The 2013 SCCA Solo Championship Tour opened this past
weekend in College Station,
TX. It also kicked off my season
of National SCCA competition. The forecast called for rain showers on Saturday
with the weather clearing up for Sunday’s action, but we ended up with a dry, windy
weekend and “cold-for-Texas” temperatures. We had 5 competitors in E Street
Prepared Class and ran in the last heat which gave us the best course
conditions, especially for r-comp tires, on both days.
As with last year, Vivek Goel designed a great course for
the grippy but inconsistent Texas A&M Riverside Campus concrete. All of my
events this year have been on the low grip, very coarse surface at the Mineral
Wells Airpark so it was nice to race on a surface more representative of the
Lincoln concrete. When we took to the track on Sunday, I coned my first run,
then cleaned it up on my 2nd run trying to stay within reach of ESP
pacesetter Mark Madarash. He finished with a 63.479s run, and I was able to
improve by about 0.5s on my last run to trip the lights with a 63.880. This was
certainly better than the College Station Tour last year where I put myself in
a 2.7s hole after the first day, but was hoping to be a bit closer to the top.
However, I was solidly in P2 and had nothing to lose on Day 2.
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Trying to find speed before Day 2 |
The higher-grip concrete in College Station changed the balance of my car
vs Mineral Wells, so I made an adjustment after Day 1 to free the car up. Sunday’s
runs were my best heat so far in the ESP Camaro. I drove well, the car felt
good (could be better though….), and I had a nice battle with Mark for the win.
My 61.933 2nd run gave me the fastest ESP run on Sunday by 0.3s and
put me 2nd in PAX overall for Sunday. I had a chance on my 3rd
and final run to take the ESP win by dropping my lap time a tenth, but was not
able to improve leaving me in P2 in class by 0.116s....so close! I finished 3rd
in the Overall PAX ranking for the weekend. My Dad and I will be racing again
on April 13th and 14th in the Mineral Wells ProSolo event.
Hopefully we can find some more speed in the meantime!
I am working on editing the onboard video and will have it uploaded soon. The class and PAX results are below:
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Final ESP Results |
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Day 2 PAX Ranking - P2! |
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Final Combined PAX - P3 Overall |