San Diego's first ever SCCA Match Tour brought forth plenty of excitement on this beautiful Saturday and really opened it's arms to drivers of all skillsets to showcase their talents at Qualcomm’s Southeast Lot. The course, designed by San Diego Region's Gary Cameron had a few "Gotcha!" elements that really rewarded proper planning and looking ahead and picking your braking and acceleration points. The action was alive and kicking on Day One, where drivers were going full bore to earn those first round of contingency checks.
It seemed that Terri Mayo took to stage in STRL and had a firm grip on the class, leading by an impressive eight tenths over Shauna Rios. While Rios would find another two tenths besting her time to a 49.793, Mayo was only a few hundredths off her fastest in the morning laying down a 49.235 in the afternoon. This extended her lead to 1.357 with Rios in Second and in the final trophy spot.
In AS Brian Peters in the Z06 Vette not only took home the win, but an impressive 2nd in PAX on Day 1, which anyone knowing his driving capabilities, would find to no surprise.
BS saw a very interesting shakeup. While Clement in the AP2 S2000 was one of the favorites in the class, Tyler Bandy decided to go out and prove that the new STI has got it in it to take a class win, finishing an overall 0.338 ahead of Clement. Reace Fisher in a in a 2010 STI finished a mere 0.045 behind Clement.
Why? Because autocrossing Lamborghini.
CS was a battle of epic proportions. Fresh from a Rolex 24 win at Daytona, Kenton Koch graced C-Street with his beautiful 2004 RX8 with a freshly rebuilt motor, laying down consistent impressively fast times. In fact, he had the lead for most of the run group before Ron Bauer in the new ND scooted ahead of him by 2 tenths. Brandon Porambo out of Cal Club Region put on an impressive slide show and managed to edge out Scott Lewis in an NC1 Miata in Adam Tarnoff's RX8.
DS showcased a furious battle between Scott Mullens and Kaustav Acharya, as Acharya's vehicle was out of commission due to rear differential issues. The two struck up a codrive and Kristen who was slated to drive with Kaustav in DS open, switched to STX, leaving the field with 5 in DS. With Acharya laying the groundwork, Mullens would follow suit and edge Acharya out by a tenth. Acharya would then go back and edge Mullens out by a tenth. With this back and forth the two duked it out until the very end when, on what was the last run in the afternoon for Mullens, traction control had accidentally left on after a car restart. This caused Mullens to come back with an almost two second slower lap time. Acharya would overcome the .169 deficit and finish up with a .558 margin over Mullens.
Steve Coe took the win in ES and it was fun battle to watch, with Craig Boyle .011 faster than Coe at the end of the morning session. Coe overcame the deficit and finished up .550 ahead of Boyle.
Having a car that was nimble on it's feet proved to be key on this course. The cars in FS definitely felt this to be the case more than most where the Des Toups/Mark Scroggs '15 Ecoboost Mustang GT showed itself quite the nimble pony as it glided through the corners. Utilizing the double adjustable shocks freshly obtained from Chris Cox, Scroggs brought home the FS win. The Matt Ales E46 M3 was not going down with fight though, and squeezed its way into the 2nd trophy spot.
With GS being the stomping grounds of the Focus ST, Michael Parker proved that his beautiful red 2012 VW GTI has got the pace to take home the gold and finished up an impressive two seconds ahead of second spot finisher Stephen Strand who was driving a 2014 Focus ST.
In STF, it was a RSX Type S lockout with Morgan Trotter in second with Michael Heinitz taking home the win. This car was one of the few cars that was on Kumhos this weekend and still kept impressive pace.
Jeff and Nicole Wong in their 88 CRX SI locked out the first two spots in STS with Craig Naylor in 3rd.
STX showcased some impressive shifting back and forth. Timing issues on their last runs gave both Dhiraj Jadhav and Max Hayter a rerun. Hayter had hoped that timing and scoring had still gotten the time in despite the display showing a 100 second time as it had felt it was a great run for him. Jadhav had gone too wide into the first element before the slalom and was grateful for the rerun. After both had finished, Jadhav (who had not had a clean run in the afternoon session), jumped up four positions into the last trophy spot (4th). Max Hayter also capitalized on this situation and laid down an impressive 49.234. The 2015 D-Street Champion was only .002 off his fastest time in the morning. Jon Lugod was only about a tenth ahead in second spot with Derek Punch bringing home the win.
A new STX contender?
STR was a hot battle between Michael Yanase and Jeff Cawthorne with Yanase taking the top spot with Cawthorne in the new ND less than four tenths behind. Jay Balducci and James Yom rounded out the last two trophy positions with Yom a mere tenth away from 3rd place finisher Balducci.
Local boys Tim Schultz and James Fitzpatrick definitely came to party and secured the two trophy positions in STU, while Jeff Stuart took home the win the class by a margin of close to four seconds.
ASP saw the Berry Family Racing Lancer Evolution take to stage first with warmer Adrian Cardenas behind the wheel. A little nervous at first, Cardenas showed incredible skill and kept pace with car owner Tom Berry. Cardenas was only a 0.173 behind Berry: a hugely impressive feat.
BSP showcased Anthony Porta in the 2015 BSP National Championship car. Porta would pilot the car to the top of the PAX leaderboard on new Hoosiers. Co driver Harroon Lais would wrap up the final trophy spot.
In CSP, George Polluck was 0.014 from taking the win which went to Larry Burrow. Polluck, in a first gen RX8 put up an amazing fight in class.
In DP, Darlene Pittman showed that she can keep pace with the boys and finished up 1.8 ahead of codriver and car owner Robbie Robinson.
SM proved to be a Bollenbecker lockout and Greg McCance a mere one tenth behind Diane. The built motor and rear mount cooling setup of McCance's WRX was just finished a week or so ago and has had very little time to break in or be tested so expect to see more speed to come out of this car over the next few months.
Bill Schenker and Carl Miller duked it out in SSM. Schenker in Porta's Miata (which ran BSP) took home gold while Carl Miller in a Exige took home the last trophy spot.
In SMF the Yawsport TL managed a 1-2 lockout while still having no limited slip differential.
It indeed was a battle of old vs new in CAM-C and at the end Brett Madsen beat out the Vorschlag built 2015 Mustang GT in his 99 Roush Stage II.
Bryant Morris in a 71 Maverick (yep that's not a misprint) took the win in CAM-T. Normally, the class is about 14-17 deep locally, but with the Goodguys event on the same weekend, we saw sparse participation this weekend in all the CAM classes.
With Day One wrapped up and in the books, drivers will be looking to try their hand again tomorrow at the change on sharpening their skills for the last time tomorrow before heading into the challenges. With it being close to 11:30PM local and an alarm set for 5AM, it's quite time head to sleep and get a decent rest in before the set of runs tomorrow before heading to the Pro at El Toro next weekend.
