The promises were courses, concrete, competition, food and weather. We'll come back to that last one in a bit. The Texas Championship Tour has been criminally under-attended in the recent past. Maybe it's because Texas is a big state, Texas A&M's Riverside Annex is a BIG site and that is intimidating to soloists. Event chair Todd Farris gathered up a posse and went hunting for attendees and roped in nearly 200. No doubt helped by the promise of heaps of Texas BBQ, which he delivered on Saturday night.
Friday's test and tune was held under bright clear skies, but as the day wore on ominous clouds gathered on the horizon. As Vivek Goel laid down his opus, the ominous skies turned violent, winds drove debris and grit (see Eric Hyman photo above), before unleashing rain and hail on anyone left exposed. The short deluge left sizable puddles on course for Saturday morning.
Photo credit Jason Minehart
C-Prepared cars on slicks do not mix well with puddles. Know who was first on course? Among the CP competitors was Mark Madarash, who made some exploratory but reversible modifications to his ESP car. Sidestepping the puddles, Madarash was sitting in 3rd place and within 3 tenths of CP leader Todd Farris, with Robert Lewis only a few thousandths ahead of him. On Sunday, Madarash could not improve his position. Fortune appeared to smile on Lewis who was the lucky recipient of multiple re-runs and the extra looks at the course helped him pull clear of Farris by 0.138. It is worth noting that ESP winner Dave Ogburn III, would have been another tenth behind Madarash, in the same heat.
Second heat was dominated by the largest open class, STR, and saw similar favor bestowed on a competitor. In this case, Rob Irish of Austin was the only person to find his way into the 68s with a 68.4, pulling 1.1 seconds clear of his codrive Jon Pomrenke. On Sunday, Irish struggled mightily with shifting and/or getting a mistake free run in the books. In the end, his fortune was that neither his competitors nor his codriver could stay off the cones. Jeff Warden borrowed Jason Minehart's car and his Mr. Sunday cape to jump into the 3rd spot behind Pomrenke.
During the break after the second heat, Chef Tai's food truck was available with Texas haute-cuisine. Wagyu burgers, pulled pork nachos, and cuban sandwiches left fingers greasy as competitors filled up. David Hedderick apparently did not partake as he laid into STF for 3.7 seconds over both days. Down the grid though, XP saw a 3 way battle develop between Nick Gruendler, Vitek Boruvka and Thomas Thompson. Boruvka led Gruendler by less than tenth with Thompson only two and half tenths behind him. Sunday, it was Thompson that was fastest, but not fast enough to catch Boruvka, relegating Gruendler to third.
The fourth heat had multiple "family" battles in multiple classes: Ward, George and Ian Marshal (father and sons) had a battle for "not last" in D-Prepared - well behind multi-time National Champion Drew VanderPloeg and co-driver Steve Hudson. However, it was the "Bad Panda Motorsports" family feud that attracted the attention of the crowd: Christy Carlson and Chris Gervais versus Stefan Waller and Raghvan Madawela in Subaru BRZs with Brad and Jennifer Maxcy's BMW thrown in the mix. On Saturday, the story was that Christy was skirting the boys by half a second, running previously under-credited Federal Tires. After Madawela's second run Waller discovered a puncture in one of his "race" Dunlops, quickly swapping to his "daily driver tires", Hankook RS3s, he dropped 1.4 seconds and vaulted into the lead. Carlson couldn't answer and Brad Maxcy held off Madawela for 3rd. It should be noted that John Hale in a 2014 BRZ quietly ran away from the CS field and, in-fact, would have won STX outright.
Photo Credit Sherman Chang
Finally, missing from the Texas Solo Family was Tommy Saunders. Saturday night the forks were set down, and Casey Weiss led the prayers for his family and the toasts to another legend lost.
