Porsche Club Autocross

When Porsche introduced the new 2012 911 (Codename 991) to the world's press, they did it on an unused runway at the Santa Maria, California airport.  Porsche spent a lot of money repaving the track, then "donated" it to the airport, but asked that it be made available for use by motorsports clubs.

The inaugural event was our local Porsche Club's autocross.  Since my 914 was still under construction I volunteered to be a track worker.  I was assigned to security, checking cars and people in and out of the track, and because it's an airport under TSA security regulations, I had to do a TSA background check and get a badge issued.  Unfortunately by the time the event came around, all TSA badges came back except for mine!  I didn't want to be sent to Guantanamo Bay for violating TSA regulations, so I switched over to timing which was a blast.  We borrowed timing equipment to give everyone accurate information on their runs, and we were able to run two cars on the track at once to keep the cars flowing through.

While there were a lot of Porsches, including a couple of screaming GT3s, the event was open to anyone with a vehicle.

 Even this sleeper of a pickup truck with a tremendous launch off the line.

Corvettes were well represented.  I found it interesting with all of that power that they were the slowest cars off the line.

Professional racer and local boy Townsend Bell showed up.  He told us that this was where he started his racing career, racing go-karts as a kid.  He drove a stock BMW M5 and came in with some of the fastest times of the day, of course.

The rain managed to hold off for us, but began pouring as we were picking up the cones and packing up.  Next time I'm definitely bringing the 914 to see how it compares!