Article in local paper from my last race.

I’d come for a photo, not a thrill ride, but my host – a racing enthusiast – had other ideas.

“Do you have any trouble on roller coasters?” he asked me last Sunday at a Sports Car Club of America rally south of Auburn. As a matter of fact I do, but I’d been watching fast cars twist and turn through the autocross course at Kruse Auction Park, and it looked like something my stomach could handle.

“You can’t write about it without taking a ride,” my host insisted. I couldn’t convince him that I’d be happy just taking pictures of the cars, without getting inside them. When he finally wore down my resistance, I decided I’d feel safest riding with my nephew in his souped-up Eagle Talon.

Kyle Mavis, who grew up in Kendallville and now lives in Auburn, has been working nearly a decade to coax more speed from his Talon. I figured I’d run into him when I headed out to photograph the amateur racing event at Kruse Auction Park. I never dreamed I’d be strapped into his passenger seat, holding onto the door handle for dear life. But if I was going to lose my lunch on somebody’s floorboards, someone I met when he was only two hours old might be more forgiving.

Besides, Kyle had one of the best looking cars of the 90 assembled for the races, not to mention one of the fastest. While we waited for our turn at the starting line, Kyle explained all the changes he’d made to shave seconds off his course times. A carbon-fiber hood replaces his steel lid, pruning about 35 pounds. The back seats came out, along with all the insulation, down to the bare metal. A turbocharger boosted the horsepower rating of his engine from 135 to 300. Kyle’s car slams you back in your seat, but perhaps more important, it’s super-wide tires hold the sharp turns on the course.

A wide variety of cars turned out for Sunday’s event – and will be back for today’s season finale. Drivers bring everything from drool-inducing Porsche and Honda roadsters to everyday compacts. The SCCA offers more than 30 categories for fair competition. Kyle races in the SMS class, which stands for street-modified street tire. Rules for SMS allow “pretty much open book on all the modifications we want to do, but it’s got to be on a street tire”, he said.

With all the work he’d put into shedding weight from his machine, I wondered why Kyle would want to add a human being to its load. No problem. The races allow each driver six chances on the course, and only the best lap counts. Carrying me on his first run wouldn’t hurt his chances of winning.

It was time to buckle up my five-point safety harness, juts like the pros wear, and strap on my snug helmet. We leaped forward from the starting line, and suddenly I knew why I needed the head gear. Kyle snapped his car from side to side through a set of orange cones, banging my noggin against the door frame four times before I knew what hit me. (My headache lasted til Tuesday.) Then we zipped through a series of short straightaways interrupted by sharp curves and a sliding 360 degree G-force turn.

The view outside was spinning crazily, so I focused my eyes on the speedometer. To my amazement it never registered above 35mph. Autocross layouts are set up to keep speeds sane, so it’s rare to get past second gear. In 62 seconds, we were screeching to a halt at the end of the course.

“There’s a lot of time out there to be found,” Kyle said. The next time around, I watched from the safety of the sidelines as he whipped through the turns in 59 seconds. Kyle dabbled in drag racing, but settled on SCCA events as a more demanding test of his driving skill. “While it’s fun going fast, it’s actually plenty quick out there between the cones”, he said.

He got that right. We’ve all complained about dawdling in city traffic at 35mph. Who’d have guessed that on an autocross course, slow-lane speed can take your breath away?

Written by Dave Kurtz
Editor of the Evening Star in Auburn, IN