camera and so there’s no pictures of the event at all. I’ll see if I can find some online. Gretchen, Oskar and Xavier survived the two day event with some help from Patty. It’s looking to be a rainy Labor Day weekend here. We were hoping to go to Geneva today, so perhaps the rain will stop mid morning and we can enjoy the rest of the day.

Autocross Update

egg — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 16:21:00 +0000

Results were posted for yesterday’s race, I didn’t do too bad in class 19th of 36, (Street Tire) – not quite into the top half, but overall on the PAX index I’m not doing as well as I did earlier in the year. Heading into the weekend I was 21st in Street Tire for the year (of 33 who had competed 2 events or more). We will see how that looks once they update the numbers with the fourth event.

Getting Ready for School

egg — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 16:11:00 +0000

Yesterday we finally bought Xavier his very own pair of Sneakers (7 1/2)! Yep, that’s right, no more hand me down sneakers for him. Oskar also picked up a backpack and another couple of pairs of sneakers (12) to round out his back to school supplies. Next we need to get some clothing for both of them! Oskar’s starting school on Wednesday and is attending a birthday party this afternoon. Tomorrow is the fourth SCCA Solo race for the Chicago region – so Egg’s gone all day. Xavier had discovered Oskar’s wooden train stuff and is having a great time using the play table in the basement.

SCCA Learning Curve

egg — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 14:48:00 +0000

We did it, Chris and I both finished the autocross school and are registered for next weekends first event. It rained yesterday but the car was awsome in the rain and we had a goood time. Scores were posted online last night, looks like we both ran mid pack overall. Not too bad for our first time.