Short answer:  No!  Below is a more detailed account of my entry into the SCCA Solo 2 National Tour in 2006.

I had done about 6 events with my local autocross club and was attending the membership meetings (I signed up to be a member at the 2nd event).  And in talking with a friend, Gordon, he mentioned the National Tour event in Ft. Myers.  I asked if I should even bother entering something like that.  He said “Sure.  It’s a great experience!”.  He was not wrong about that.  But more on that later.

First, signing up for the event was a bit more involved and it cost quite a bit more too.  I got a hotel room near by since this was a multi-day event.  The Friday was registration and initial tech inspection.  I arrived and was told I needed to pay $3...

After competing in 4 events, I was really feeling how heavy my big 17″ wheels were.  I wasn’t quite ready to trailer my wheels to an event.  So I bought some nice tires to go on 15″ Flik Blast-C wheels from Edge Racing.  The tires were Hankook R-S2’s.  They were a little grippier than the Nitto tires that I had on the car already.  When I bought the wheels, I picked them up and had 1 in the frunk, 2 in the passenger seat area and 1 behind the driver’s seat.  It was a LONG drive home from Medley, Florida that day.  My knees were at my ears and doing anything but moving calmly in my same lane was a mission.  I made it home safe and sound though...

Upon arriving at my third autocross event, I noticed a guy selling magnetic numbers for a decent price.  And since I had been lucky enough to always get my same number, I decided to purchase a set.  This also makes the whole setup prior to tech inspection go a lot quicker.  Otherwise you need to use up a good amount of 2″ painter’s tape “drawing” the numbers on the side of your car.  This worked OK for my car for a while because it’s white.  But just imagine if you had a blue car.  That didn’t stop some people from putting blue numbers on a blue car though.  Still, I wanted to at least look cool even though my times still had a long way to go to improve.

Basically the numbers are magnetic vinyl that was cut out in the shape of numbers.  They don’t need to be much more than that...

With 1 event under my belt, I was ready for more excitement.  This time, a friend came down and we went to the event together.  This time, it was at Homestead Miami Speedway.  It was on the kart track.  But it was a great venue for autocross.  lots of configuration options to choose from for the course designer and no solid barriers near by.  Those will damage your car if you hit them.  Speaking of crashes, I will say that I have only seen a couple incidents where a car got out of control and was actually damaged.  Anyway, back to the event…

It was a HOT day that Sunday.  The process went very similar to the first event that I attended.  I was still running in DP.  And for my work assignment, I was chasing after cones and picking them up when cars hit them...