April 4-5, 2014
Photo credit: Bryan Heitkotter - Christine Grice leaves the line in the Berry Family Racing Evo
Click Here to Register for the San Diego Championship Tour
The first weekend of April brings the SCCA Tire Rack Road to Lincoln into San Diego for the Championship Tour at the legendary Qualcomm Stadium. Hosted by event chair Warren Leach, and with courses designed by Todd Cameron, the San Diego Tour stop is the SoPac Division’s biggest Solo party of the year. Here are five great reasons you should go:
1. Tradition. National events have been held at this site since the late 1980s. The lot is huge and brings long, fast courses with elevation change generally reserved for hillclimbs and rally. There’s the always-present threat that the Chargers will move to a new stadium or they will pack up and leave town. If or when that happens, this site will be lost forever. Don’t be the one that says, "I missed out on Qualcomm."
2. West coast hitters. Berry, Thomason, McCance, Motonishi, Peters, Simanyi, Wong (Yeah, both of them), Gill, Lugod, Fraser, Maier, Cox, Ankeny. These are the names you’ve seen in race reports in SportsCar and in the back of the Solo rulebook and they are all names you will see on the entry list in San Diego. Tours are always an opportunity to face top level competition, but San Diego always seems to bring out some of the best in drivers and car preparation.
3. It’s A Mod Mod Mod Mod World. If you’re a fan of the “Hey y’all, watch this!” level of Solo prep, look no further than the San Diego Tour. In the AM corner is KJ Christopher’s ever-evolving ACME Special resplendent in orange and carbon fiber. In similar overstated fashion is the fluorescent green EM Sprite of Jeff and Shawn Marie Kiesel. Both of these cars are wickedly fast on course and a study in go and grip while standing still. C-Mod is in resurgence in Solo and the CM cars of the Clements and Schilling clans will represent in San Deigo. These cars, although not as garish as others in the Mod category, are a testament to the concept that speed can come in a somewhat simple package.
4. It’s San Diego. Qualcomm is a short drive to many beaches to watch an awesome sunset at the end of a long day autocrossing. For one of the best burgers on the planet you can go to Hodad’s in Ocean Beach (Pro tip: Walk past the line at the door and order “to go” at the counter- then walk down the street and eat it watching the afore mentioned sunset on the sea wall). Head a few miles north and visit Stone Brewing in Escondido and enjoy their beautiful gardens and restaurant… oh yeah, have a beer or several as well. Get some awesome Mexican food in Old Town or go on a pub-crawl in the Gaslamp District downtown. There are plenty of sites to see, things to do, and the weather forcast is a 100% chance of awesome.
5. Double your fun. The weekend after San Diego is the El Toro ProSolo. The two sites are separated by a handful of miles, more than a few nice beaches and one of the highest concentrations of tourist destinations in the nation. Not into the Disney thing? No problem, Joshua Tree is only a couple hours out of the way. If you’re already coming out for the Pro so come a week early and do the double.
