The third stop of the Tire Rack SCCA® Time Attack Challenge found itself in the midst of a wild event at Eagles Canyon Raceway in Decatur, TX, during the May 3-4, 2025, weekend. While the Time Attack Challenge was in full force, it was sharing the track with the final leg of Targa Texasland, with those competitors vying for their final points in Targa competition while also competing in the Time Attack Challenge. Boy howdy, the excitement was palpable.

Throughout the field there were personal bests set, track records broken, overall lap times destroyed, and smiles galore on the 2.7-mile road course that packs more than 200 feet of elevation change and a back straight long enough to land a small private jet.

The cherry on top came in the form of perfect weather conditions. The beautiful Texas clouds that rolled through were matched by T-shirt temps that kept the track surface in prime condition for speed.

Tops in Texas

Let’s start with this: who won? The answer to that is every participant, because who isn’t a winner for two days of Time Attack Challenge? But some won more than others.

Mike DuSold topped the charts with his utterly wild 1967 Chevrolet Camaro, which was a full 15 seconds quicker than anyone else in the field after totaling the top time from both days. The previous Eagles Canyon Time Attack Challenge fastest lap time was Larry Waterman’s 2:02.979 back in 2022 in a Max 1 Corvette. DuSold’s best? An earth-shattering 1:52.774.

The second amazing stat came from second and third place overall, which was the lead of the Max 1 class. Consider this: first — this particular Time Attack Challenge ran the track clockwise on Saturday, then counterclockwise on Sunday. Brian Phillips and his Chevrolet Corvette was three tenths quicker than Jason Hyde’s Porsche 911 on Saturday, but Hyde was three tenths quicker on Sunday. When totaled, Phillips won Max 1 by just 0.075sec

Other class winners were:

While not class competition, the Time Attack Challenge also celebrates the fastest of each drive type. To that end:

Event Results

Superlatives

Not all awards are time based, which is where the Tire Rack SCCA Time Attack Challenge superlative awards enter the picture.

Sporting an autocross background with multiple trips to the Tire Rack SCCA Solo® National Championships, Raghvan Madawela showed speed and skill in his Sport 3 class 2023 Hyundai Elantra, earning him the event’s Crossover Award, which celebrates drivers who come from another motorsports program and shine in Time Attack competition.

The Time Attack Top Novice award celebrates a driver new to Time Attack competition who shows impressive speed, awareness, and/or skill throughout the weekend. While sporting a number of trophies from past Solo National Championships events, Eagles Canyon was not only Langlee King Clark’s first Time Attack Challenge event, but it was only her fourth time in on-track competition — her first coming the Wednesday prior during Targa Texasland. She finished a close second in CSX competition.

The Spirit of Time Trials award is presented to someone at an event who embodies what Time Trials and Time Attack is all about. Enthusiasm, inclusivity, and accessibility is part and parcel of someone who receives this award. But at Eagles Canyon, this award didn’t go to an individual — instead, it was presented to Sport 2 drivers Ivy Chang and Tim Mason for their indelible commitment to having #funwithcars.

Up Next

The Tire Rack SCCA Time Attack Challenge keeps on rolling across the country, and up next is a biggie at NCM Motorsports Park in Bowling Green, KY, on May 17-18. This, of course, is the only chance to compete at NCM this year, and its Time Attack Challenge history means a big field turning out.

Enter that event by clicking here.

Otherwise, check out the entire 2025 Tire Rack SCCA Time Attack Challenge calendar to find an event near you!

Time Attack Challenge Calendar

Photo by Philip Royle

The May 2-4, 2025, Tire Rack SCCA® Crows Landing Solo® National Tour was as big as it was exciting, with 222 competitors posting times in the fourth Solo National Tour of the season. The action was swift across the board, and the weather was beautiful, giving a fair shot at the trophies for everyone.

San Francisco Region hosted another fantastic event, rivaling the welcome party the Region had hosted just one week prior when the Tire Rack SCCA ProSolo® Series had taken place at the same location. Like at that event, the courses offered something for everyone, with Andy Mckee-designed courses offering layouts that featured a challenging combination of speed and technical components.

The weather largely participated in making this an excellent event, too. Chilly and blustery on Saturday, then pleasantly warm on Sunday, drivers enjoyed dry conditions all weekend.

SCCA Women on Track’s Driver Development program was also back and in full effect, with Katja Seltmann being the randomly selected driver who received coaching from Kathi Van Der Werf. The coaching seemed to pay off, too, as Seltmann showed dramatic improvement in the Ladies Street Tire Bump class over the course of the weekend.

The Women on Track Pay it Forward award was earned by Ladies Street Tire Bump driver Maggie Elorza, so now Elorza is able to invite someone local in her Region to attend a future National Solo event for free.

Class Competition

Jonathon Lugod dominated C Street Touring® from the first run of the weekend, posting a quick time and never looking back. Lugod’s Subaru BRZ pushed ahead for a 1.140sec victory in the class.

After a tough battle between the M3 and the 350Z, Matt Ales pulled ahead at the very last minute to snatch the win in Street Modified by 0.368sec over Steve McLaughlin. Mark Wolfe dropped nearly a full second on his final run to take the win over Dave Wilson in C Street in a battle of MX-5s.

First on the course but last to leave the course, first- and second-place CAM-S finishers Chris Cox and Bryan Stewart co-drove their 2004 Corvette Z06 with only 0.282sec between them overall. They then stuck around to pick up all of the cones on course at the conclusion of competition.

Andy McKee and Tara Shapowal-Lau went toe-to-toe for a weekend, but the battle was settled in the blink of an eye. McKee’s Mazda RX-7 topped Shapowal-Lau’s Cayman by just 0.005sec in X Prepared.

Despite coning on his best run (by a full second) on Saturday, James Yom still kept a 0.622sec lead over second place to win Super Street. Not just that, he came second in PAX for the weekend, too.

Finally, in honor of the green flag of the Month of May, let’s recognize some open-wheel champs from Crows Landing. In C Modified, Ben Martinez (’84 Van Diemen), Boris Vujasinovi in F Mod (’95 RD), the B Mod champ Kyriacos Panayiotou (’78 LeGrand MK18), and A Mod top trophy earner John Haftner (’23 Suzuki VD1000 Special).

Event Results

Moving On

Next up only requires one word to autocrossers: Lincoln. The spring event, paired with a Tire Rack SCCA ProSolo Series event, is the major tune-up to the season-ending Tire Rack SCCA Solo National Championships. Mark your calendars for Memorial Day weekend, May 23-26, for two days of ProSolo followed by two days of Solo National Tour at Lincoln Airpark.

Can’t make those events? Check out the rest of the 2025 Tire Rack SCCA Solo National Tour calendar.

Photos by Juliana Brava

The 2024 SCCA® Solo® Rookie of the Year Mitchell Welker is yet another SCCA “Overnight-Sensation-Years-In-The-Making” story for the history books, the young driver showing up seemingly out of nowhere to claim the E Street title at the 2024 Tire Rack SCCA Solo National Championships last September — his success, however, came as little surprise to those who knew him.

While being an unfamiliar name on the Lincoln entry list, the 24-year-old Welker is quite well known on his home turf — like in his hometown of Cottage Grove, MN (a St. Paul suburb) with SCCA’s Land O’Lakes Region as well as the Minnesota Autosports Club. In all, he’s been a force in Solo for four years, including his winning a local E Street Championship last summer.

For some childhood years in Georgia, the Minnesota-born Welker has lived most of his life in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, though his day job keeps him out on the road: “I kind of work all over,” he explains. “I’m a traveling vehicle photographer, so whatever dealers I get assigned to by the company, I commute to every day and shoot their cars for them.”

At the 2024 Solo Nationals, Welker clinched his ES victory on a staggeringly impressive final run, a feat made all the more incredible considering the competition and the fact it was his first visit to Lincoln.

It was that win that earned him the 2024 SCCA Solo Rookie of the Year honors.

All Credit

Humbly, though, Welker is quick to credit the tough competition he’s experienced locally. “I guess I’d start by crediting my time in the Minnesota Autosports Club,” he says. “It’s really competitive at the top. And also I’ve had a great co-driver [Jake Rogers] who owns the car and came with me to Nationals.”

Rogers, from Hayfield, MN, also trophied in E Street at the Solo Nationals, finishing 11th in the Yokohama-tire-shod 1999 Mazda Miata that he owns and shares with Welker.

“[Jake and I] have really been tussling with each other back and forth for several years locally,” Welker explains, “and it’s really helped both of us get a lot better — a lot more technical and particular with how we drive. We have SoloStorm [software], but just use its speed trace feature and talk to each other after every run about what we’re doing, how we’re making up time here and there.”

Welker also credits sim racing “starting in 2017 or 2018. I credit all that with my fast start in real cars,” he adds.

An airplane as well as auto enthusiast, Welker is a regular at AirVenture, the huge annual late-July gathering of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) clan in Oshkosh, WI. Thus, for him the size of the Solo Nationals crowd rolling into Lincoln for the first time was no big deal.

“Driving into the [Solo National Championships] paddock for the first time, I felt a vibe very similar to Oshkosh — like AirVenture for cars, really, where everybody’s driven their own car in. Everybody’s got something unique and there’s always something going on — all the different Regions making food, having parties, putting on their own things, giant setups.

“I really wish I could have spent more time there,” Welker goes on. “I didn’t have all the time off from work that I wanted. And we had early bedtimes to make sure we could stay focused, so I didn’t get to take too much advantage of the late-night gatherings.”

The focus on staying sharp definitely paid off.

Solo Big Time in Minnesota

“Solo is really a popular thing in Minnesota,” Welker says. “We’ve got a really strong membership in our club, and there are a couple of other ones dotted around Minnesota and Wisconsin that our members will go and drive in, and their members come and drive ours. I don’t know how many of the others support the Solo Nationals, but MAC had about 30 drivers there.

“I have to give a big credit to everybody that came down and cheered me on,” Welker says. “We were all cheering each other on, of course. Ryan Thompson, our club president, has been pushing me to go to Nationals since I won our local Rookie of the Year award in 2020. That earns you a free entry paid by the club to Nationals, but I was in school at the time and could never figure out the time to go.

“Finally, Ryan was like, ‘You’re going! We’re making sure you’re going!’ A whole crew came down, convoyed down with us, and supported me and Jake. It was great. We had a whole crew scraping marbles off the tires after every run, spraying ’em down and making sure we were all set to go.

“That support is so invaluable. I’m really, really thankful for everybody.”

Welker first Solo’d with the local club in winter 2020, with previous competition experience only in sim racing prior to his autocross debut.

Car racing was never on the radar. His high school goal was to be a professional pilot — “I was all gung-ho on the aviation side” — and after graduating, he was accepted into the professional flight program at nearby Minnesota State.

But after a year and a half, he steered off that path.

“I really like flying on my own when I have the time and money to do so,” he says. “But, professionally? I couldn’t hack it. Luckily, I’ve had the chance to go up with some friends who own airplanes, and I hope that as I get my career path more settled, I can go flying more on my own.”

Road Racing…Maybe

In addition to autocross, Welker has given road racing a go.

“I raced at [Brainerd International Raceway] a couple of summers ago, but missed out last year because the car was rented to other drivers,” he explains. “But, yeah, I’m hoping to be back and rent another car sometime this year at BIR.

“As far as Solo … guess I’m just going to bask in the success I’ve had locally,” he says with a laugh. “I kind of want to drive some different cars, and maybe see if I can still, you know, crack the top 10 and earn a jacket — we give jackets to our top 10 drivers at the end of the year. There are at least 10 people in this club that would let me drive their car at an event. I think it’d be fun to challenge myself a little bit in that way.

“And I do plan on going back to the Solo Nationals — that is in the plan.”

Welker says that, for now, his racing ambitions are confined to those infrequent BIR events in Spec Miata.

“I have ambitions, sure,” he says. “But the reality is that I’m in no state for affording them. Spec Miata is a really great class, but owning my own car, having the space to put it, getting a truck and trailer and all the tools and ancillary stuff — it makes no sense right now for me not to be just arriving and driving.

“Down the road? I would like to run my own car; that would be something really great to do. But for now, arrive-and-drive is the way I have to go.”

Welker has the skills, proven in both the frozen Minnesota asphalt and Nebraska concrete — and those horizons are expanding.

Bank on it.

Photo by Andy Shultz