MR2 wins first time out.

[Mr. Pockets]

Technically, this was not my first event in the MR2. I did one autocross last year at the end of the season right after I bought the car. But the tires were shot, the struts were blown and it turned out the engine was not exactly healthy.

Fast forward to now, with Avon Tech-R tires, Konis and the engine rebuilt by yours truly. It's a completely different car.

This was a pretty small event in every regard. Normally the course is about 60sec and we have around 70 drivers. Typical times yesterday were around 41-42sec and we only had 32 drivers. The course was so technical that my fastest tiems were run entirely in first gear, banging on the rev limiter for much of the run.

I clearly have a lot to learn about driving the car, so I just focused on getting used to a few things. I didn't mess with tire temperatures or strut settings. I set the struts at 50% and just made sure the tires stayed at the pressure I set before the event.

The grip this little car has now is astonishing.

I won my class and kept improving on my times over a couple fun runs. My fastest official time was 38.6 and I easily ran a 38.2 with a passenger on my last fun run. I won't know for sure until results are posted online, but I think I was 3rd-5th on index. Being the first time out on all that new stuff, I'm pretty happy with that.

Picture time!