Yikes - this is steep! (And there's a hill before this, so it's blind)
Each venue typically has a morning event and an afternoon event. For the skid pad we lined up in numerical order and for the autocross it was somewhat numerical. The first road course event is somewhat self-sorted - the idea is to avoid needing to let someone by or complete a pass during the time trial since this will slow both cars down. After the first road course event, cars are basically sorted by their finishing order with some discussion between the drivers in each 6- or 7-car run group on who has been there before, who is driving, etc. so they can sort out a good run order.
Once your group goes out, everyone does a reconnaissance lap as they work their way around to the start-finish line. This is your chance (in addition to any bicycle or walking laps you did in the morning) to see the track and think about the line, braking points, how camber or elevation might help or hurt, and which corners would be really bad/expensive/dangerous to mess up.
After everyone lines up at start-finish, cars are sent out one by one with at least 10 seconds between them. Elapsed time for the time trial is based on three flying laps from a standing start, then there's a cool-down lap at the end before you come off track. As someone who has been working on their autocross skills over the last few years, I really enjoy the challenge of trying to balance putting down a quick time with not crashing/breaking the car or making a time-costly mistake...all in 3 laps, usually on a track I've never seen before. It's about pushing, trying to stay just below 100%, and making the best of the inevitable mistakes. Unlike autocross, you don't have several minutes of downtime between each lap to think about what you're going to fix on the next lap. Instead, you usually have one or two straights where you're blasting down the track at 100+mph with your foot to the floor, waiting to up-shift into 5th. This 15 to 20 seconds is your time to relax, check gauges, clear your head, reflect on how the last lap went, and think about a few things you can change on the next lap to find some time. So it's kind of like an extreme form of autocrossing!
Road Atlanta was a big, fast track, and in Brock's words it "deserved some respect". My morning session was pretty tentative, but clean, and I got a little faster each lap. I got a little faster for my overall time in the afternoon, despite messing up turn 5 on my final lap...we knew there was a lot of time to the gained there and it wasn't necessary to slow down much...but that's easier said than done!
Somewhere between Memphis and Atlanta Chris started to get competitive. Our finish positions at the wet skid pad and ET challenge weren't great, but we were in the top 40 at the autocross and mid-40's at the Memphis road course events. Although we were sitting somewhere in the high 50's overall, it might be possible to get into the top 50. We had never managed to finish above 60th in previous One Laps, so a top 50 finish would be great.
We typically split driving duties at each track so we would both get a chance to see as much as possible. But if we wanted to optimize finishing position, it would make more sense for the same driver to do the morning and afternoon session. We each had some different favorites in mind so it turned out neither of us felt like we were giving up much to change to the new plan. So, I would drive both events at Road Atlanta and Gingerman and Chris would do both events at Sebring and Dominion.
After I finished the afternoon session we hitched up, packed up, and hit the road again. The Fiesta's mileage had improved slightly from the first day and we were now averaging about 23 - 24 mpg, but this was a common sight:
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