National Pro Solo in DC

This past weekend, WDCR-SCCA hosted the National Pro Solo at FedEx Field. I signed up to drive, but Steve didn't. This made for an incredibly long weekend for both of us since I was helping to organize the event (in addition to competing) and Steve was watching the kids.

Since Steve decided not to drive, I had approached John Willemin to see if he would be interested in a codriver. I've never driven an STX prepared WRX, and so I was thrilled when John agreed.

Friday, Steve did me a huge favor and took the kids to daycare. That gave me the time to go to the grocery store, and stocked the house for the weekend. Then I prepared some dinner options so that Steve would only have to come home and reheat in case I didn't get home for dinner in time. Then I went to Sam's Club to buy 10 cases of water and trashbags for the event.

I stopped to trade cars with John since he wouldn't be getting out of work until late. This allowed me to get practice starts in and take the car through Tech for him, and so that he wouldn't have to rush to the site. He arrived with enough time to get some practice starts in. The car seemed to hook up pretty well; it's not as good as the STi on rcomps, but boy it was fun! Meanwhile, Kevin and I loaded the water into the trailer from the Outback, and partook in the welcome dinner (best welcome dinner at a national event, so we hear.)

I left shortly thereafter to try and get home to help put the kids to bed. When I arrived, my mother-in-law was there. I didn't realize she was going to come over, so that was a nice surprise to see that Steve was going to have help no matter what. We put the kids to bed, I showered, and wasn't long before I was in bed myself.

Saturday, I got up at 5am, left the house at 5:15, and was onsite at 6:15. I sent home the overnight security guard, and began my course walks. Boy... the visuals on the left hand course were WEIRD in the crossover. WEIRD. It was like they tried to put an element WITHIN the crossover. I got used to it, but I'm not sure I liked it.

By 7:15, I had to start being a Worker Chief, and fulfill all of those responsibilities. At 8:45, I was to report to Impound/Tech to check workers in. Why couldn't I check them in from our trailer? It's closer to course and more centrally located.... Well, whatever, it's not MY event, so I did as I was told. About 5 minutes later, the skies opened up, and there I was, asking the same question... why couldn't I check them in from INSIDE OUR TRAILER??? I'd have been DRY but no, now I was standing there, watching the ink run down my checkin sheet and getting soaked by the second. Needless to say, that got changed for the rest of the event.

And now for the mantra:
It's not a DC Pro Solo until it rains.

I don't know what it is about the Pro Solo when we host it, but it rains almost every year. So now that we got THAT out of the way....

And now for the next mantra:
It's not a Pro Solo (doesn't matter which location) until we have timing delays.

National's Pro Solo equipment is notorious for failing, rain or shine, but it must really HATE the rain. It's common for the event to be behind because of timing failures, and rain-based failures just compound the problem. So now that we got THAT out of the way....

Safety stops the event dead in its tracks. Lightening was spotted. Everybody OFF the course! Safety dictates that the event must shut down for half an hour from the last sighting of lightening.

Now that we're over an hour behind schedule... there were MORE timing problems. The timing problems got so bad that we didn't finish morning runs until 4pm. That's INSANE. We still had afternoon runs to go! Thankfully, those runs were dry, but the last car didn't finish running until 8:45pm. That's just ridiculous.

As for my runs, well, I think I'll talk about that in another post.

I got home at about 9pm myself, got a quick recap from Steve about his day with the kids, took a shower, gave the kids kisses while they were sleeping, and was in bed by 9:30pm. I was beat.

I slept in on Sunday... got up at 6am. ::roll eyes:: I was at FedEx by 7:15, watched a small ice-based incident (there is no such thing as too much ice at an autocross!) and runs started at 8. Not 5 minutes later, the skies opened up. Again. This time, though, I was already in the trailer. Muahaha!

I got a text from Steve during the morning saying that the kids had let him sleep in until 8 and one that said "From the Law of Unintended Repitition: Nice Booger!" ROTFLMAO

During the last heat of morning runs, Kelly's car sounded like a box of rocks. It was blowing blue smoke, too. A bunch of guys pushed it up the hill into impound. Popped the hood, and then Kelly, Kristina and I just stood there and scratched our heads. Literally. Marshall, Ian and Jeff Jacobs came over to help. Ian pulled the dip stick, smoke came out of it and the oil fill access, and asked when the oil was last changed. Less than 3k miles, at the dealership. Kelly is religious about her oil changes.

From what Ian could tell, there was almost no oil in it. He got a container of oil and started filling... and filling... and filling... 3 quarts later, it finally registers on the dip stick. OMG. It wasn't leaking oil anywhere so WTF?! The only thing we can guess at this point is the grease monkey who did the oil change didn't actually ADD enough oil. After adding oil, Kelly started the engine and although it sounded a WHOLE lot better, it still had a knock. Likely a rod at this point, the guys proclaimed. That means a new engine...

Kelly, to my enormous amazement, was not panicking. She had AAA Gold (which includes 100 miles of towing), and she was within 100 miles of her warranty. She had the car towed to MINI of Sterling, and the service manager is looking into it....I'd have been FREAKED OUT (and pissed).

Morning runs finished at 1pm, and the Challenge Rounds started at 2. I went out to work on course for the Challenge ROunds, and watched a great competition. Lots of locals made the challenges, so that was really cool, too.

Right as the Challenge Rounds ended, I got a text. "I hope you're coming home soon." Steve had had enough. Unfortunately, that meant I couldn't clean up, but I had to go be Mommy. I drove home as fast as I could. I got to feed the kids dinner, give DJ a bath, cook a chicken to eat over the course of this week, and then clean up. I got a shower in, and then I got to sit down on the couch.

It was a long weekend, but I love the Pro. It's maddeningly fun!