By Drew VanderPloeg

Pro Soloists traveled from far and wide to the Mineral Wells Aeropark (about 45 minutes west of Ft. Worth) for the first Pro Solo of the 2011 Season. The Mineral Wells site offers quite the expanse of asphalt to compete on, allowing course designer Jerrett Jan the requisite space to offer 40+ second courses for all but Tommy Saunders in the B-Mod Dragon. The courses offered a good number of acceleration zones, and low-medium-high speed corners, with a few transitional elements mixed in. Upon first glance, it appeared that the right side course might take longer to complete than the left as the radii of the corners along with the positioning of the gates/exits appeared a bit tougher, but that did not play out as competition got under way, and it may have been due to the slightly longer distance of the left side course, along with a number of the corners being off camber on the left vs. on camber on the right. The fast drivers were within a couple tenths side to side, and some even ran faster times on the right side course.

There were quite a few interesting battles waged as the weekend got underway. STR showed its relative popularity yet again bringing almost 15% of the total entrants to the event. Darren DiSimo borrowed a co-drive in Stan Whitney and Su Brude’s ’06 MX-5 and was immediately up to speed, getting down to a total time of 91.4 sec, running the lowest time of Saturday morning on the left side course. What he may not have expected is the morning’s performance of Mike McShane in his own MX-5. Mike took the lead into Saturday afternoon employing good consistency, running mid 45 second runs on both courses. DiSimo was able to take the lead after Saturday runs when McShane struggled to go faster on either course, and he extended his lead Sunday morning for a 0.762 second victory. Some guy named Drew was apparently the only person dumb enough to bring a Honda to this otherwise all-Mazda class and finished another 3 tenths back in 3^rd, after getting a welcome assist from Chris Leclair, who allowed me…er…Drew to borrow his much fresher/stickier tires for Sunday morning.

Another very fun battle to watch was in the Bump 2 class. it’s not common for Bump classes to elicit the highest amount of fanfare, but the story was far from common in Mineral Wells this year. The slightly lower than average turnout meant that there were more than a few capable drivers in Bump classes at this event. Multi-time National Champs Erik Strelnieks and Mark Madarash were in the fray in B2, as well as Jeremy Foley and Jon Wagner in the ex-Wilcox BSP Evo that Craig took to the Street Mod ProSolo championship last year. Well, I should say we expected Foley to compete. Upon arrival, it became clear that the Wagner/Foley tandem was one member short. Come to find out that Jeremy was “stuck”in Argentina (cry me a river), and would at best be back Sunday morning. Strelnieks held the lead pretty extensively after both Saturday heats, running very consistently on both courses, but things took a turn for the interesting on Sunday morning. First, Foley had finally arrived from Argentina, driving straight from the DFW airport to make it to the site in time for his runs. But there was still a problem, he hadn’t been able to walk the course! By the time he arrived, Sunday morning runs had already began. No matter, he’d give it his best shot and cheer on his co-driver.   Jon did respond well, taking an .080 second lead after his last runs Sunday morning, dropping over a second in the process. But the “inspired drive of the event”award goes to Foley, who somehow(I still can’t figure it out) beat Jon by 8 tenths in only 2 looks at each course and not only took the B2 win, but took top Index for the entire event!

There were some additional great drives, like Vivek Goel taking down BS by an amazing 2.4 seconds in what amounted to 3 runs after overheating problems befell his NSX yet again. Mark Wortham took the SS win in the most closely contested class of the event by .047 over his co-driver Matt Lucas. Then there was the intensely entertaining battle in STU where the lead swapped back and forth 4-5 times on Sunday morning, with Rob Irish finally taking the win in a class where the top 3 were covered by less than 2 tenths.

Now all that was all well and good, but as you can probably imagine in a wonderfully hospitable place like Texas, there was much more to be had than just great competition at the 2011 Mineral Wells Pro Solo. At the Welcome Party, there were open kegs of Shiner Bock and Chief Grillmaster Jason McCall had some tasty burgers and hot dogs on offer for those famished from their road trip in to the event. There were also a few folks on site with other items of sustenance for sale during the event, from breakfast tacos in the morning to chili dogs and frito pies during the day. But what event in the Lone Star State would be complete without some good ol’ Texas barbeque?  Fort Worth BBQ proprietor Riscky’s (http://www.risckys.com) was on hand to fill the void Saturday night, with brisket and sausage on the offer, along with cole slaw, beans and other traditional sides.

Once the participants had filled their bellies, there was still plenty of daylight left, so what better way to utilize it than a rousing match of what is quickly becoming a staple of National Solo Events?  That’s right, 4-Square. Or more accurately, 4-Square + beer.   Who knew what started as a foiled attempt at a dodgeball match between the Texas Spokes and ATL regions at Solo Nationals 2009 would have taken the community by storm and still be running strong 2.5yrs later?  There were some new and old entries in this event’s 4-Square tourney, and it ran strong til the light faded enough that continued play became a bit problematic. Around the time the sun fell below the horizon, the winds not uncommon to the Mineral Wells area picked up as the temperatures plummeted below 50 degrees. The rapidly declining temps lead the approximately 20 folks remaining in paddock to search for warmer climes to continue their evening. Such a place of solitude was found at Woody’s Bar, which can best be described as an aluminum sided Quonset Hut with beer and burgers for sale inside. I was told the burgers were more than edible, but having already filled my gullet with brisket, I didn’t have a need to try one myself. Apparently Woody’s was not used to the amount of traffic we brought in, because it wasn’t long before they ran out of glasses and some people had to resort to alternate methods of imbibing their beverage of choice. After multiple members of the Solo crowd attempted to win the pool table away from the local champion (a mid-50’s woman in jort overalls) and failed, “the outsiders”decided it was probably time to get some shut-eye prior to Sunday morning’s competition runs. Either it was that or the fact that Woody’s closed at midnight. I’ll let you make your own assumptions.

All in all, it was a great start to the 2011 ProSolo season, with a good variety of great competition and extracurricular fun, and those that decided to pass on visiting Mineral Wells this year certainly missed the boat. Hopefully this isn’t the last hurrah for this event, because it certainly was a highlight of the yet-young year for this writer.