After doing so well on the 6th, I decided to check out the Tucson region and give it a shot down there. It's only about a two hour drive which I figured ought to be worth it for a good event. In short, it wasn't. The racing surface was rather poor, and the track was really set up better for the faster cars which had a more powerful 2nd gear. My car really just couldn't compete.

Interestingly enough, there were only 42 total entries, so I wound up as the only car which ran in HS open. I had 39th place in raw time, but as the only HS car, I took 1st place in my class. I also took last place, but I prefer not to look at it that way. In PAX times, I did a little better, showing 25th place. That's still not exactly my idea of a successful run though. There were two other cars which ran in HS, but they both entered novice, which is why I wasn't scored against them. Below is how I would have done if we were all in one class.

All HS Cars, regardless of Class entered

Pos	Driver	Car	Fast Time	FT#	PAX Time	PAX#
1	John Cox	96 Cavaliar	46.442	36	36.596	22
2	Brandon Smith	97 Civic HX	47.396	39	37.348	25
3	Bennett Cohen	60 Austin Healy	54.490	41	42.938	41

So, even though the numbers don't look all that bad, it wasn't really that fun since I knew my car wasn't going any where near as fast as it could have on a different track layout. I also didn't really like the racing surface that my car just didn't seem able to find any traction on. When the surface is bad enough that I have no trouble getting my Honda Civic to oversteer on, that's not an ideal surface.

Working up to the current date, I recently participated in the drivers class for the Phoenix region and we all got to try out the new surface. It's substantially larger than the Firebird track, and plus it has the added benefit of not having to park in the dirt and rocks. Also, the track they designed was slow enough that I could run through the entire thing in 1st gear. This allowed me to stay ahead of virtually all the other Honda cars there since they were all going for 2nd gear. Hopefully if they have a similar track layout for the February race, I should be able to pick up a victory in HS. However, as the Tucson race tought me, nothing is assured. By February 14th, the waiting and wondering will be over.