Sometimes a car is priced well… and with that and an MOT, we have welcomed a VW Golf to the fleet. The funny thing is, it is for competition but to be used as a standard car and I love it – more than I ever thought possible! Driving it just makes me smile.
We entered the one day Autocross event (due to it being too far to do the two day event and not wanting to use accommodation) and the first time I drove the car was… to the start line. Why do I love it? It’s heavy, not the most agile, and you really really have to work it and hustle – but that makes it even more rewarding.
With dry weather, the stubble field used felt as if it got quicker during the day as it cleaned up. There were ruts in places and it had a mixture of fast sweeping bends and was a little more technical around the back. Our class comprised of a mix of “normal” standard cars and cars eligible for the standard class, but modified within the Autocross regs to get as much as possible out of them.
Neither Matt nor I were fighting for the front of the class, but the competition between us was fierce! There was a running order which we had to stick to, and our times were within a few tenths of each other most of the day – not bad for a four minute plus course. For the final run, I went before Matt, and he asked my time when I came in – and I told him. Maybe I shouldn’t have done?! It fired him up…
My final run was messy; I don’t mind making mistakes, but you should learn from them. Early on, the car jumped out of second gear which cost a little time (it had done it on one of my morning runs too but hadn’t done it again since). At that point, there is an argument I should have learnt from the mistake and held it in gear – but the counter to that is two hands on the wheel is better. On a later lap on my final run, it jumped out of gear again. From that point onwards I held it in gear, but it was too late; more time lost. (Watching videos back shows I also had too much wheel spin off the line, so something else to bear in mind for future events).
The long and short is, Matt found quite a bit of time on his final run and he beat me by two tenths. He didn’t have any issues with the car jumping out of gear through the ruts but there’s no doubt those two incidents on one run cost me more than two tenths. He finished third in class, and I was fourth in class and ninth overall. Plenty for me to think about for next time – the challenge is there aren’t too many autocross events around but I will beat him, next time!
I put together a comparison of our best runs which can be viewed on Youtube by clicking here. You can see how at points he is ahead, I am ahead etc, but being in the same car it is interesting to compare.
At the end of the day, one of the marshals came up and told us how we were the highlight of their day with the way we were driving the Golf. It didn’t make up for the two tenths of a second, but it made me smile and was good to know we’d provided some amusement and enjoyment to others.
