So I attended the first phase of the evolution performance driving school in the hopes to improve my autocrossing skills before I started to seriously get into the sport. I borrowed Dave's helmet and I was fortunate enough to have a head that's only as big has his. ;)

This was the first time I actually used my very own Bora to autocross and I was very happy with its performance. There were some techniques I had to learn to cope with a car with a turbo engine, but I was quite surprsed with the nimble nature of my car. Sure, it's no miata, but until I feel that it's actually the car that's holding me back from getting better times, I don't have any plans to part with my baby. ;)

One of the greatest things I witnessed at the event was how there were 2 groups of dad & son autocrossing pairs present. It always warms up my heart to see a dad and a son sharing a common interest. It's probably because I didn't get to spend as much time with my dad when I was little as I would have wanted to. I'm not complaining or anything, of course. ;)Raise awareness in skilled driving, keep their rages off the streets, and have some dad-son bonding... That's quite awesome, if you ask me. ;)

Although I was quite a bit sun burnt by the end of the day, I thoroughly enjoyed the school and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who can't be satisfied with using their cars as mere transportation devices (just remember to apply sun block before you participate). I defintely learned quite a bit more about autocrossing than I had with the mazda rev it up event. Not that they were trying to be an all-out school, I can now appreciate what mazda rev it up was doing, knowing that they were trying to cram an enormous amount of material into a single day program. If there was only one gripe wit the evolution program, I wish they would have taped our runs and given it to us so that we could monitor what the lines we took look like. We have a pretty detailed record of times it took for us to go from one segment to another in the entire course, so with the video it would've been a killer combo! Apparently there's an autocross event every Thursdays at Beaverun that lasts like 3 hours or so but only has a few people show up (read: less waiting around doing nothing). I'm thinking about checking it out sometime. Now, I just need to save up some money to prepare to burn through another set of summer tires next year ;)