The Tire Rack SCCA ProSolo Series circled the wagons out west for the third event of the 2023 point series at Crows Landing, CA, with 154 drivers recording runs in the competition. For the second straight weekend, including the previous week’s Tire Rack SCCA Solo National Tour, the competitors were met with beautiful blue sky conditions with temperatures reaching a scorching upper 80s on Saturday with zero wind and Sunday cooling off into a perfect California upper 70s day.
The Crow’s Landing site is a popular one on the West Coast, and for the second-consecutive week, the grippy concrete served as an autocross home. Andy McKee laid out two asymmetrical courses with open, fast, and flowing corners.
The Howard Duncan ProSolo Greenlight Fund provided Sandra Gartner and Kristen Barnes their first appearance at a ProSolo event. Recipients of the fund receive free entry to their first ProSolo event, courtesy of the SCCA Foundation. Both gained valuable experience that they will surely take to future events, with Gartner running in Ladies Class 2 and Barnes in Ladies Class 3.
Donations made to the SCCA Foundation can be earmarked for the Greenlight Fund here.
Class Competition
In-class battles are always stiff at a Tire Rack ProSolo event.
In Solo Spec Coupe, Reed Gibson made a Sunday morning comeback in his Scion FRS to top Kevin Dietz by 0.508sec. And also in the realm of comebacks, the 13-car Bump class had positions swapping nearly every run on Sunday morning. At the end of the day, it was Justin Tsang taking victory in his STU-classed Subaru STI.
If it was close battles you were after, look no further than D Street. Alex Muresan took home the win in his Honda Civic Type R over Mark Scroggs and his Hyundai Elantra N by just 0.177sec. That margin of victory looked like a landslide compared to A Street, though, where the timesheets showed the Porsche Boxster GTS of Tim Weidemann just 0.077sec ahead of Jaejun Yoo and his Porsche Cayman.
It was Jeff Kiesel, though, who set the quickest indexed time of the weekend. That led to a class win in Race Tire Index 1 in his famous KFR Turbo Sprite.
Challenge Results
Ladies Challenge: The Ladies Challenge finals featured a pair of familiar faces, as Shelley Monfort and Nicole Wong squared off. Monfort had a tall order, as Wong was looking for back-to-back Challenge wins in her Chevrolet Corvette following Round 2 in Vegas. Monfort drove her Ford Mustang to the limit, but it was Wong scoring the win for the second event in a row.
Super Challenge: Matt Jones is on the top of his game, scoring STR wins in both the Solo National Tour and ProSolo in back-to-back weeks at Crow’s Landing and advancing to the Super Challenge final. There, he squared off with Jonathan Lugod, where Jones drove his Mazda MX-5 to the bracket win.
Bonus Challenge: Marc Segal drew into the Bonus Challenge after a sixth-place finish in Street 3, then rattled off a series of bracket wins in his Toyota Supra. That Street 3 index was apparently the place to be, as Segal squared off with Yon Visell and his STU Porsche Cayman S, who finished fifth in Street 3, in the finals. Segal finished first to take the Bonus Challenge win.
On Deck
The next stop on the Tire Rack SCCA ProSolo Series is a big one, as the ProSolo field will run in Nebraska during the Tire Rack SCCA Lincoln ProSolo, making up the first half of the Memorial Day Spring Nationals that also includes a stop on the Tire Rack SCCA Solo National Tour. Not only are points on the line, but the event is a small preview of the ProSolo Finale in September.
Photo Caption: Nicole Wong (left) takes the Ladies Challenge win over Shelly Monfort.
Photo by Danny Gross
