Thank you once again to all of our participants this year! 2024 marks our 18th year hosting this event and we couldn’t keep it going if it wasn’t for the great turnout every year. We saw lots of familiar faces and lots of new ones. We couldn’t have asked for a better group of drivers to join us this year. All of the participants that have made it to this event before have made it much easier for us to get everyone registered, do tech inspections, and get you on track. You guys and gals know the drill, and it makes it much easier to get everyone through! For those who joined us for the first time, you guys and gals were great too. It was great to see the rookies ask questions, move through the registration process with ease, and take to instruction very well. We were very impressed!
This year the weather was not on our side. In our 18 years of hosting this event, this was some of the worst weather we’ve ever seen. Rain seemed to never let up, and cold temperatures had us shivering. But with all that being said, our turnout this year was actually up over last year. Absolutely incredible! We also made a few minor changes to the track configuration that managed to produce multiple sub 1-minute times. The weather didn’t help, and most of those fast times came towards the end of the day on Saturday which was by far the driest session. We saw some unique vehicles out there this year, including our fastest time of the weekend set by John Zabriski in his home-built formula car. This little pink car managed to set a time of 53.16 seconds. Second fastest was Roman Marmalyukov in his 2014 Ford Fiesta with a time of 54.34 seconds, and just behind him was Jacob Frey in his 2000 Mazda Miata with a time of 54.74 seconds.
The most improved driver we saw was Desiree Erickson in her 2004 Nissan 350Z. It was her first autoX and she asked all the right questions. She ended up going from a time of a 1:41 on her first time out down to a very quick 1:03 by the end of the weekend. We hope to see her back!
Drift Limbo returned with some new faces on the podium. Taking 1st place was Jake Moul in his 1994 BMW 318i, followed by Jeremy Melton in his 2004 Pontiac GTO, and Shawn Blauser in his 2003 Nissan 350Z. Jake and Jeremy really put on an incredible show towards the end. It was great seeing these 2 guys go back and forth as we made the cones tighter and tighter. Incredible drivers!
Check out the 2024 NICOFest results, and BIG BIG thanks to Torry, Jenn and others for stepping up to run the event this year.
Also, don’t forget to follow our Facebook page so you are the first to know when NICOFest registration for next year opens. If you register early, you can save quite a bit. We hope to see you next year!