[GH85Carrera]

At my first autocross back on Feb 16th 1976 was in Dothan, Alabama. It was billed as an "Enduro Autocross" and was a blast. Each "run" was 5 laps of the course. It was at Hunt AAF which was a fantastic facility. It had 4 runways, 5,000 foot long each. And it had a HUGE helipad of flat concrete in the middle. It even had an air conditioned building with bathrooms and vending machines.

I was a typical young punk that thought I knew how to drive like a race car driver. There was a lady driving a new 1976 Corvette and she never turned hard enough to make the tires squeal. Her time was one minute faster than my first time. I was devastated. I got some really old dude who had to be almost 40 ride with me as an instructor. I took 5 minutes off of my time. I beat the lady Corvette driver by several minutes. Dang I was good after all. Until I saw some of the guys time in a Min Cooper and a Lotus Super 7.

I ended up destroying the factory crappy tires on the 914 that day. I went right to the one and only Michelin dealer in Montgomery, AL the next day and bought some XAS tires. The only ones they had to fit my car. After that set I had them special order the XAS tires. I won a several FTD trophies back then.

Corvettes and Mustangs were a total joke. A Cobra was way too rare for us to ever see. We did have one guy driving a real Porsche 904. Really. It was the prettiest car I had ever seen, but it made my 914 look big and ultra sophisticated.

By the time I moved to Oklahoma I realized autocross was best enjoyed as a relaxing fun drive. I quit caring about FTD when the crazy fast 911s started to win.