Number 9 . . . Number 9 . . .

Five years ago, 2006, was the high point of my autocross career. At the time, I was driving a car that, while not prepped to the limits of the rules, was as close as I’m likely to come for a while. I was committed enough to schlep a set of “sticky” R-compound tires to every event, swapping them on the car in the morning, off in the evening. The effort paid off. I swept my region’s trophies – class, PAX index, and both “driver of the year” style cups – which I’m unlikely to do again. I also went to my first SCCA National Tour event in Peru, Indiana.

I. Got. My. Ass. Kicked. Seriously. I wasn’t DFL overall, but I came dead last in my class by quite a margin. It was a humbling experience. So why would I do it again?

Good question! For whatever reason, I decided that five years had been enough time between exposure to the real hard core autocross experience. So, this past weekend, I loaded up the WRX and headed to suburban Toledo, Ohio, for another Tour event, which doubles as the Northern States Championship. How did I do?

I. Got. My. Ass. Kicked. Again. But that’s OK. I expected it this time and knew I was, literally, bringing a dull knife to a gun fight. See, when I got the WRX last year I decided I wanted to tune it a little bit. But it’s my daily driver and needs to handle a half-hour commute twice a day, plus 3.5-hour trips to K’s every other weekend. Given that my car is driven on the street every day of the year, but only autocrossed a dozen or so times during the same span, real race-prep was out of the question.

So, I’ve stiffened the WRX up a little bit with a set of springs and matched Bilstein dampers from GTWorx. I went with this setup based on a review from a fellow WRXer who noted its livability on the street while making the car a more enjoyable autocross platform. That’s certainly true. It looks damn good, too:

Photo by K.

Photo by Martin Valent.

That mod alone kicked me into STU ("Street Touring Ultra," for those not familiar with the SCCA's alphabet soup of autocross classification). However, aside from the springs/dampers, the only other mods I had heading to Toledo were fresh brake pads and tires. My competition, for the most part, took full advantage of the STU rules, which allow for more serious, if less streetable, modifications. As an example, one co-driven STi in the class needed to repeatedly slam on the brakes on the way to the starting line, presumably because the pads it had were of the type that only work well once heated. Such pads aren't really workable on the street, unless you live in an area where it’s summer all year ‘round.

If you want to get a feel for what a "real" STU car looks and sounds like, check out this video of one of the Sunday runs of the class winner at Toledo:

UPDATE: Per the driver in the comments, that car is actually his daily driver - he even has snow tires for it!  Makes me feel even slower.

Given all that, I’m happy with how the event turned out. I beat the other guy in STU who was in the non-top-of-the-line car (another 2.5 liter WRX – we’re really stuck between classes right now), which is about all I could hope for. I was ninth out of ten – not DFL! A step up from 2006, a least. I had fun, in spite of the oppressive heat over two days. Met some good people, saw some killer cars, and took part in some awesome competition, if only from a distance -the top 5 in my class were covered by less than 1/2 a second after two days of competition.  The guy above won out by 0.007 of a second.  That's close, no matter what you're doing.

Along the way I got a reminder of how different and intense national-level competition is. To be honest, I simply don't have the stomach for it. Autocross will always be a fun diversion for me, not the kind of thing I can get seriously worked up about.  I lack the drive (so to speak) that the drivers around me had to push themselves and their equipment to the limit. That means I won’t cover myself in glory very often. But I’ll have fun. I’m OK with that.

Dramatis Personae

To the extent any of this stuff matters, I wanted to put all of my basic information in one place. The short version is that I'm a professional lawyer, a hope-to-be professional writer, an amateur auto racer, and a very amateur musician.

And I look like this:

As you can see, I'm a bit of a soccer fan. More of that later.

My bio: I was born and raised in and around Charleston, West Virginia. I spend seven years in Morgantown, getting an undergrad degree in history (with philosophy and poli-sci minors) and my law degree. I became a member of the WV Bar in 1999. Out of law school I spent a year in the Beckley area working for what was then Appalachian Legal Services (now, after a series of mergers, WV Legal Aid), doing domestic law. It was not my thing.

After about a year of that I got a chance to jump from civil to criminal work and moved to the Kanawha County public defender office. It was there I started to do appellate work, although state appellate practice is a bit weird in WV, what without a mid-level appeals court and all. In 2002, I shifted from state work to the federal side, joining the Federal Public Defender office in Charleston as the Legal Research and Writing Specialist. My business cards say "Appellate Counsel," which is a pretty accurate description. They haven't kicked me out, yet.

I say all that not to tout my qualifications to do or say anything in particular, but so folks have some idea of where I'm coming from. As if I know myself.

I mostly write about myself (it is my blog, after all), but I'll occasionally mention some other folks.  Most important of those is The Wife The Girlfriend, aka "K", who is kind enough to put up with my nonsense.  This is she:

Before I met K, about five years ago, I was not much of an animal person. I've come around, and so sometimes I'll mention one or all of the members of K's menagerie.

There's Maia, the One-Eyed Wonder Pup:

You can read the story of how Maia came to be Maia here.


Since I shut down the last blog, Maia has been joined by an older little sister, Uzume:

Uzu is living proof of the sales power of cute.  We went to the local pet store to get something for Maia.  As on most weekends, they had a local shelter or two set up with critters for adoption.  Uzume was desperate for attention.  Once K picked her up and Uzu laid her tiny little head down on her chest, there was no question we would go home with her.


Maia and Uzume share their home with two bemused cats, Kali:

. . . and McNally:

As I said, when I'm not lawyering or hanging with K and her critters I spend some of my free time writing.  I'll write some more about that in a separate post.


I also spend some time making, as opposed to just consuming, music.  In group fashion I play clarinet in the Kanawha Valley Community Band.  As a solo artist (ha!), I've built up a fun little PC-based recording setup in my spare bedroom:

For the gear geeks out there, that's (from left to right) a Zoom R16 digital recorder, Korg M50 workstation with a Korg Kaosilator on top, a Nord Rack 2X and Alesis Micron synths sitting under an M-Audio Axiom 61 MIDI controller, and the old Gateway laptop.  For now, my tunes are posted over at ACID Planet under the name Infinity Ranch (a holdover from the old blog days).


My other big hobby is autocross, a very grassroots level form of motorsports that is, as my boss once put it, sort of like a downhill ski race, except with a car and in a parking lot.  Here's some good video evidence of what it is.  I run with the Southern WV Region of the Sports Car Club of America for the most part:

That picture, however, was taken at the Steel Cities Region's annual autocross held in conjunction with the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix.

That's pretty much it for me.  The basics, anyway.  Onward!