Sunbeam Tiger Club Autocross
Welcome to the Marina Airport, local home to sky divers and the words smallest autocross course. At least it seemed that way the day we joined the Tiger Owners Club for an event. All due appreciation to the Club for putting on a well organized day, the course was so narrow and tight it surpassed fun and became a claustrophobic experiment.
Perhaps it was because my car weighs twice that of a Tiger, or that my wheel base is a limo compared to the scant footprint of a Tiger, regardless, this was not the course setup for a Corvette. Or for my friend below in the blue Ferrari F430, who felt a bit cramped as well.
I run most autocross courses in 2nd gear, but there was no chance of that on this course which was clearly designed for Micro Machines. That left me in the dreaded “too fast for one gear, too slow for the next” situation, and because only one stretch was long enough for 2nd gear but too quick to spend time actually shifting, we once again prayed to the rev limiter Gods to keep things under control.
Here you can see after the first left hand turn that the slalom was asking for another gear but it was too short to make the upshift. Maybe if I had Kevin’s fancy F1 paddle shifters… A little over driving on cold tires always gets the heart pumping, you can see some nice tail step-out heading into the slalom and making the first left hand turn exiting the slalom. Good times 
As if the tight course wasn’t challenging enough, I thought I would spice things up and turn on the windshield wipers half way through and then spend the rest of the run trying to turn them off. This technique of speed-by-chaos proved successful as it turned out to be my best run of the day and the third fastest time overall.
Possibly the greatest advise my mechanic ever gave me was a prized piece of social engineering in which the goal is to persuade your significant other that spending limitless sums of money on this hobby is in fact not “silly” but a fun “quality time” activity fit for the whole family! When words fail to make this point, strap her in behind the wheel and tell her “step on it”. What can I say, the man is a genius. This clip is of her 5th run ever at an autocross, and perhaps the 2nd time she’d ever been behind the well of this car. She did very well, I think there’s some natural ability worth uncovering. You’ll also catch the first half of one of Kevin’s run.
Lastly, one of my runs viewed from outside the car.
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