With day one of the first National Tour of the year in the books, the 2014 Solo National Series is officially underway. The opening of the Dixie National Tour brought us 281 competitors, spread over a variety of classes, and a beautiful, warm, and sunny day to kick off competition. Sandi Brown, National Solo Operations Manager, felt the day was flawless, with all runs being completed in less than 8 hours, with just a handful of re-runs (none due to technical errors). There were zero timing glitches, zero mistaken cone counts, and zero protests. All in all, a good way to get things rolling for the year.
The class competition remained fierce all day, with strong battles across the board. Of note, the fastest time of the day was Darren Seltzer, driving a 1992 Raptor F500 in F Modified with a 38.630 on this Sam Strano designed course. Darren wasn't the only one to break into the 38's, with Daniel Wendel in Kart Modified, in his 2009 Top Kart Speedy B1 less than a tenth of a second behind Darren, and Jason Vehige at a 39.068 in his 2008 Gillard Charlotte shifter kart.
Other classes brought some surprising results, such as B Street, with the son/father duo of AJ and Jay Parcon setting the pace for the class in their 2006 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX. Most surprisingly was the fact that they were both running on Federal tires, as opposed to the latest crop of grippy street tires. The Parcons felt that the tire was a lot more predictable and afforded them significantly more slip angle than the more commonly seen Dunlops or Hankooks, which lets them drive the car faster on the asphalt surface. Not even 3/10ths behind and sitting solidly in the trophies in 3rd place is Laura Campbell in her 2006 Honda S2000. In a similar "under-tired" fashion was Dave O'Maley, running in SMF in Christian Shipp's 1991 Honda Civic. Dave is currently in 2nd place while running BFGoodrich Rivals, only 7/10ths behind Jinx Jordan on the class favorite Hoosiers. In E Modified, Steve Brueck is leading class, but Scott Minehart is .588 seconds behind, in his fully street legal 2012 Stalker M-Spec on Goodyear slicks.
The Street classes are definitely coming into fruition this year, with 68 competitors over 10 classes, open and Ladies. G Street was hotly contested, with four different cars in the top five spots. Michael Moran was the class of the field, in his 2003 Toyota Celica on Hankook tires. Michael had over a 1 second lead after his third runs, until Ian Stewart, in the last G Street run of the day, closed the gap to .142 seconds with his 2014 Volvo S60R. In E Street, Eric Peterson was thoroughly dominant, stretching a 1.949 second lead of Aditya Madhavan in 2nd place. However, 2nd place back to 7th in class are separated by only .567 seconds, with Steve Seymour .012 seconds behind Madhavan and Alan Fischer .151 behind Seymour to round out the trophies. Interestingly, only two competitors ran in the Street R classes (excluding SSR), both running in C Street R.
Super Street R was a story in and of itself, with our course designer Sam Strano setting the pace from his first run, with a completely revised suspension setup from last year, reverting to a stock front sway bar and an undersized rear bar. While Sam finishes the day leading class, Brandon Davis in his 2007 Chevrolet Corvette is only .297 seconds behind, followed closely by last years C Modified Nationals runner-up, Brandon Lavender, .689 seconds further back. In SSM, Matt Glagola was similarly controlling the pace for his class with a 41.162 in his 2008 Lotus Elise, with his codriver Wayne Van Voorhis just getting edged out of 3rd place on Randall Wilcox's final run, finishing .368 adrift of Glagola. With Mustangs dominating both classes, E Street Prepared managed to outrun C Prepared, with ESP drivers Jeff Cox just edging out Jadrice Toussaint on his last run by .197 seconds.
STX, with 24 drivers in class was a battle for the ages. For much of the early action, Jason Ruggles in a 2004 Mazda RX-8 on BFGoodrich Rivals was controlling the pace, until Josh Luster's (in Danny Kao's 2013 Scion FR-S on Toyos) second run put him in the lead. Bryan Heitkotter had faster raw times on runs 1 and 2, but had cones on both runs; a unique and very rare situation according to Heitkotter himself. He finally cleaned it up on his third run for a 44.644, placing him only .04 seconds ahead of Luster's final run, proving that there is no clear-cut winner heading into day two.
Sunday brings a revised course and with it, the possibility of rain. The weather forecast was improving all day Saturday, with some estimates suggesting the rain may hold off till late afternoon, possibly after all drivers have run. Our SCCA VP of Solo, Howard Duncan, tested out the new course configuration, and felt that it flowed even faster than the prior course, which is impressive enough as not a negative word was said all day about this course design or the flow of the elements. A lot of the offsets became more open when running them in reverse, and the far 180deg turn is now an increasing radius sweeper. In Howard's mind, the first bus stop became the most technical challenge of the course, punishing people who dared overdrive the entry. Will this shake up the running order? Will different cars or drivers perform better on day two? In three more runs, we will have all the answers.
