SoloLive Results
The sun has set on the first day of the 2016 Lincoln Championship Tour. And the competitors were blessed with drier conditions than were expected in the forecast towards the end of the week. A few drops of rain fell during early morning course walks and then pervasive sun was left to heat up tires.
Heat 1 featured the largest class, STR, and the smallest gap between first and second, just two thousandths of a second. The action was very close with many drivers leapfrogging each other in the trophy positions. Spring Nationals newcomer Landon Thompson took 1st at the beginning of the second driver’s second runs with a 56.365. Besting Jed Peterson's 56.694 that had prevailed thru 1st runs. Thompson was moved to 2nd shortly after by eventual Day 1 leader Michael Yanase’s 55.960. And Ron Bauer, leading the 2016 MX-5 attack on the predominately S2000 class, squeezed into 2nd with a 56.278. Third runs came about and Peterson, Thompson, and Yanase failed to improve their postions. But James Yom (the class winner from the Lincoln ProSolo) ran a 55.962 to close into a near tie for first place. Bauer was the only front runner left to finish and he crossed the line with an improved 56.239 but not enough to take either 1st or 2nd.
CSP's Neal Tovsen led after every set of runs, and finished with a .567 lead over Jay McKoskey.
In SSP Ryan Johnson, Andy Hohl, and Joe Tharpe each held the lead at one point but it was Ryan Johnson who drove his Lotus Elise to a .656 lead over Hohl in the Corvette.
In FP, Erik Strelnieks and his Boxster prescribed a 1.681 second dose of reality to second place to Mike Brausen in the Evo.
The tight race in Heat 2 came from CS. On third runs, Daniel McCelvey, who left his 2016 MX-5 at home to co-drive an RX8, took 1st Place from William Bostic with a 58.354. It looked like his time would hold up but the second to last driver in CS, John Wolf, pull out a 58.335 to take a narrow .019 lead into Monday.
EM was predictably dominated by Jeff Kiesel who took 1st place 1.885 seconds ahead of Jason Minehart. But Kiesel was likely most proud of his son Zak holding down first place in FM for the day. There may be some discussion over proper punishment for raw timing your father but let’s see what tomorrow brings.
Heat 3's largest class was STX, but as far as first place was concerned Craig Wilcox was all alone, leading after ever set of runs.
Charles Kim also lead wire to wire on Sunday, with Co-driver Jocelin Huang .583 behind. Her biggest concern won't be first place it will be Salil Shukla who is .007 seconds behind in 3rd.
Sam Strano cleaned up an early cone to talke the lead over Jeff Cashmore after 2nd runs by .161 second. Neither driver improved on 3rd runs but David Green made it a tight top 3 with a 57.232 just .045 out of second.
SSR also will be tight at the top on Monday. Brian Peters edged Matthew Braun by .052 second on the last run of the day to take the lead.
Heat 4 was highlighted by SSM. Nicolas Myers in the 2005 Elise, that has more drivers than seats, led after first runs with a 52.670 (he actually ran the exact same time twice). Randall Wilcox edged him out on second runs in a 1996 Miata with a 52.505. That time would hold up as Myers was only able to collect his second 52.670 of the day on the 3rd runs. Robert Thorne was a close 3rd despite losing his muffler in the finish box during 3rd runs.
In ES, Joe Premecz laid down a 58.678 for the last ES run of the day to put him in 1st place overnight, .160 seconds ahead of Chris Bailey.
In Heat 5, Lane Borg led the class after every run and finished with a .983 second lead over Christopher Gladu. But for more excitement we had to look no further than FS. After second runs David Feighner held the lead with a 59.415, but when third runs came around, Brian Meyer recorded a 59.194 to bump Feighner from 1st. With just his 3rd run left, Feighner edged out Meyer by .143 seconds to end Sunday with the lead.
CP had some slightly unpredicted results. Chris Cargill went out on cold tires and dropped a 55.189 that would best all comers for the rest of the day. Multi-time National Champion Mark Madarash fought understeer the entire day, but also ran his best run first and could only get within .302 seconds of Cargill. Wayne Atkins improved on every run and finished the day in 3rd just .311 seconds behind Madarash.
It will be interesting to see how some of these tight Sunday competitions manifest themselves on Monday.
