Story by Paul Kudra
Marking the end of another great season, the Hoffman Celebration evening felt like a Thanksgiving gathering of family, just a month early. The October 24th party, in the now familiar Porsche Hartford Gen-5 showroom, already feels so much like home that it’s hard to remember what it was like before the spectacular upgrade one year ago. Gathering in the “living room” that happens to be full of some awesome new Porsches, provided the great ambiance and sparked great conversations recounting the season and learning more about your extended AutoX family. These lively conversations didn’t skip a beat as we transitioned into the “Dining Room” for our tasty, warm dinner. The “home gathering” vibe was punctuated by the brilliant move Service Manager Matt Pikul made, moving us into the perfectly sized new car delivery room for a “family style” dinner. Sitting down to eat together, in the room decorated with Porsche’s car-color offerings, was the only time the volume dropped. Yum! Bravo Porsche Hartford, and a big Thank You.
It’s hard to overstate just how special and appreciated the Porsche Hartford support of our CVR AutoX program is. They are the cornerstone of our very strong program, providing the famed Hoffman Cup Run-Off car and luncheon (as covered in last month’s Challenge), and this AutoX Celebration. Only 40% of the 147 PCA Regions even offer an AutoX program, and just over half of those offer 5-plus events a year. CVR’s AutoX program is truly unique in all of PCA and literally the whole world! The whole Porsche Hartford team truly makes us feel like extended family coming home again.
Dinner table conversations could have gone on for hours, but alas, it was time to formally thank our hosts. I was thrilled to present Matt with my painting of a Carrera 6 as a special thanks to Porsche Hartford for this wonderful relationship. Celebrating the 60th anniversary of the beautiful Porsche 906, I couldn’t resist transposing it onto our Porsches@TheRock AutoX course. With the potency of our Porsches these days, we all get a taste of what that dream might actually feel like! Swing by Porsche Hartford and ask to see their downstairs conference room to see it for yourself, along with the previous 11 paintings. That’s a very impressive record of supporting CVR AutoX, and the paintings capture this longstanding relationship.
Special recognition was then given to someone who grew up at CVR AutoX events since he was about 7 years old. Tony Bogue used his considerable car control skills, honed by years of listening and practicing the AutoX-University lessons, to achieve something remarkable. In addition to running all the CVR AutoX events and finishing his engineering degree at UConn, Tony found time to compete in probably the most competitive form of road racing, SCCA’s Spec Miata. Massive fields in virtually identical cars make for good racing, where you need real skills to shine. And shine he did, winning both the Spec Miata Regional Championship and the Spec Miata-2 Regional Championship. Congratulations Tony, very, very impressive. It looks like CVR AutoX-U is a great path to this, as alumni John Raudat had previously proved and continues to rack up his own Spec Miata wins. “Better Driving… Faster!” now has a real “track record” behind it.
Each of the top-20 championship finishers was called up to acknowledge their accomplishment. As we all improve, this gets tougher each year, and they are all talented drivers. Porsche Hartford also presented each with a generous gift bag that will help each driver fondly recall the fun year they had, each time they use the items.
Capping off the wonderful evening and season, another remarkable feat, Noelle Talmon was presented the 2025 AutoX Most Improved award. Remarkable because she earned this same award in her rookie year, the first time someone has earned this twice. It was well deserved considering she went from finishing the 2022 season in 43rd position, 44th in 2023, 43rd again in 2024, and now leaped to 37th this year. The only changes…driving skill. My biggest compliment about her driving is to share that at the last AutoX, while watching her run, I turned to Chief Instructor Ed Bogue and said “I thought that was you driving Noelle’s car!” Congratulations Noelle, your momentum and flow skills have made massive gains.
AutoX Rookie of the Year was awarded to Rick Parks. Starting at the May AutoX, Rick showed how quickly he learns, winning the big novice class the first time out. He continued learning and ran right up there with much more experienced drivers. Not only did he show that he can hustle a 4-door Porsche around the courses, but he also transitioned to his 2-door with an equally rapid pace. Attending all six CVR AutoX events this season, and even the very different Zone1 AutoX, he kept learning and getting faster, finishing the championship higher than any other novice this year. That’s especially impressive when you see how many other fast new drivers there were. Congratulations Rick!
Long time friend and AutoX Chief Instructor Ed Bogue then presented the last two awards. Ed and I have pushed each other’s driving skills forward for close to 40 years now and it has been one of my life’s joys to be able to have such a friendship. This year, as usual for us, going into the last event we were separated by scantly over an average of 0.1% per event. That one happened to go my way, resulting in me taking the very close race for AutoX 2025 Overall Champion.
As recounted last month, I was saddened, but happy to redeem myself, at the drama packed Hoffman Cup Run Off event. Starting 5th out of 5 in the last round, due to a “slow” second round time 0.6 seconds behind “Mr. October” Brian Fournier, I was able to post the fastest time in round three to redeem myself. Since the times for all three runs would be combined, I had little hope of a win. I was the loudest of the crowd, yelling “OH NOOO!” as first Jeff Fournier, then Brian Fournier, each hit cones on their last runs. I was truly dumbfounded to hear that my last run tipped the incredibly close math my way, and I was announced as the 2025 Hoffman Cup winner. AutoX is not for the faint of heart, as the extremely close scores dish out plenty of humility to all. What makes CVR Auto so compelling however, is that we help everyone keep advancing with a rising tide of driving skills. Join us next season, and you are virtually guaranteed to have your boat floated with that tide. Happy holidays.
