This year’s Tire Rack SCCA ProSolo Series continued its cross-country competition season with a West Coast event at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, CA. The schedule followed the traditional ProSolo format, with class runs on Saturday and Sunday serving as its own competition as well as the qualifier for Sunday afternoon’s Challenges.
A total of 126 drivers had times scored during the event. A full field of 32 drivers slid into the Super Challenge bracket, with four in the Ladies Challenge and eight more in the Bonus Challenge bracket.
The weather got increasingly comfortable as the weekend progressed, with 72 degrees F the high temperature on Sunday for the final day of competition. That was a significant drop from 88 degrees on Saturday — itself a refreshing 10 degrees cooler than Friday afternoon’s course walks.
Fontana Class Competition
Matt Jones laid it down on Sunday morning, extended his lead to more than 0.7sec and securing the top spot in the STR class in his Mazda MX-5 to take back-to-back class wins. Scott Mullens finished second and Joe Goeke took third in the class.
In CAM, Chad Ryker took a commanding lead on Saturday morning in his 1968 Chevrolet Camaro, which was enough to keep the win through Sunday. Jeff Wong and James Darden completed the podium in more modern Camaro technology.
Kevin Dietz took home the win in Solo Spec Coupe with Paul Brown only 0.039sec behind. Dietz and Brown ran both scoring laps on the same tenth of a second, but Dietz was a whisker ahead both times.
In a massive 20 car Bump class stacked with numerous fast drivers, Adrian Cardenas led the charge going into Sunday’s runs, but watched as Manfred Reysser stepped up by more than a second to move into the top spot, with Dennis Hubbard third.
Fontana Challenges
Bonus Challenge: Brian Coulson’s CAM machine took the top spot from Paul Durr in the always-exciting Corvette vs. Kart Modified matchup. For the effort, Coulson earned a free entry to a future ProSolo.
Ladies Challenge: Kate Fisher got a little payback to codriver Annie Gill in the semi-final and moved on to face Lisa Berry in the final round. Fisher came home with the win in a Scion FR-S, narrowly topping Berry’s Porsche Cayman GTS.
Super Challenge: To win a Super Challenge, you don’t need to qualify first to win it all. Just ask James Yom, who blasted through the ladder starting with Sean Velandia. He then marched past Matt Jones, Monty Pack and Jason Bucki to make the finals against Scott Phillips. Yom put Phillips in a hole on the first run, and Phillips DNF’d the final to give Yom the win.
ProSolo Stays West
The Tire Rack SCCA ProSolo Series stays out west for the next event, heading to the Tire Rack SCCA Crows Landing ProSolo in Patterson, located in California’s Central Valley, on April 29-May 1. The series then travels east on May 6-8 for the Tire Rack SCCA Charlotte ProSolo at zMAX Dragway in Concord, NC.
Online registration is open for these events. Check the Tire Rack SCCA ProSolo webpage for more information.
More than 220 competitors showed up at FedEx Field near Washington, DC on April 8-10, 2022, for the Tire Rack SCCA WDCR Solo National Tour. The clouds didn’t fully break on a cool, blustery weekend until the final runs on Sunday, but the action on course was smokin’ hot all weekend.
A Glimpse at the Competition
Spec Solo Coupe saw the top four drivers trade the lead multiple times, but it was Tony Savini who threw down the final gauntlet to take a half second win over Chad Englert. Both marched around day one leader Mike Ferchak, who finished on the last step of the podium.
Jacob Ronald, in the STU “Fiata” came back from one second down on day one to squeak past Evan Clavijo, his codriver, by a scant 0.007sec. In STX, Lenworth Woolcock piloted his RX-8 to a commanding five-second victory in class. Not only did he handle his class competitors, but nearly everyone else as well — the run propelled him to second overall in PAX for the event.
Robert Lewis pulled out a commanding lead in C Prepared on day one, but day two saw Derek Latshaw keep him honest and get it done cleanly, running within a tenth of a second. Latshaw ended up as the meat in a Lewis podium sandwich, with Tracy Lewis jumping to third by a scant 0.008sec over Mike Snyder.
Ed Lange was another driver who led their class wire to wire, taking the win in E Street by 0.828sec. Heidi Ellison and Paul Kozlak laid down the only sub-63 second runs in class on day two to leapfrog from fourth and fifth to second and third, respectively.
Mike Casino and Justin Peachey went back and forth all heat long for the lead in X Prepared. Ultimately, Peachey set the fast time of the day, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the day one deficit to Casino. Casino took the class win by 0.206sec.
Course designer Sam Strano held the lead in F Street pretty much from the word go on Saturday, and he kept the lead on day two, putting 1.792sec over second place’s Dave Montgomery, with Jon Caserta and Jason Felty rounding out the trophies.
Monitoring the Points Chase
There is a points chase going on this year at each of the first 10 Tire Rack SCCA Solo National Tours on the schedule. An individual’s three best-scoring performances count toward the season total.
Points are awarded on a performance-based scale using the following formula: 100 — (900 x ((Entrant’s Time — Class Winning Time) / (Class Winning Time)). Drivers must attend September’s Tire Rack SCCA Solo National Championships in Nebraska to be eligible for year-end points recognition. However, results at the Solo National Championships will not count toward the points totals. Rather, finishes at the National Championship event will be used as tiebreakers.
Learn more about the scoring system here. You can track the points race throughout the Solo National Tour season here. (Note: Points are usually updated a few days after each event.)
Marching West
There are just two weeks of break between Tire Rack Solo National Tour events, as the series heads west to Patterson, CA, for the April 22-24 Tire Rack SCCA Crows Landing Solo National Tour, followed by the May 6-8 Tire Rack SCCA South Texas National Tour at Naval Air Station Chase Field in Beeville, TX. Online registration has already begun for these dates, so check the Solo National Tour webpage for more information.
