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Karen Kraus' SCCA autocrossing career began, slowly, in October 1993. She had attended her first Solo event the month before and wanted to get into the action. Her first event as a driver, in her boyfriend's ESP-classed Mustang LX 5.0, saw her finish dead last not only in class, but behind everyone else in every other class too. This was not a good start.

She was bound and determined to do better, and though the improvements were slow at first, when she obtained her own autocross car -- a 1996 Camaro Z28 with the 1LE suspension option -- everyone saw her improving by leaps and bounds.

"The Mustang is hard to drive," she and her boyfriend/co-driver, Justin Huffman, will tell you. "Most of the steering, especially since the car has been upgraded to CP, is with the throttle. Coming from an underpowered daily driver, a Ford Escort, I found it difficult to get the Mustang around the course."

Despite the difficulties driving the Mustang, Karen steadily improved through the next full autocross season, when the car was moved from the ESP class to the CP class. In 1995, her perseverance paid off not only with the CPL trophy in the Blue Ridge Region, but also a CP open class trophy in the DC Region SCCA and the Soloist of the Year trophy in Blue Ridge.

In February 1996, Karen bought the Camaro. Since then, she has gone from finishing in the bottom half overall in regional events to the top half, and from mid-pack overall PAX indexed finishes to top 20 or, more recently, top 10.

"It helps to know the car intimately," she says. "The Camaro isn't just my autocross car or my drag race car; it's my daily driver too. Knowing how the car handles on the street helps me to know how it will handle on the autocross course. That's an advantage I never had with the Mustang."

Karen's first national level event with the Camaro was the Connellsville Tour in June 1996. Not only was it the first National event she'd been to, but it was her second-ever event in the Camaro. She won the FSL class, which was a cinch because there was no one else running, but she didn't exactly like her times compared to the FS open class. She continued to run regional events throughout the rest of 1996, and took the Blue Ridge Region FSL Championship.

1997 would prove to be the best year yet for Karen. Determined to not only go to the National Solo II Championships in Topeka, but to do well there, she set off on an autocrossing blitz that would take her to over 30 events, finishing first or second in class at most of them.

From Roanoke, Virginia, to Ayer, Massachusetts and out to Topeka, Kansas, Karen went to an autocross every weekend from mid-April to mid-September and has yet to slow down. And, discovering that the FS ladies class rarely had competition and knowing that she does better when she has someone to beat, she has begun to run more in the FS open class, especially at regional events, since she feels that the competition will make her even better.

After finishing first in FSL at the Ayer National Tour, third in FSL at the Evansville Tour, seventh in FS at the Northeast Divisionals and second in FS at the Pennsylvania State Championships, she was feeling fairly confident going out to Topeka. She new that she could put together some competent runs. Since Karen is a high school teacher by day, she had to fly out to the event Wednesday evening (her boyfriend drove the car out a week earlier in order to attend the ProSolo2 finale), register, and walk the course on Thursday morning.

After a less-than-admirable showing Thursday, she found herself in 7th place. Friday's run on the North Course would have to be near perfect if she expected to beat the staff entry of Cindy Jansen, who was currently in sixth, and Jean Alft, who was in fifth position.

After walking the course methodically several times in the morning, including once with the guidance of ninth place FS finisher Dave Cole, Karen took her runs. Always conservative, her first run was slow, putting her nearer to the back of the pack than she already was. She took over a second off on her next run, and then another second off on a sloppy third run. It was enough, however, to overtake the sixth place slot, though not quite enough to catch Jean. A respectable showing for a rookie driver who only three years ago had struggled just to stay out of last place.

Karen also successfully drag races the Camaro, and has brought the car's time down to a 13.57@105 mph at the local drag strip during a test-n-tune night.

Most recently, she has also taken the Camaro to track days at the Jefferson Circuit training track at Summit Point Raceway in West Virginia. At a high-speed autocross in July sponsored by NASA's Virginia Chapter, she had fastest time of the day, and at a time trial event in October, also sponsored by NASA-VA, she had the fastest indexed time.

She credits the track time in July to vast improvements seen the next day with her times at the Virginia State Games autocross (second in FS and ninth on overall PAX indexed times) and with improvements seen at subsequent autocrosses, including the National Championships.

Next year, Karen intends to take a page from Lynne Rothney-Kozlak's book and run more in FS open class (Lynne finished third at the National Solo II Championships in FS open). "If I'm not running against anyone in FSL, it doesn't seem worth the effort," she says. "I may as well run against the guys in FS; I've done it before, and I have nothing to lose. It's not worth running FSL just to get the trophy. A win doesn't mean much if I'm the only one in the class."

She also doesn't like the way the ProSolo2 Ladies Class is indexed, and would prefer to just run the non-indexed open class. "Why should the women be lumped together into one big class where the index is biased towards CS and BS cars? I'll just run with the guys -- it'll make them work that much harder to avoid losing to a girl," she'll tell you with a big grin.

Look for Karen at regional Solo II events with the Blue Ridge Region in Roanoke, Virginia, the Steel Cities Region in Connellsville, Pennsylvania, the Old Dominion Region in Norfolk and Chesapeake, Virginia, and at National Tour and ProSolo2 events on the East Coast and eastern Midwest.

She can also be found at the local drag strips -- 75-80 Dragway in Monrovia, Maryland and Mason-Dixon Speedway in Hagerstown, Maryland -- and at Summit Point Raceway in Summit Point, West Virginia.