The Road America stop on the Hoosier Racing Tire SCCA® Super Tour was a bit of a mixed bag of rain, sun and excellent racing. In this installment of the Hoosier Super Tour Video Series, we will watch the WeatherTech Chicago Region® June Sprints® unfold for well-known Mazda Miata racer Danny Steyn, and the father-son Loughead family driving their Formula Vees. The June Sprints is always an exciting weekend, and the video below is but a taste of what it’s like to compete at one of SCCA’s most historic Road Racing events.
In Saturday’s Spec Miata race, Steyn finished sixth. Sunday, he displayed brilliant rain racing prowess and pulled out a huge lead until the track dried. Struggling to keep his tires under him, he managed to hold onto third with some excellent defensive driving. In the Super Touring® Lite class, Steyn swept the weekend by taking wins both Saturday and Sunday.
The Lougheads performed well throughout the weekend, too. On Saturday, Jeff Loughead finished third and Graham Loughead sixth. On Sunday, the duo diced it up again in the ultra-exciting FV class with Jeff claiming second and Graham earning another sixth-place finish.
The Hoosier Super Tour Video Series has one last stop to make this year at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, and then its off to the Runoffs! Get ready, because the stakes only get higher from here.
Photo Credit: Mark Weber
The name Jason Frank probably isn’t lost on too many folks. He is an accomplished autocrosser, winning National Championships in FP, AS, STC and a couple in STS. From Corvettes to Civics, Jason can drive them all. And drive them well. Jason grew up in Racine, Wisconsin, and still lives there today working as an architect. His first autocross was in 2002, and he attended his first Tire Rack SCCA® Solo® National Championship the following year. Jason is our Take 5 subject, as he is one of your course designers for this year’s Championship in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Q1: Before we get into the course design stuff, let’s learn a little bit more about Jason. I think many of us know you also bowl. Are you as, shall we say, invested in bowling as you are autocross?
JF: Yeah, that would be totally fair! You might not know this about me, but I am a pretty competitive person, lol. Bowling wise, I have attended the National Championship in Vegas 12 times. I have 27 300 games and have bowled 12 800 series over the years. Weird fact: I have an unconventional style. I bowl without using my thumb!
Q2: You’re competitive, huh? Never would have guessed. LOL. Ok, so let’s get into the course design questions. How long have you been designing courses, and what is your methodology?
JF: The first course I designed was back in 2009. I usually do one or two locally every year. The first National course I designed was for the Milwaukee Match Tour a few years back. Methodology wise, I start off kind of knowing the type of elements I want to include, and then start piecing it together. While designing the new course, I go back and look through my old courses, which I have saved, to help make sure my spacing is where I want it. One thing I do that is kind of unique I think is that I actually start at the finish, and then Tetris the elements into the lot using as much of the lot as I can, while working back toward the start. I don’t want to leave a lot of open spaces.
Q3: What does a quintessential Jason Frank Course look like?
JF: I would say all course designers strive for some sort of balanced course, right? That is my first objective. But while that is the case, I do aim for a course that leans more toward the technical side. I usually try to have areas that require some patience. A lot of folks that have driven my courses call them my gotchas. But really, they are just areas that require good car placement and patience to maneuver through.
Q4: When you design courses, what are the types of tools you use? Some use paper and pencils, but others use computer programs. You being an architect,I presume you would use a computer.
JF: Yeah, I design everything in AutoCAD, which is a big drafting program. I start by getting the overall dimension of the site with a measuring wheel. While out there, I look for manhole covers and the like, so you know what you’re working with in terms of obstacles. I then use Google maps to get a satellite image, mark the spots with issues, put it in the program and start designing.
Q5: What advice would have for those wanting to start designing courses for their local regions?
JF: Find someone to mentor you. Look for someone that designs courses you like, and ask if you can help them set it up sometime. Watch their process. As you start designing, do your best to have thick skin. There are a lot of factors that go into whether someone likes a course, and not all of them have to do with the actual course! Someone could have simply had a bad day driving, or you used an element they’re not good at driving, and that can affect how they feel about the course as a whole.
Each week, from now until Nationals, Brian will be sending out a weekly e-blast with updates on the 47th Tire Rack SCCA Solo Nationals. The contents of these e-blasts will also be posted to the Solo Nationals event page at SCCA.com. Please take 5-10 minutes each week to read through everything. By doing so you will be well prepared to have a week of fun at Solo Nationals! Let’s get started:
From the time registration opened until the open of business on August 5, the cancellation fee is $50. When the office opens (8 am central) on August 5, that fee will rise to $100 (resulting in a $95 refund). If you know there is no way you will be able to make it to the event, please send an email to [email protected] that you need to cancel prior to the late fee change date/time.
PLEASE be sure to update your registration as soon as you know of a class change OR if you are not currently registered in the correct class. This ensures first, that you are in the correct place and you will not have to make a change on site in Lincoln and your check-in process will be quicker. Secondly, this also ensures that the run/work order split between courses and heats is more accurate which is imperative to event flow.
- Car/Number/Car Information
Be sure to update your car number and/or car information. We know it was a mad scramble to get registered this year and some vehicles may have been chosen in haste. Now that you have a spot in the event, please be sure that the vehicle you are registered in is the vehicle you will be running. This ensures that you do not have to make any changes on-site in Lincoln and your on-site check-in process will be quicker.
Just like the past few years, the trophies at Nationals (not a box this year) will be handed out without the names on them. The plates will be mailed out after the event. With that, we use the address that your MSR account has in it. Please login to your account and check that your address is current to ensure there are no delays in getting your engraved plate to put on your trophy.
Per Solo rules 4.2.B all competitors at the Solo National Championship must be an annual or lifetime member (no weekend memberships allowed). During the second attempt of Tier 2 registration, MSR turned off membership verification to help the servers not get as bogged down. We are showing several entrants that have expired or soon-to-be expired memberships. Please make sure to log in to scca.com or call member services (1-800-770-2055) to renew your membership.
- New Items in Supplemental Regulations
There are a few items new to the Nationals supplemental regulations in 2019.
You can find the supps on the event page here: https://www.scca.com/solonats
Some notes of the new items are:
- 3.9 – If you can’t remove items used in paddock and/or they won’t travel with you from/to home, such as but not limited to: seating, storage, or shelter those items must be disposed OFF SITE. DO NOT DROP or LEAVE any of these items in the onsite trash bins or next to them.
- 3.10 – If you jack a vehicle on asphalt, you MUST have wood under the jack, jack stands and anything else that might damage the pavement.
- 4.13 – No car can be sent from Grid to start a run as of 30 minutes prior to officially published sunset from the National Weather Service at Lincoln AirPark. The only exception is for cars that are already on a mechanical delay, which may complete their mechanical and take their run.
- 4.14 – If a set of runs is started, but not completed by all drivers in a class prior to the hard stop time, only the run sets that have been completed by all competitors of that class will be scored. EXAMPLE: All competitors of a class have completed 2 runs, but only 50% of the competitors completed their 3rd runs. All competitors of that class are then only scored on their first 2 runs.
