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NASA Arizona Wraps Up, 10/3-10/4, Phoenix Intl. Raceway

October 3-4 weekend marked the second event of the fall season, and what many who went to NASA Nationals call, “The Return to PIR”.  Typically this weekend is reserved for the BMW Car Club of America—more specifically, fielding their large race groups of BMWs and MINIs—with NASA Arizona piggybacking onto their event.  Due to circumstances which are no doubt unfortunate and used far too often these days, the BMWCCA club race group cancelled for the weekend.  (Ok, I’ll just say it:  Economic circumstances)  Remaining after that were the usual NASA HPDE, Time Trial and Race groups, along with sessions of drivers coming over from the BMWCCA group:  A beginner’s school, and driving groups using a similar structure to NASA’s HPDE program.  All said, everyone was glad to welcome the nice weather, finally, after a long streak of hot events.  Perhaps October 3-4, 2009 had come full circle, with the last cool-weather Phoenix Intl. Raceway event being the last BMWCCA weekend on March 6-7.

With the NASA Championships being held on the same weekend as the previous NASA Arizona event, many of the regular drivers in TT and Race group were reappearing at PIR for the first time since May.  Perhaps the excitement of Nationals was still in everyone’s system, or the sight of such fierce competition caused everyone to raise their game just a little more on the local level for the remainder of the 2009 season.  If you were to have a conversation with many people who attended the NASA Championships, perhaps the word “perspective” would be mentioned a few times, or even a mention of the word “humbling”.  One of the common thoughts among the racers and TT drivers was that given the massive amount of meetings, run sessions, schedule changes and sheer mass of the paddock and entrants at Nationals, being back in Phoenix among the local crowd, if anything, seemed a little easier to navigate after the circus up at Miller Motorsports Park.  Less effort spent on logistics simply meant more concentration put into driving.  In many cases, the results on October 3-4 weekend were reflective of that.

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