Mirror Khana Memories
Mirror Khana Memories
by Rocky Entriken
Published June 2004
As Nebraska Region celebrates its 50th anniversary, this year the Mirror Khana will run for the 30th time. Over the years, Nebraska drivers have made their impact on the event.
I don't know if any were at Mirror Khana I in 1974. My only record of that event was a newspaper clipping listing the winners. All were from Kansas except for one driver who came up from Oklahoma. I won E Prepared, where my Spitfire was classed then.
The idea came from an event I'd run in Kansas City around 1968, put on by the Midwest Mustang-Falcon Club. Only problem was, it was single elimination and I went out first round — doing what was voted Best Spinout — a full 720 in a futile attempt to navigate the final turn when I knew I was behind. (The Spitfire was a street car then, running stone-hard Michelin X radials.) So my Mirror Khana ran double elimination to guarantee a minimum two competition runs, and also offered practice which meant nobody would get fewer than four runs total. We had to give people good value, after all, for their $2.50 entry fee!
Two years later I put on the Mirror Khana again, hung the Roman numeral on it and it became a traditional event. Nebraska was definitely part of that one although the only Nebraska Region winner was Jim Hatfield winning an 11-car B Prepared class — more Corvettes and Shelbys than are seen these days at Nationals! I was the only EP entry bumped to DP and was part of the cannon fodder that went 2-and-out that year. DP winner was Dan Barnhart in a Capri driving for the Central Nebraska Sports Car Club based in Grand Island.
It was, I believe, Don Knop's first Mirror Khana (if he was at the first one I don't know), finishing 2nd in B Stock with his Shelby behind Dan Smith, flying the colors of the Capitol City Ford Club (Knop was both CCFC and NRSCCA). John LaRandeau was there winning F Stock in his Camaro, as a member of the Omaha Camaro Club. Of other Nebraska Region drivers, the only name I recognize still active is Thom Asay, who ran G Stock in a Fiat 128A.
Thom did better at Mirror Khana III, where we had an EP class again and I won again. He was third. Knop brought his Shelby back, but the two-car B Stock class bumped to B Prepared and Don was one place out of trophies.
In 1978 the Kansas State Solo II Championship was born, which lasted until the Solotime MiDiv series was created. Mirror Khana became a keystone event of that series and entries jumped from 50 the previous year to 78, and then to 100 in 1979. Notable too is that by this time most of the marque clubs seem to have disappeared and the entry was almost totally SCCA members. Our national Solo II program by this time had firmly taken root and had become the zenith of the autocross world.
In that one, Mirror Khana V, Don Knop finally scored the first win he'd been chasing for four years, his Shelby now running in C Prepared. Notable was that the final matched him against good buddy John LaRandeau's Camaro, now also in CP trim.
That was also the year of the 18-car DP class — the largest single class ever to run the Mirror Khana. With brackets only going to 16, we ran it as two 9-car brackets than ran off the winners. That final match was between two Kansas City Region drivers, Clark Townsend and Tom Holstrom, who were sharing Charlie Clark's famous green Corvair. Townsend won the final match, and Charlie accused me of trying to wear out his car. Not counting practice, it ran the equivalent of 4-5 autocrosses in one day — 16 runs total.
For years I had been saying Mirror Khana was the one event where weather didn't matter, as you only had to beat one car at a time and he had the identical conditions. We never proved that over the first nine years, blessed with sunny skies (sometimes too sunny, with mid-summer temps in the 100s), but in Mirror Khana X we finally got to test the theory. There was a report that at one point a full inch fell in one hour. It was entertaining, but it worked. Somehow we got 124 cars through!
And then it rained, and rained, and rained. From Mirror Khana X through XV, only XIV was totally dry. But that was one of the cool things about the event — you could go have fun knowing you didn't get beat just because it was wet for you and dry for him.
Over the years the event has changed, and some things haven't. When it was first put down in 1973, the rulebook mandated gates at least 10 feet wide and slaloms on minimum 25-foot centers. Most anybody trying that today would find the peasants at the door bearing torches and pitchforks. But for its day, Mirror Khana was a "fast" course. The 6-cone slalom is on 60-foot centers, fairly common now but considered extremely open 30 years ago.
On the other hand, using the dimensions of the concrete squares, gates 12.5 feet wide are all over the place. Some years later when the wider dimensions came into the rulebook, I asked at a driver's meeting if I should widen the gates. The question was met with a resounding "NO!" — it would change the very character of the event, the competitors said.
Using no clocks, the three-for-free rule has always been in place — you can hit three cones for free, the fourth is a DNF. Always entertaining were the strategies of choosing which cones to hit — and my strategies of which places to double-cone to foil that. Neither was totally successful, but in the attempts both were totally fun.
Personally, one of my best moments came in Mirror Khana XVI, in 1990, and it was not even behind the wheel. During the midday break, I was called over to a conclave of the Nebraska contingent — 24 strong that year including Bob Woodhouse, E.J. Poss, Bud Speidell, his daughter Susan Bellini, Scott Smed, Jan Gerber, Candy Mertz, Ellen Doctor, Frank and Chris Safranek, Mark Beacom, Steve Smay, Jimmy Lewis, Paul Brown, Rick Maxwell, and of course Knop and LaRandeau.
There, they presented me with the most unique and one of the most meaningful awards I'd ever received. A chrome pylon, "In Appreciation (from) Nebraska Region SCCA," is engraved on one side of the base. On the other, it reads, "Rocky Entriken, Mirrorkhana 1990, For the dedication and commitment to make 16 years of quality racing happen."
This June 19-20 will be Mirror Khana XXX. I was a young 32 when I started doing these. I'm older now, not much wiser apparently as I kept doing them (others have cloned them, usually with my help, but to the best of my knowledge none ever did more than three). But I've decided 30 is enough, for a while anyway. This year's event will be the last annual Mirror Khana.
And, in appreciation TO the Nebraska Region, you guys have certainly played a major part in making 30 years of fun.
— Rocky Entriken
The bumper sticker on Rocky's car (photo at the top of the page) reads: "Autocross drivers go in deeper and come out harder."