With only Peru and Wilmington left on the East Coast / Mid-West Tour for concrete events, you're not going to want to miss out on the Peru Match Tour. With the current entrants putting us at 172, it is the second highest contested Match Tour this year (the Wilmington being the highest at 219 drivers). It appears the weather may even be on our side this weekend, 77* and 0% chance of rain on Friday for the test and tune and Welcome party. On Saturday it looks like it will be a little warmer almost 80* with no chance of rain on the horizon, fortunately on Sunday there is only a very small chance of rain sitting at 10% with temperatures reaching up to 83* and partly cloudy. Sounds like some beautiful weather for this weekend and likely a dry event with a lot of grip.
After the competion is over and the dust settles for the day, treat yourself to some dinner at Los Tres Caminos in Peru. O.K.... lets face it... we go there for the Margaritas! If you're not staying in Peru and you venture into Kokomo, make sure to hit up Half-Moon Restaurant and Brewery. Have yourself a cold craft brew. For the beer geeks out there this place scores an 87 on Beer Advocate.
The Peru Match Tour is hosted by the Indy region, with Stefanie Stribling as the chair for the event. Larry Harts, the course designer, was able to give me an inside scoop about the course. It sounds like there will be a good mix between fast transitional sections, long fast sweepers, thread the needle patient sections, the ever so popular Peru 180* turn and what he calls a very special wallom; ladies and gentlemen you're not going to want to miss out on this. Velma and Raliegh Boreen both work very hard for the Indy region to put on a smooth event for us and are always extremely welcoming to everyone. Not to mention, Raliegh usually has a good story to tell.
What everyone has been waiting for. Let's talk about the competition. E Street has 8 entries this weekend. Rob Carpenter, a top contender in every vehicle he drives will be putting on some tough competition for Eric Peterson, sporting his Toyota MR2 Spyder, but watch out for Michael Ron. He has been inching his way closer to the top of index in the Milwaukee Region. In C Street we were hoping to see Chris Fenter sign up with car owner Chris Harvey, so we could continue to be on the edge of our seats with their tight battles. However, it appears that Chris Harvey will be travelling alone this weekend. Tim Moyer and Sean Grogan will battle it out and gun for Mr. Harvey. SSR should be very interesting this weekend. Shelly Monfort will be running open to shake things up with the boys. Shelly will be driving with Sam Strano it his Corvette, both should have a very interesting battle with Kent Weaver in his Corvette.
Moving away from stock cars and onto Street Touring action. STS was showing very thin at first but has jumped to six (and I hear through the grape vine that Steve Rife may bring his car turning it into 7 competitors). Jason Frank may have to light a fire under his seat as Mike Leeder is starting to figure out Hilary Anderson's car, and now has a top index in the Milwaukee Region under his belt. John Brown, never to be counted out may have some revenge up his sleeve after getting beat by Jason last weekend in the Toledo Pro Solo. In STX, Emmanuel Martin will be driving with Bill Cook in Bill's BRZ, from what I hear Emmanuel may surprise the folk in STX. Bill and Emmanuel should put on some pressure for Kenneth Tsang in his Mazda RX8.
Eleven entries in ESP this weekend. We expect Dave Feighner to put the pressure on Dave Heinrich as he has his Mustang up and running this year. Marcus Meredith, always a strong competitor in ESP, could toss up the order in ESP. Speaking of tossing up the order; Grant Reeve is hoping out of SSR and into PJ Corrales' Street Mod 240SX AKA "The Panda". It will be very interesting to see how things play out between Grant and PJ here in Street Modified!
Slicks and concrete are a match made in autocross heaven. Probably why we're seeing so many entrants in the Modified category. B Modified has four drivers including last years National Champion, Dan Cyr. This will be Dan Cyr's first event this season. He better be careful though, Dan Stone is getting mighty fast in his B Modified; also, he has seat time to this point. C Modified, has an astonishing 12 drivers registered; that's the largest class of the event! Brandon Lavendar has his car up and running after the differential failure in Lincoln. So far, this season, Brandon and Krystal Lavender are zero for six on finishing events this year. We're hoping to see them get all of their runs this weekend. Geoff Chambers, is making an appearance this weekend with his Van Diem hoping to put some pressure on Branon Lavender, Chris Pruett and Nick Meyers. In F Modified, Will Lahee, is putting in his first year in the class after spending many years in an STC Civic. Will is planning on putting pressure on Paul Magee. Moving on to E Modified, seven drivers registered and as always has some very cool looking cars. It will be interesting to see how things shake up between Ron Ver Mulm, Brian Hoover and Dave Witworth.
Sit tight, ladies and gentlemen, and stay tuned to hear how things shake up in these classes and more, because if you can't be here you're not not going to want to miss out on hearing about all of the fun and competition. Don’t forget to tune-in at 9:00am EST to uStream to listen to all of the action and follow all our live results at sololive.scca.com.
Happy Independence Day from the SCCA Solo Communications Team!!!
