On September 9, 2000, Factory Five Racing held their fifth annual Owner Appreciation Autocross at Otis AFB on Cape Cod. Nate, his son Amos, and I drove down in the Cobra, also bringing my Ford Probe as a "support vehicle".
It was clear and cool when we left my home early in the morning, but quickly got hot and sticky by midmorning, and then got windy and cloudy as the afternoon went on. Despite the forecast, which called for clear weather till Tuesday, it rained late in the day, but luckily the rain held off till we were on our way home.
It was Amos' first time at an autocross, and I gave him a ride during the practice runs. He loved it!
We really enjoyed meeting so many Cobra enthusiasts - including quite a few from the Cobra Forum - and seeing all those gorgeous Cobras. We hope our Cobra will soon be as beautiful, although we are still debating the color.
It was our first time at the Otis event and we both really liked the course. It's a unique situation; I don't think I've ever heard of an autocross course that's run over and over, year after year.
The three fastest cars were on DOT-legal race tires. Of those running on normal street tires, we were second and third fastest. Ben Siegel was quickest on street tires, with a time in the 1:38's.
I had a wild first run. The last time I drove the car hard was on the race course at Loudon, where there is a ton of grip due to all the rubber on the track. I way overestimated the amount of grip available on the runway at Otis, and got really sideways in the second turn, mowing down about four cones before I got the car gathered up again. I took out another cone later as I kept on over-driving.
On my second run, I exercised a lot more restraint and did much better. Even though I locked up the inside front brake going into the far turn (both times!) I managed to join the "90 second club" with a 1:39.8. Nate's best run was a 1:40.0, only fractionally slower than mine.
I had a shot at beating Ben after his poor father Jack went off into the trees and bent his car, but I was too conservative in my last run and was half a second slower. If the Siegel car had been healthy for the whole event, though, I never would have had a chance against Ben. He's really quick!
We're looking forward to next time, and hope we can go faster.
Nate did a lot of work on the Cobra in the weeks since the COMSCC event at Loudon in early August. One great innovation was a very clever modification to the throttle that made it much more progressive coming off of idle. This makes it much easier to drive smoothly, and makes it possible to modulate the power coming out of the corners with much more precision.
Nate's hard work and ingenuity (and mine, too, since I designed several of the "tweaks" we made during the build) was rewarded with a trophy from FFR for most innovative design. Thanks, FFR! This acknowledgement means a lot.
Thanks to Mark Weber, the Smiths, and all the folks from FFR who put on the event. It was great fun!