Moroso Autocross June 24, 2007
First, my brother bailed on Pit Crew duty. I got a late start, fortunately I’d packed the car the night before, but my cooler was empty. The plan was to fill it at a Publix en route to Moroso but Murphy stepped in with a fuel leak to suck up what little extra time I had. It was an easy fix but an empty cooler is a terrible thing on a hot summer day.
The course itself was pretty damned good. Moroso’s Kart Track is basically a very small road course and ER wisely chose not to screw it up by putting in autocross features. Instead they blocked off the lower section and moved the start to the left, creating very long straights ahead of turn 1 and after our newly created turn 2. Cones were placed on the edges of certain areas and they added additional penalties for each tire that entered the grass. Turns 8 - 12 on the map provided a nice challenge but overall it was just plain fun.
The layout also allowed for up to four cars to be running at the same time, so despite the turn-out of ~165 drivers we were all given five runs.
Except my car stopped running shortly after starting my fourth run. A coupling from my intercooler came undone. Not a big deal but it took me a few hours to get it secured such that I was confident it would make the drive home. Another plus for Moroso, they have staff available with gas-powered “golf carts” that were able to quickly extricate my car from the course and deliver it back to my parking space.
After all that time in the sun working on my car, I was wiped. Done. Barely able to function. Skipped my work assignment so I’ll probably get bitched at real good next time. Thankfully a fellow Pastellito took a little sympathy on me and helped with the tire change. Murphy striking again, one of my lugs was cross-threaded so I’m going to need a wheel stud replacement (or whatever the heck it’s called).
Possibly the next event at Moroso will be done on a Saturday evening, starting around 5PM. Not all that beneficial at the start of the an event but packing up after sunset would be somewhat less unpleasant (unless there’s a late afternoon thunderstorm, 10PM is still around ~85F during the South Florida Summer). If that happens I will probably check it out. Otherwise, I think I’m done with autocross until cooler weather returns…
