The next two weekends in Packwood, WA are going to be a blast! You're probably thinking, "Why, is it the annual Sasquach Searchfest?" No... but that doesn't mean there won't be legendary monsters roving the forests of the Pacific Northwest over the next 10 days. The Packwood ProSolo and Packwood Championship Tour are being held in beautiful Packwood, WA. Located between Mount Rainier National Park (to the north) and Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument (to the south), this is one of the most beautiful Solo sites in America and has some incredibly smooth asphalt to boot! And with average summer temperatures no higher 72 °F, who could ask for better Solo weather?
This 4th of July weekend is the Packwood Championship Tour. Karen Babb will be the course designer and Laurie Hyman will be the Event Chairperson (with Kurt Rehm, who is normally the NWR Social Chair). One of the things that makes the Packwood Champ Tour so special is that in addition to a Friday welcome party, NWR also sponsors a banquet on Saturday night. This year the banquest is back at the local fire station and there will be a big dinner for everyone along with a raffle with really awesome prizes from local vendors such as Solostorm Autocross data logger, Dirtfish Rally School and some other local Packwood businesses. Additionally, you can win stuff like wine packages, free entries to events from clubs around the area and local racers offering up goodies from their businesses. There's over 250 people signed-up, too! So don't think this remote site will be a small event. All in all, seems like the place to be if you want to autocross on the West Coast this weekend.
As for the match-ups, last year at the Tour, STX had a battle that included around nine lead changes among three drivers over the two days. Annie Gill will be running this event and with her strong performances in Lincoln and the Crow's Landing events, she'll be someone to watch for. Should the weather turn all wet and wild, keep an eye on the contingent of 4WD Subarus also. And last but not least, George Hudetz has been a strong competitor for a while in class, so keep an eye on this always interesting class.
Some other notable classes are B Street and C Street, both with 14 entries and both with a great mix of cars. STU will have a combination of the standard Evos and STis with a Audi S5 interloper. S Prepared is running with 13 drivers and a great mix of Ford vs. Chevy competition. Another group of strong car / driver combinations is D Prepared. Watch out for the Bauer / Baker grudge match with Jim Daniels looking to be the spoiler. The Baurs are running a new brake setup as well as the new Hoosier R75 slicks. We'll see if it'll give them the edge they need for a class win.
STR will contain the normal max of S2000s and MX-5s. Look for the likes of Kevin Dietz to be toping the list as he's always near the top of the STR results at any event he attends. Also, C Modified will contain the dynamic duo of Eric and Jonathan Clements.
The following weekend, July 12th and 13th, the Packwood ProSolo will follow. With STR perennial Kevin Dietz doing the ProSolo courses, you know there will be a awesome course. There will be about half the number of entries in the Pro, but that doesn't mean it'll be any less exciting. STX will stay strong and add in the likes of Charlie Davis and Ricky Crow. SSM will keep most of it's competitors, including the de Regt Miata. Lots of Prepared Miatas will stay and Annie Gill will take her challenge to L3. L1 will see the Hyman Godzilla go up against the Yost R8... sure to be an epic battle if we see them line up with one another.
Don’t forget to tune-in at 9:00am PST to uStream to listen to all of the action and follow all our live results at sololive.scca.com.
