Nicholas & I awoke early to get ourselves up to the Vancouver area for a JCNA Slalom. This on was being hosted by The Pacific Jaguar Enthusiasts/Group 44 in the same Skytrain parking lot as the Canadian XK Register Slaloms I’ve attended in the past. The drive north was uneventful, just a tad chilly under overcast skies, and dull as we took Interstate 5.
After about an hour we arrived at the US/Canada border. Three armed CBP agents were standing astride the road right at the u-turn at the “truck crossing” at Blaine, which is odd. They waved me through, but stopped all behind me… I have no idea why. We breezed through with our shiny new Departland Ãœber Alles Papers Please and proceeded up the (finally finished after YEARS of construction!) newly 4-lane BC HWY 15 up to the freeway then west to Surrey city center and down the hill to the Skytrain station near the Pattullo Bridge. We arrived as the host Art Dickenson was getting set up. Usually we arrive late, so this was a change!
Art is the first person to ever run the course in sub-40 seconds, in his heavily modified XJS. Unfortunately he blew his engine on the Maple Ridge track and did not have a car to drive at this event. Oh well. Meanwhile I prepped the 65E for the day’s work. This involves unloading everything from the boot, toolbox, spares, all loose items.
All the participants arrived shortly after we did. Art finished the course prep, and Nick & I did FOD duty with the broom, doing our best to prepare the course by removing rocks and garbage which tend to accumulate in parking lots. Meanwhile Art took the large group of novices (over half the attendees of this event were first-timers) on a course walk through.
Once Nick & I finished the course sweep the timing gear was installed and tested.
Novices were then allowed a set of tours. First in a stately Jaguar 340:
There were as many “Brand X” cars as Jaguars at this event, including one couple who were driving by and dropped in out of curiosity and were invited to make runs. JCNA has a class for non-Jaguar cars and one of these days I hope to bring both the 65E and the TDI. In the latter I can at least lay claim to the fastest home-brewed BioDiesel powered car around the course! I would not however come anywhere near the top of the leader board as people bring some serious weaponry to these fights. This event saw a Honda S2000, a turbo-charged Toyota “drift racer”, a highly modified (yet rat-rod stealthy in appearance) Pontiac Trans-Am, a C4 Corvette, and a BMW 2002 with a Buick V-8 motor. The latter caused all sorts of double-takes when it fired up and roared off, making distinctly UN-BMW sort of noises!
The novices were allowed practice runs, the idea being safety training more than anything else. The course is, and looks pretty simple, but trust me, once you are running it all becomes a sea of confusing cones! The confused have been known to impale their cars onto lamp posts. Some novices are clearly novices, and some are clearly not. The Pontiac goes out and in “practice runs” turns some very impressive times in the very low 40s. The car handles extremely well, looking like it is on rails, and the driver is clearly very much in tune with the car. Unfortunately after a few tries the car breaks… a knocking noise coming from the engine. Uh-oh.
I’m getting a wee bit antsy just sitting watching the novices drive the course. So to distract & amuse myself I start shooting photos with my new camera. As I’m shooting the Corvette on the track I note that the guy gets COMPETELY lost on-course, so as he comes in I offer to take him for a tour. This solves two problems: teach the novice how not to hit a pole, and get me a bit of wheel time.
I hand the camera to Nick and quickly show him how to use it, throw on my helmet and get my Novice strapped in.
I drive the course slowly, explaining how it works and how to best approach the details of getting around it right. I wasn’t driving hard, or even really trying. It was nice to not be sitting around though. After we went around once we switched cars and drivers, with me tagging along in the Corvette’s passenger seat to set the course into the driver’s memory. He did quite well.
Next Art divides the whole group into smaller sub-groups of 3 or 4 cars each. This allows people to have their 5 runs close together, minimizing waits between runs. I’m not in the first group, so we wait and shoot photos. The stately Jaguar 340 loses a bit of it’s wafty stateliness when flogged hard around the course:
Two newer Jaguars are in the first group, and it is impressive to see how well they handle. It is especially amazing to see how well they stop. I swear you can enter the stop-box at full throttle and NOT hit the final cone. These new cars just come to a gentle, undramatic halt. No screeching tires. No slewing or sliding. They. Just. Stop. Moving. Compare that to a 40-something year old machine which arrive at the finish with more drama than a bathroom full of bulimic supermodels. It is a fantastic illustration of just how far technology has taken the automotive industry.
My group went next. I have no photos but Nicholas held my little Nikon Coolpix (mostly) above the dashboard in movie mode for some videos:
First Run: 47:871 seconds
Second Run: 47.202 seconds
Third Run: 47.106 seconds
Fourth Run: 46:910 seconds
Final Run: 46.256 seconds
Big thanks to Nick for his camera work under trying conditions, while also providing me with navigational hints (lap/shape reminders which you can hear during the videos.)
I was hoping to get my times under the 46 second line, but I guess I’m not there yet. I was able to beat my previous personal best time of 46.339, but not until my final run. I’m very happy with my overall progress. Starting in 2004, my times have improved thusly:
2004
52.56
50.74
49.33 (+2 second penalty for hitting a cone)
48.61
dnf (engine shut off due to faulty ignition switch!)
2006 June (no runs in 05 due to engine rebuild)
dnf (brutally killed a cone)
49.291
47.560
47.40
48.14
June 2008 (No runs in 2007 due to schedule conflicts)
dnf (damn cones!)
47.041
46.740
46.788
46.339
June 2009 (This event)
47.871
47.202
47.106
46.910
46.256
I’m on the right track, provided I can miss cones and keep pushing it a bit. Too bad I don’t have somewhere I can practice!
As always I had a ton of fun. Nick enjoyed himself as well.
The next group contained a newer Jaguar station wagon (“Estates” they call them in old blighty) and it moved and stopped very well:
…but he did kill a cone in a rather brutal fashion:
No other E-types showed up, at least not on the course. This blue Series 3 car arrived, but only as a spectator. So by default I won my class. Getting first place out of a class of one car doesn’t count for much, but I’m very happy with at least beating my best time to-date. I think to shave another second off my times I need to take it with a bit more seriousness… perhaps play with tire pressures a bit and spend some time driving the car hard around an empty parking lot to get a sense of just how hard I can push it before it breaks free. Knowing where that edge lies would be very helpful. I run up to it and back off now, but being able to stay on it could drop maybe 2 seconds off my times. I just have a hard time letting go of my “fun” side and get serious about this stuff. We’ll see.
The drive home was very nice. The temps cooled down, and we headed for the border down highway 15. I knew that the ‘Peace Arch‘ crossing would be miserable on a Sunday evening so I headed east, thinking that if Blaine was backed up I could slide over to the Lynden, or as a last resort Sumas, crossings. Sure enough the info signs listed a 55 minute wait at the Peace Arch, but inexplicably the ‘Truck Crossing’ just a slap-shot to the east listed only 5 minutes. Go figure. The name ‘truck crossing’ is a partial misnomer. Yes, this is the main customs crossing for large trucks, with the idea of freeing up the freeway/Peace Arch crossing for cars only. BUT the Truck Crossing also has car-only lanes that are open 24/7 (unlike the Lynden & Sumas borders, which close.)
We waited for a bit more than 5 minutes, and only had one item to declare for customs: Our 1st place plaque. The guy in the booth had a good laugh and sent us on our way. We zipped down to Bellingham and enjoyed our traditional post-slalom dinner at Boomers. I had the Cajun Inferno Burger. Nick had the #1 combo. From Bellingham we avoided the freeway and took Chuckanut, Bayview-Edison, road, & the Pioneer Highway:
It was a great day.
Interesting concept, this JCNA-style standardized course. Completely different than my long-ago Solo II career, in which you could not practice drive the course, only walk it, and courses that were always different.
Someday, if ever there’s one nearby, I’ll have to try my ever-so-rusty hand at this type of autocrossing.
Excellent report, as always!
Hmm, no shots of Nick going around the course?
Paul, you technically can NOT “practice” the JCNA course. That said, Art does allow novices on the course prior to the timed runs. Experienced drivers can take novices out as well. If you don’t have a helmet, those pre-timing runs are done at very slow speed. If you have a helmet, you can go faster, but since I was showing the novice the course layout, I didn’t go very fast… in fact I stopped to point things out!
I think this “novice runs” idea came about because somebody in an E-type went nose-first into a light pole last year in British Columbia… all because he got completely lost on the course. Better to err on the side of safety than competition rules I say. I’ve killed my share of cones, but never came close to going completely off-course. That Corvette driver though got COMPLETELY turned around and was just sort of wandering once he got out there. Wandering at the edge of control at one point… not a good combo! If you’ve never done it, the course can be VERY confusing! As you know there is a “on-course/on-timing” mind-set, and there is a “I’m showing somebody around for THEIR sake” mind-set. It is amazing how different they are. I don’t think my one “training run” had any positive outcome on my laps that day.
John, Nick left his learner’s permit at home! Art was ready to have him take to the course (as was I to a certain extent) but no license, no runs! Next time we go to Vancouver for a slalom Chris will be home and the boys can run the course in the Jetta. My insurance specifically forbids anyone with less than 15 years of driving experience from taking the wheel of the Jaguar, so the boys will have to run the course in another car, borrowed or brought from home.
–chuck