Memorial Day marks the annual mid-season check-in for the Tire Rack SCCA® ProSolo Series, as the best descend on Lincoln, NE, for what is dubbed the Spring Nationals – a doubleheader weekend that shares the venue and weekend with the Tire Rack SCCA Solo National Tour. Spring Nationals is more than a fun weekend of competition – it’s an incredible test-and-tune opportunity since the weekend takes place on the same Lincoln Airpark where the Tire Rack SCCA ProSolo Finale and Solo National Championships will occur this September. Given the caliber of drivers that show up to Spring Nationals, the weekend also allows drivers to see how they stack up against the competition before the ProSolo Finale and Solo National Championships get underway.
The ProSolo program took center stage on Friday and Saturday of the holiday weekend, May 26-27, 2023, with 215 competitors running under Midwest sunshine in the unofficial opener of summer.
David Elfering and Terrance Pearson participated in this event courtesy of the Howard Duncan Greenlight Fund. Named for the SCCA Hall of Famer and SCCA staffer credited with growing the ProSolo program, the Howard Duncan Greenlight Fund is supported by the SCCA Foundation and offers free entries to select, first-time ProSolo entrants. Elfering fought hard in an 11-car-strong D Street field while Pearson took on a 21-car Street 3 class.
Donations to the SCCA Foundation can be earmarked to go towards the Greenlight Fund via the Foundation’s website.
Class Competition
Charles Krampert took down a couple of “aliens” in a competitive D Street field, topping Ron Williams and Mark Daddio by 0.081sec and 0.216sec, respectively. Krampert set the pace in a Toyota GR86, topping Williams’s Honda Civic Type R and Daddio’s Subaru BRZ.
Andrew Salazar had his hands full in Street Touring® Sport, taking on a slew of talented competitors. With only four trophy spots available in class, Salazar claimed the win over Adam Barber, David Whitener, and Gerry Terranova. It should be noted that the gap from first to fourth was less than 0.6sec, and of the four in STS who left the event with trophies, Salazar was the only one who didn’t have at least one SCCA National Championship jacket in his closet.
Daniel McCelvey and Vivek Goel dueled in Street Touring Roadster, with McCelvey taking the top spot by 0.226sec. McCelvey and Goel were not only the best in STR, but based on the event’s day two index rankings, they were better than all but two drivers in the entire field during the weekend.
Those two? Larry MacLeod topped Jackson MacLeod in their shared Tonykart Shifter in Race Tire Index 1, the top overall times on the index for the weekend.
But it was razor’s edge in Ladies Class 2, with the difference measured to three decimal points. At the finish, Jordan Towns in her Mazda MX-5 bested Shelly Monfort in a Ford Mustang by just 0.006sec.
There was a lot more action, and for coverage of that, check out the SCCA’s SoloMatters Facebook page, as well as clicking the link below for complete class results.
Lincoln Challenges
Bonus Challenge: Joey Green drew into the Bonus Challenge after a fourth-place finish in Solo Spec Coupe, then romped his way through the one-on-one competitions. Jeffrey Hugo was outside of the trophies in his STX class, but found his stride in the challenge and marched all the way to the finals before Green took the win and the Mazza Sparkling wine. Here’s how the competition fell.
Ladies Challenge: Andie Albin had car troubles early in the weekend with her F Mod machine and narrowly dropped her class battle with Nicole Wong in Ladies 1. Once into the Ladies Challenge, however, Albin rolled into and through the finals, topping Wong in round two before also eliminating Kate Fisher and Jennifer Bedell in the semis and finals.
Super Challenge: CAM? More like “can” for Dave Schotz, who topped the Classic American Muscle (CAM) field and qualified in the third spot for the Super Challenge. Schotz topped McCelvey and Bartek Borowski in the elimination rounds, squaring off with C Street’s Christian Kolme in the finals. Schotz topped the field and earned the full points for the Challenge event.
Onward!
With Spring Nationals in the books, the Tire Rack SCCA ProSolo Series moves east for its next stop. The New Meadowlands Sports Complex is home to the event on June 2-4 before moving back to the Midwest to Frederick Regional Airport on June 23-25. More information can be found here.
Photo by Hilary Anderson
