Saturday Results
A chilly May morning and a bright blue sky (more on that later...) marked the start of the first Thunder Valley Match Tour here at Bristol Motor Speedway. With a strong showing from the East Tennessee Region, along with competitors from several neighboring regions and states, over two hundred drivers descended into this gorgeous mountain valley to test out their mettle. Heat one action kicked off, with 15 drivers in E Street spread between Miatas, both turbo and naturally aspirated, and a few MR Spyders. Catching the whole class off guard, Randy Adkins on his National Tour debut, took the win by two tenths over Adam Norton. With others struggling to find the pace in the Mazdaspeed Miata, this could prove to be a compelling data point as development continues. B Street was a repeat of Dixie, with Justin Barbry holding a commanding lead over 2nd place. Eric Stahl and Charles Krampert rounded out the podium.
Heat Two brought some warmer temperatures, along with the largest class at the event, C Street. John Wolf started the morning as the only driver in class dipping into the 53 second times (and 2nd in morning PAX), with Robert Carpenter nipping at his heels. The rest of the seven trophies in class were contained within .2 seconds, making it a very tight class. When the dust settled though, it was Robert Carpenter who jumped into the lead, having never driven the car before his first run, with Wolf and Brian Priebe taking the remaining podium steps. Adam Schoonmaker also jumped up a spot in A Street, coming from second to take the class win over Shawn Lambert, making up a 3/10s deficit and then some, to win by .222 seconds.
As the third heat rolled in, those crisp blue skies were rapidly turning ominous as some dark clouds rolled over the Speedway. Jeff Mabrey took the early lead in STX in his Acura Integra Type R, but couldn’t keep the pace up in the afternoon, as he was overtaken by Kristo Kukk and Bill Bostic. Bill made up two places on his last run, jumping into first with a .221 lead over Kukk. Over in Super Street, Bryan Carbon took the lead on his first run of the day and never looked back, eventually finishing almost 2.5 seconds ahead of second place. Brian LaRose, having made a mad sprint to catch his daughter’s graduation the night before the event, made a mad sprint to the top of CAM-T in his Camaro, while Dewitt Payne takes the CAM-C win in his Mustang GT.
Remember those clouds? Well, as the fourth heat started off, in the middle of Ted Visscher and Daniel Wendel’s runs in KM, the skies opened up. Thankfully, the site got only about a minute of rain, and shortly thereafter, a true dry line had formed. Wendel himself went on to take the win in KM and FTD, with local ETR member Scott Boito in 2nd. Taking top PAX for the morning and afternoon sessions though, Randall Wilcox drove a set of blistering runs in Eric Anderson’s SSM Miata. Eric couldn’t quite catch Chuck Pyanowski, and finished in third, .328 seconds back. Jumping into XP to help make a class, Tim White (in an SM Subaru) takes the overall win, despite shearing a halfshaft on his last morning run. With the car patched up for the afternoon, White ended up 1.2 seconds ahead of Mike Kuhn, with Mike Bright rounding out the top three.
With a significantly less rainy forecast predicted for tomorrow morning, conditons look ripe to begin the shootout. For those unfamiliar with the Match Tour format, session 3 in the morning establishes the brackets for the three Challenge shootouts in the afternoon, with an overall winner being crowned for each. As always, tune into sololive.scca.com and the SCCA uStream page for live timing and updates, and don’t forget to follow SoloMatters on Facebook for more info and pictures!
