The SCCA® Tire Rack National Solo® Championship Tour opened the 2015 season at South Georgia Motorsports Park, this past weekend. This is the first of nine scheduled Championship Tour events, utilizing the standard class-based competition, scheduled in the lead-up to the Tire Rack Solo Nationals in Lincoln, Nebraska.
The Dixie Region played host for this event, providing a barbeque dinner for Friday’s welcome party. Robert Lewis held dual roles during the weekend, serving as event chair and course designer. Lewis designed a pair of courses that featured a good, challenging blend of many elements, which earned the praise of many drivers.
Once competition began, Sam Strano (Super Street R, Stranoparts.com Chevrolet Corvette), of Brookville, Pennsylvania, scored a decisive 2.555-second win over Brandon Davis (Outdoorsolutions4u.com Chevrolet Corvette). Aside from a class win, Strano also finished the weekend with the fastest indexed time of the event.
Tim White (E Prepared, Honda Civic), of Tucker, Georgia, took home a class win with the smallest margin of victory of the meet. Following day one of competition, Smith was the class leader by about 0.5-second. During Sunday’s competition, Darrin DiSimo (Pronto Timing System Honda CRX) put down the quickest time in the class but White had built enough of a gap to hold onto the top spot.
In A Street, John Owens (Chevrolet Corvette), of Frankfort, Kentucky, relied on consistency to score his class win. On both courses, Owen’s best times were within 0.05-second of each other. Once the dust settled, Owens finished 0.153-second ahead of second-place finisher Jed Peterson (Honda S2000CR).
Nick Amick (C Street, Walkers Trailer Sales/TranService Subaru BRZ), of Smyrna, Tennessee, completed the come-from-behind win. Sitting second after day one, Amick was able to best Jason Stroud by standing on his first run from Sunday’s competition. In the end, Amick held the lead with a 0.214-second gap.
The season-opening event also produced some first-time National Tour winners. Among them were Tevin Richardson (F Street, BMW 135i), of Canton, Georgia, and Randall Prince (Street Touring Xtreme, Subaru BRZ), of Auburn, Georgia. Both Richardson and Prince drove to victory behind the wheel of cars in which they previously had little time.
Also scoring his first Tour win was Geoff Zimmer (F Street Prepared, Duckworks Volkswagen Rabbit), of Gastonia, North Carolina. Driving the same car, Maria Mayorga (F Street Prepared Ladies, Volkswagen Rabbit) also took home her first National Tour class win. En route to her victory, Mayorga also set the top indexed time for all ladies classes in the competition.
The next stop for the SCCA Tire Rack Championship Tour will be across the country, in San Diego, California, slated for March 21-22. The two-day event will take place in the parking lots of Qualcomm Stadium, the home of the NFL’s San Diego Chargers.
Further information on the Tire Rack SCCA Dixie National Championship Tour event, including full results, can be found here. For more on the SCCA Tire Rack National Solo Program, visit SCCA.com/Solo.
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2015 Tire Rack Dixie Champ Tour
The 2015 Tire Rack SCCA Crows Landing Championship Tour is once again open and ready for racing. The event, scheduled for April 17-19 in Crows Landing, CA, is one of only two places on the west coast with such a great driving surface. Racers can expect a grippy, open, and satisfying morsel of concrete brought to you by the Navy (the runways were accompanied by nearby bombing and gunnery ranges back in the day).
Sure as the “crow flies” it’s in the middle of small-town Northern California, but how often can you compete on a surface that most resembles nationals in Lincoln, Nebraska? Seriously, though, make friends with someone with an RV, or get that hotel reserved now. Last year, Crows Landing turned into its own city at the Best Western, and at the event site, racers stayed in RV’s and campers. As a bonus, there was a food truck on site during the day for lunch.
You can expect average daily temperatures in the 70’s come April. Plus, Crows Landing is only an hour and a half from San Francisco and the Bay Area. Want to ride the trolley cars or walk down Lombard Street? How about eating at famous Ghirardelli Square or enjoying food at Fisherman’s Wharf? Better yet, head to wine country and experience some of the most beautiful scenery Northern California has to offer.
If you can stay an extra week, take advantage of back-to-back races and sign up for the 2015 Tire Rack Crows Landing ProSolo slated for the weekend after–April 24-26. Then you’ll really be ready for Nationals after four competition days on the incredibly grippy surface.
We already know why you’re coming to the 2015 Tire Rack SCCA San Diego Championship Tour–the weather, of course–but most importantly, for the stiff competition you’ll face in every class.
The SD Tour is the second tour date on the national slate, but the first on the west coast. With close to 200 racers signed up in over 40 classes, there is sure to be some third-run heroes that take home the trophy. Let’s look at some of the key stats heading into the event:
C Street and B Street are currently the largest single classes, reaching the high teens, while STS, STX, and SM all have double-digit entries. With more than a dozen classes consisting of five or more entrees, champions can win contingency and runner-ups have the opportunity to earn more.
There are numerous national champions registered–both male and female–so it will be interesting to see how they race in the first national-level event of the season.
Boys, be warned–there is a strong contingent of ladies competing in open classes. Catherine Tran, the Cal Club Ladies Rising Star, is registered in D Street; Nicole Wong in STS; Christine Grice in A Street Prepared; and Katy Nicholls in B Street Prepared.
New Bridgestone tires were recently made available for competition, and those who bought them put stock in the Japanese rumor mill that they were two percent faster. It will be interesting to see who’s following suit and buying new tires for the championship. For anyone who does have a set, though, the Bridgestone support truck will be on-site for free mounting and balancing of Bridgestone tires and general support.
Under a brilliant blue sky at the South Georgia Motorsports Park, the 2015 Dixie Champ Tour drew to a close, and judging by the action, the road to Lincoln is going to be very exciting in the coming year. Amidst a couple small showers and a minor oil slick, some old favorites added to their stable of wins, and a few new faces topped the podium for the first time.
Photo Credit: Sarah Maddox
Always fast, Sam Strano took top honors (and top PAX for the event) in SSR, with Brandon Davis and Michael Snyder rounding out the podium. CS competition was tight across both days, with the top three separated by just .338 seconds by the end. After the dust settled, Nick Amick took the win over Day 1 leader Jason Stroud, with Jake Engstrom coming in third. Moving over into STR, Ricky Crow, coming all the way from Texas, put on a clinic for the rest of the field, taking a win by over 2 seconds over codrivers Andy Thomas and Ryan Davies. Repeating his result from last year, John Waight took the win over Elliot Harvey in an always hotly contested CSP class. Matthew Glagola in SSM, Steve Hoelscher in XP, and Event Chair Robert Lewis in CP also added to their cadre of wins with some fast runs in their wild machines.
Photo Credit: Sarah Maddox
Among the newcomers to the top step, Tevin Richardson took his first Tour win in FS in a very stock and new to him BMW 135i. The talk of Sunday came from Randall Prince, having never won a tour before and in an unfamiliar Subaru BRZ, laying down a Sunday time almost a full second faster than anyone else in STX, giving him a 6/10ths of a second victory in an extremely competitive STX class. In the ever fast and impossibly light Volkswagen Lamborbunni, Steven Duckworth took home his first Tour win in FSP over car owner Geoff Zimmer (and honorable mention to Maria Mayorga, in her first national level event for taking the top spot in FSPL in the same car, and being the highest PAXing driver among all Ladies classes). In SM, Tim White used that all wheel drive magic to launch him into the lead in SM over codriver Roy Blakeney, with Jadrice Toussaint close behind in third.
The biggest news and surprises of the weekend came not from cars or drivers, but from the reappearance of Bridgestone and the arrival of the new RE-71R. Their US tire development team, having been given essentially zero budget for the promotion, begged, borrowed, and stole to get a truck onsite to provide support and take notes on the performance of the tire at its first large scale test on a national level. And boy, it did not disappoint! With the tire appearing across six classes, it won three, and took 2nd place in two others. The Bridgestone representatives were candidly answering everybody’s questions over the weekend. They plainly expressed the goal of making a 200 Treadwear street tire that “gripped like a slick”, and numerous comparisons to R-compound tires were made by competitors. With the pending arrival of the just-announced BFGoodrich Rival S, only time will tell how the latest batch of extreme performance street tires stacks up, and with Lincoln fast approaching, there is definitely further testing to be had.
Photo Credit: Robert Ippollito
From here, the SCCA Championship Tour series heads off to the other side of the country. On March 20-22nd, Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego plays host to the next Champ Tour. For those who will be trying out the new Bridgestone tires, the support truck will be at this Tour as well as the Texas Championship Tour and finally, the 2015 SCCA Solo Nationals. Anyone who has a set of Bridgestones can expect free mounting and balancing if you bring your tires to the event. Remember to keep an eye on the uStream feed, linked on sololive.scca.com, for live coverage of the event, and as always, tune into SoloMatters for all the latest updates and results!
