Whew what a weekend at the Fontana Auto Club Speedway with the Optima USCA. Man was that ever a hot weekend and car event!!!!!! I drank over 350 liquid ounces of water and Gatorade Sat & Sun and I still lost 7 lbs in those two days and had dehydration related cramping.
However, it was still a fun weekend. No other event that I've been to besides Optima USCA do you see such a wide variety of cars and while it gets increasingly competitive every year its great seeing the camaraderie continue and getting to see some of my fellow competitors and friends.
This was the last Optima USCA event before the invitational at SEMA and the competition in the GTV class was off the hook compared to my previous experience in April in Vegas. I was very happy that in all three driving events I managed my best times in my last runs. Regardless of how I stack up on the scoreboard I always feel much better when I see consistent improvement throughout the day at a driving event. Overall I came in 9th out of 33 GTV competitors which considering the competition is something I pretty happy with.
Getting after it on the autocross (thanks Tim for the pic)!
And video of my best lap on the road course. I did 5 sessions and it took me many tries to get to this time lol.
Edited to add: I feel like I'm finally starting to get the car and most importantly the driver sorted on the road course. I still have a lot left to learn but this past weekend I probably did more throttle induced oversteer than the rest of my track driving combined and it felt good to predict it, control it, and even prevent it.
Also, great job to Jimi Day and the whole Optima USCA team for another really well run event. I was especially appreciative of the ability to wear shorts on Saturday for the autocross and speed stop and the extension of judging to Sunday.
Also, thanks to TCI Engineering and Wilwood for great hospitality over the weekend.