Howdy,
Day one of the Wilmington Match Tour is in the books, completing regular class competition. The Scott Giles designed course offered up a little something for everyone, having some sections that rewarded patience, some sections where precision was necessary, and some sections where you just had to be willing to run on the ragged edge of control. The weather also was just about perfect, a welcome event for any autocross in Ohio during April.
The day started with a cool morning, a dusty course, and a heat full of the new Street classes. C-Street had the most entrants but Chris Fenter took control from the first run and never let go, winning CS in his Miata by 8 tenths over Mark Andy who couldn't capitalize on a course that was perfect for the RX-8's long gearing. Chris ended up as the top qualifier from heat one, 2.5 tenths ahead of Eric Peterson and his ES MR2 Spyder. Peterson would have finished 3rd in CS in his ES car! Jed Peterson took the top spot in A-Street in his S2000 CR, qualifying 3rd in the shootout. Jeremy Salenius (DS), Mark Andy (CS), Tim Carritte (HS), Laura Campbell (STFL, and the only woman to qualify for the Pro Shootout), and Chris Harvey (CS) rounded out the first heat's eight qualifiers.
When 2nd heat rolled around, temperatures had warmed up and most of the dust had been blown off the course. STX was the battleground class with Perry Ellwood taking the early lead only to be overtaken by 2nd drivers Lance Keeley and then Danny Kao. Perry and Kao would continue the pattern until last runs when Kao backed up a fast third run with an even faster fourth run to win STX by 8 tenths. But Kao only qualified 2nd for the heat as Robert Lewis used his SledgeHammer Mustang to win C-Prepared and take the 1st qualifier spot of the 2nd heat. Lee Chhit qualified 3rd in his STF Mini, taking the win in STF by 9 tenths over his co-driver Daniel Chhit (8th qualifier). STF was also home to the only Kia at today's event, with Ryan Finch taking 3rd in Robert Miller's Kia Forte known as “the fastest Kia in Autocross”. The other heat two notable was Mike “Junior” Johnson in his “normally SSP” C6 Corvette fitted with BFG Rivals and running CAM. Mike powered through the course to a 5th place qualifying position, winning CAM in the process and finishing up only 1.3 seconds back in raw time from Robert Lewis's CP car in a car on 200tw street tires! Jim Zeisler (CSR, 4th), Perry Ellwood (STX, 6th), and Darrin DiSimo (STS, 7th) also qualified for the Pro Shootout.
After a course walking break, 3rd heat came out with a bang. Eric Campbell showed everyone how to do it in his D-Street Prepared E46 BMW taking the top qualifier spot for the heat by 4 tenths as well as top pax for the day. The 3rd heat hits kept on coming though as the B-Street Prepared 350Z of Mike Lane qualified 2nd with the next top pax of the day and the 3Rd qualifier was Martin Kriz in his Street Modified Subaru STi. Super Street-R winner Grant Reeve had to be happy with 4th qualifier and 4th pax overall, earned by taking command of SSR early and never letting go. Yes, that means that the top four qualifiers in heat three were also the top four on pax for the day! The final qualifier spots were taken by Sam Strano (SSR), David Feighner (ESP), Josh Luster (SSR), and David Wampler (SM). Heat three was so strong that Wampler, the 8th qualifier in heat three, out indexed the heat one and two top qualifiers and would have been 4th in heat four! At press time, there was no report if Michael Figlioli (co-driving Dan Ireland's C6 GrandSport in SSR) had actually been presented with a skirt. One of the casualties of heat three's strength was FSP. The eleven strong class had a great battle with Mike Burgess coming from behind and squeeking out a 2 hundreths victory over Jason West on last runs with Scott Giles finishing another 2 tenths back, but unfortunately Mike was only 12th qualifier for the heat.
3Rd heat was also home to our Formula Junior drivers, with Trey White taking the win in Junior-A over Burke Everett. White's final mid 62 second run made quite a few of the older competitors on site glad that Formula Junior isn't allowed to qualify for the Pro Shootout! Everett also did a great job in his first outing with a new kart, a World Formula engined birthday present from his mom Heather who we all wish could have been our mom when we were twelve. Junior-B drivers Alexander and Ashley Nelson also had a nice inter-family battle with Alexander coming out on top with a final time that would have put him 2nd in JA.
4th heat finished up the day and by then everyone was wearing shorts and had mostly forgotten that just a short time ago we'd all been shoveling snow. 4Th heat was home to the Modified classes and the fastest vehicles in Solo didn't disappoint. Clemens Burger took the top qualifier spot for the heat in his B-Modified car with the fastest raw time of the day, a blistering 54.300 that even with BM's stiff pax put him 5th overall for the day. Tom O'Gorman had been originally scheduled to run SSR, but the life of a car whore is never a sure thing and he moved out of the Elise to make room for the car owner Nick Meyers who needed something a little easier on his shoulders. However, that left Meyer's C-Modified seat open and Tom happily jumped in, using the open wheeled car to take the win in CM by less than a tenth over Brandon Lavender, with both qualifying 2nd and 3rd respectively. Larry MacLeod and Sean Murphy had a good battle in KM, but MacLeod always seemed to have just that little bit extra and he took the win, qualifying 4th with Murphy 7th. Chris Pruett (CM, 5th qualifier), David Santel (SSM, 6th qualifier), and Mark Lamm (CM, 8th qualifier) rounded out the last of the 32 entrants for tomorrow's Pro Shootout. David Santel manged to get that done despite only getting three runs in Martin Valent's Super Street Modified MR2, which snapped its left rear spindle on Valent's 3rd run, ending their day early. Apparently the Toyota engineers didn't take the grip provided by 335 Hoosiers into account during the design process.
The Saturday pizza party and awards presentation ended the day, something unique to the Match Tour format. With everyone sticking around to run tomorrow and without the course changing, most people can make time to come hang out with friends, making for a great time for food and fun with friends, reliving the events of the day. SCCA Staffer Brian Harmer was the MC, but despite that everyone had a good time.
Tomorrow starts with the “Shootout” portion of the event. Nobody except Harmer seems to have fully understood the new rules, but apparently it starts off with some type of F1-inspired “Knock out” qualifier to seed the top thirty two folks who didn't qualify on Saturday for either the Pro Shootout or the Ladies Shootout into the Super Shootout. After the Knock Out Qualifier, three shootouts run, with the Ladies Shootout (the top ladies driver's from Saturday) starting the show, followed by the Super Shootout (per the Knock Out Qualifier), and finishing up with the Pro Shootout (the top 32 from Saturday). My advice is to grid your car and run it until someone tells you to stop.
