The first of four gameplay days has come to a close at Lincoln Airpark for the 53rd running of the Tire Rack SCCA® Solo® National Championships at Lincoln Airpark. The gathering’s theme this year is video games, and Tuesday saw gamers across 54 car classes hit start and power through one of two autocross courses. Now, players get a break to contemplate plans of attack before mashing pedals once again on Wednesday.
The winners-take-all event – happening Sept. 7-11, 2026, in Nebraska’s capital city of Lincoln – will crown its first set of winners Wednesday evening. But before then there will be a whole bunch more action as drivers switch courses for a day of intense competition that easily rivals the “boss battle” of any video game.
Track Wednesday’s action in real time with an East Course live audio broadcast found here, and the West Course live audio broadcast here. Live results can also be eyeballed at the Solo Nats Timing webpage.
Below are recaps highlighting some of Tuesday’s happenings on both courses. Fans will find the information useful in discovering the classes where interesting battles are shaping up, kind of like matchups from Mortal Kombat.
East Course Tuesday Recap
The big dogs came out to play in Heat 1 on the East Course, and when the morning’s dust settled it was David Marcus and the Porsche Cayman GTS in the Super Street Touring® class lead. It’s not by much, and it’s a couple of horsepower machines, with Grant Reeve’s Corvette Z06 just 0.458sec behind. In third? The Nissan GTR of Justin Neal, another 0.419sec back.
As the Airpark started to warm up, ultimately topping out at an air temperature of over 100 degrees, Heat 2 brought forth the 68-car Xtreme B class. The leader in that group is Tom O’Gorman, who drove a Lotus Evora S to a 0.738sec opening day lead over Andy McKee and the rest of the field. A grand total of 16 trophies are up for grabs in the class, making the competition tight going into Wednesday’s runs.
If this were a video game, Christopher Dunn went full sim rules, leaving the damage switched to “on” in A Modified. Despite the cockeyed wing and a need for repairs tonight after the aero on his UTA-Mod lost the battle with the wind, the real damage was to the rest of the class. He leads Marshall Grice by 2.162sec after Tuesday’s runs.
Even with the influx of cars pumped into the class, Ron Williams shows the Civic Sport is not to be overlooked as he holds the lead in H Street by 0.455sec over John Rappa’s Volkswagen GTI. Van Townsend’s Mini Cooper and the Ford Focus STs of Nathan Hagerott and Brian Anthony aren’t far away, either, shaping up the battle for Wednesday.
West Course Tuesday Recap
We’ll work backwards through the day when looking at West Course highlights.
Heat 5 saw a ton of action in a healthy 16-car D Prepared class that was not lacking in cone strikes. After first runs that saw the day’s eventual top three lay claim to a total of four cones, Troy Acosta (who nailed two cones on his first run) managed to power down a clean second run, then a flier of a third, putting him 0.244sec up on Erik Strelnieks, who only hit one cone on his first run. Those two were the only ones in the class dipping into the 44s, though, with John Thomas sitting in third with a 45.337 after coming back from his first-run cone.
In Heat 4’s eight-car Solo Spec Coupe Ladies battle, Meredith Brown might have ended up with the first-day lead, but she had to overcome quite a deficit. Her first run was 11 seconds off the pace (something obviously went awry during that one), and her second run involved a cone. Her third run? Good enough for the lead, and she was also the only SSCL driver to go sub-51. Just 0.155sec back in second is Stephanie Wells, being chased by the final trophy position currently held by Molly Thore Maxey, barely 0.291sec behind Wells.
For Heat 3, let’s center in on Club Spec MX-5, as 30 drivers battle in the class that’s going for its very first National Championship title. Reed Gibson leads that battle, and in a spec class, it’s by a mile. His 0.653sec lead over Abdul Huuda is going to be hard to overcome, especially with Huuda having to look over his shoulder at Conrad Adams, who’s currently in third, 0.042sec back.
C Street Touring® (CST) ran in Heat 2, and it’s anyone’s game. Daniel McCelvey leads that pack of 36, but it would be hard to call his 0.092sec lead over Ken Roller “dominating.” Behind Roller is Jonathan Lugod, another 0.011sec back, followed 0.092sec later by Jeremy Hebbel. Then it’s 0.028sec to John Hunter in fifth, 0.052sec to Francois Langelier in sixth and … well, you get the idea.
E Street in Heat 1, 39 drivers strong, is led by (of course) Bartek Borowski. His lead is a little more clearcut than that of CST’s, but still, 0.252sec isn’t a cemented win when there’s a second day of competition to be had on the East Course come Wednesday morning.
More Ways to Follow Solo Nats
Whether you’re in Lincoln or not, follow all four days of action at Solo Nats through the Tire Rack SCCA Solo or SCCAOfficial pages on Facebook. Fun can also be discovered on the SCCAOfficial Instagram page, and ridiculous stuff at the SCCAOfficial TikTok page.
Even more coverage will be posted to YouTube’s SCCAOfficial page. And don’t forget to check out SCCA.com for daily articles, with multiple articles posting per day during the Solo Nationals! Also sign up for the weekly SportsCar® News newsletter if you’d like those articles to end up in your email inbox.
Photo: David Marcus put his Porsche Cayman GTS in the Super Street Touring lead, but will he be able to hold onto that top spot come Wednesday’s competition?
Photo by Jay Bonvouloir
