Autocrossing a Fiat X1/9

[Pyrite] [Pyrite in the 1006 SFR Solo II season] My primary hobby for many years was autocrossing my '81 Fiat X1/9, "Pyrite", and its predecessor, "Colibri", a '79, both of which were prepared for SCCA's D Street Prepared class. (After I painted Pyrite, I always meant to change the name since it was no longer meaningful once the car was no longer gold, but somehow the old name stuck. Thanks for all the helpful suggestions anyway!) I've driven Pyrite to nationals (held in Kansas) twice, and garnered a second-place (DSPL) trophy one of those times. I actually won the DSPL national championship once, back in '89, but it was in Bill Condrashoff's X1/9, not my own.

Lately, I'm retired from autocrossing, though I've been wanting to run some local events again. (I got tired of the long weekly drives to Sacramento and yearly drive to Kansas.)

[Redshift] [Redshift] 3/20/98: Retired Pyrite. At just short of 250k miles, some of it on the east coast and other snowy areas, the underside of the body is just too rusted out. Most of Pyrite's parts were transplanted into a red-over-brown '86 body, named "Redshift", which I drove until 2010.

5/6/98: I finally got the new car! But what should I name it?

Later: I'm calling it "Redshift".

Redshift was retired in 2010.

I'm a member of Team.Net and Fiat America. See Pyrite, back when the car was still gold, hence the name, putting down the long straight at Thunderhill.

I originated the web page for San Francisco region SCCA autocrossing, but am no longer the primary maintainer.

I also collect articles related to California's new Reformulated Gas and its possible health hazards.

[Colibri] This is my first X1/9, "Colibri" (Italian for hummingbird) at an autocross at Crow's Landing. Or see Colibri charging up into turn 2 at an autocross at Sears Point.

I do most of the work on my vehicles. Here's an article I wrote a long time ago on home wheel alignment, and one on Flaring the fenders on a Fiat X1/9.

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Autocross/Racing Links

(These are probably way out of date by now)