The threat of rain kept competitors on their toes during the first day of the 2016 TireRack El Toro ProSolo. Changing weather conditions forced those running r-compound tires to store their rain tires close by, but both the morning and afternoons runs never got more than a light dusting.
The Jonathan Lugod designed-course gave drivers options instead of obligations and challenged participants to maintain their speed while dealing with the offset elements that often came up quicker than expected. There was plenty of threading-the-needle in the visually simple but deceiving course.
The ladies classes opened up the ProSolo with intense competition. In L2, Kristen Acharya in the Subaru WRX has the lead in the 11-person class by a second over Shelly Monfort, while Christine Grice leads L1 in the Evo by 1.23 seconds over Diane Bollenbecker.
L3, the largest ladies class with 16 cars, saw different women take the lead at different times. But only one could emerge on top after the morning and afternoon runs, and that was Nicole Wong in her Honda CRX with a .788 advantage over Mindi Cross. Both Nicole and Mindi’s fastest runs came on their final attempts of the afternoon. Rounding out the trophy spots are Catherine Train, Kerry Gonzales, and Lisa Berry.
Michael Heinitz in his Acura RSX Type S is the day one leader in the Bump 1 class (comprised of D-Street, G-Street, and STF), taking a sixth-tenth advantage over Michael Carpente. Scott McHugh has a .883 lead over James Harnish in H-Street, while Paul Brown has an overwhelming 2.3-second advantage in E-Street.
In F-Street, the top two favorites coming into the competition are indeed battling it out for first: Matthew Ales in his BMW M3 holds a .281 lead over Mark Scroggs. The top three are all within half a second of each other, however, as Sean O’Boyle sits in third just .243 behind Mark.
A-Street showcases three Drivers of Eminence, so it’s no surprise that all three are contending for the win. Sam Strano had the early morning advantage, but Brian Peters leapfrogged Strano in the afternoon to lead the class by a mere .155.
B-Street is led by Alex Muresan, who got his best runs in the morning, maintaining a 1.2 second cushion over second-place Kyle Williams. Ron Bauer has a three-tenths gain over Charly Spyksma in the 11-person C-Street class, with Jeffrey Bandes nipping on his heels only .123 back in third. Ken Motonishi is the leader in Super Street—nearly three seconds faster than the second driver—after a pair of runs in the 36's.
The 13-person STS class has the second-closest margin between first and second place drivers for the day, as Jeff Wong leads Steve O’Blenes by only .079. The two traded the top spot with nearly every run, so both will look to go faster on Sunday in order to win. Course designer Lugod in his Focus ST leads a ferocious 15-driver STX class by three-tenths over Karlton Lew. Also near the top are Justin Tsang, Richard Hayter, and Brandon Porambo, with Hayter leading Porambo by—get this —.001.
STR is packed with 20 drivers, but the story is James Yom in his Honda S2000, leading by half a second over Kevin Dietz, who in turn leads Michael Yanase by half a second. STU features multi-time national champions Bryan Heitkotter and Jeff Stuart, but it’s Heitkotter in his Nissan 350Z with the seven-tenths advantage after the first day.
Moving to the street prepared classes, Steve Lau is the leader in the six-person SSP class, while George Doganis has a 1.8 second lead in CSP. The rest of street prepared got bumped with additional classes that had fewer than five competitors. In total, 18 drivers comprise B4, and the name at the top is someone you’d expect: Tom Berry, with a 1.2 second advantage over Doug Rowse.
SMF favorite Bret Norgaard in his Acura TL is the day one leader by 2.3 seconds over Michael Bradley. Bradley’s mini-cooper, however, got towed off course in the middle of their afternoon runs. The Classic American Muscle class has 14 drivers, but two have disengaged themselves from the pack: Brett Madsen in his Mustang leads Dennis Healy by eight-tenths, while David Howdyshell in third is 2.5 seconds back.
The class with the lowest raw times, R1, has the smallest gap between the top two trophy spots as KJ Christopher in his ACME Special used his final afternoon runs to pass Jeff Kiesel by a mere .024, while third-place Tom Ellam is almost a second back. In R2, Nick Bjoin has a healthy 1.3 second advantage over Justin Moore, while Paul Russell also enjoys a nice 2.6 lead in Kart Modified.
For the junior carters, Johan Yost is half a second ahead of Erika McKee in JB, while Robert Ekstrand leads Bijan Yeo in JA by only 1.68.
With the threat of rain still upon El Toro on Sunday, anything is possible and all bets are off. The one thing we can bet on, however, is phenomenal competition and a challenging course that will set the standard as the SCCA’s first ProSolo of the 2016 season.
