Boundary Bay Driving Centre - originally posted 5/9/05
On May Day I went to an event in BC put on by
VCMC (watch the video). The drive was great, just a few miles farther than going to Bremerton, but with scenery rather than cityscapes. The border crossing had no lines, so into the Great White North I went. I found the site after a minor excursion and as I pulled in, Sheldon and his co-driver Ernest waved me in to park next to them. I got unloaded then went to register, $40 CDN for a membership which includes one free event - what a deal. This was the first event for their Novice Championship, so it was referred to as "the biggest turn out we've seen in a while", 94 entries with many novices (DUH!).
The course was interesting (I need to start keeping course maps and scanning them), out through a set of offset gates, through a V lane, cross over to the other side runway, a pinch cone then a big sweeper to the right - increasing radius. A short two-cone slalom, cross back to other side of the runway, hard left and back through the two-cone slalom and sweeper (now decreasing radius), the pinch cone and into an open ended box, then a five-cone slalom and through the finish lights. One gotcha in Canada, you actually have to STOP in the stop box or it's a DNF.
The runs went OK, except I missed the pinch cone on the second run, resulting in a DNF. I also DNFed the last run after spinning when entering the sweeper the first time. It was great to run against someone in my class, though I got beaten by 10 seconds on a 47 second course. I don't feel too bad about it though, Sheldon and Ernest have been driving this car for over a year; and though it's the same year and model as mine, it's been updated to a full four-link rear suspension, is geared for autocross and they are using real autocross tires.
I'll go back to BC for more events, the people are great and the event ran nearly flawlessly. Even the drive home wasn't too bad, only 25 minutes at the border at 1700 on a Sunday evening.
