The 2014 College Station Tour wrapped up last weekend. The event was a huge success and reached it's goal of over 200 entries which should help secure it's future on the SCCA calendar. Big congrats to all involved in planning especially Todd Farris who I personally saw work his a$$ off all weekend. Our weekend started with the Friday practice day before the Tour where my Dad took the Evo Advantage class and got some quality (very very very high quality) seat time and instruction in the Camaro. I instructed along with Brian Burdette and Dave Whitener at my first Evo School. I really enjoyed it and appreciate the opportunity by Junior and the Evo School team. I instructed students in a wide variety of classes - AM, STR, BS, STU, and DS with some students taking home some hardware at the end of the weekend! Great job guys.
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| Got to drive this amazingly fun and loose A-Mod car |
ESP lined up in Heat 1 along with CP and SM. We only had 4 in class with one driver dropping out or changing classes last minute. We didn't find out until we got to grid so there went the chance to win some more HoHos...oh well. Some overnight rain made for tricky conditions in Heat 1. The CP guys did a great job of clearing as much water as possible before we started running but the track was still pretty wet as you can see in the video. This meant the competition was basically a one-lap shootout on Run 3 as it would have much better conditions than the 1st. Luckily, I was able to get a flyer in on my 3rd run with a 66.528 which surprisingly ended up being good enough for top PAX for the day. Like in Blytheville, the ESP Camaro was dialed in. My Dad had a great 3rd run to finish in P3 after Day 1.
I had a healthy lead going into Day 2, but you never know with the stiff competition in ESP. There was no rain overnight so all of the high horsepower cars of SM, ESP, and CP had much better conditions Sunday morning. I laid down a really solid 2nd run with a 67.231 which would have been quick enough to win CP had it not been for one darn cone. For my 3rd run, I was not able to get back to my 2nd run pace as the tires had cooled during an extended break to remove a broken CP car from the course and I just needed a solid, clean run in the bank to preserve my ESP lead. I finished with a 67.917s run with no cones. This gave me the win in ESP by 3.2s win due to some cone trouble by my competitors. I also just snuck away with Top PAX for the event by 0.080s over Lane Borg my former co-driver in his B-Street Corvette. This was my first Top PAX finish at a National Event.
Here is onboard video from my quickest runs on both days:
Despite the success we have had over the past few weeks, the College Station Tour and the bright yellow 99 decals displayed on many racecars were a sobering reminder that there are more important things than being fast between the cones. With the recent passing of beloved, Championship winning driver Tommy Saunders, clearly the focus needs to be on spending the time we have with great friends and family and having some good old-fashioned fun. I did not know Tommy well, but I do know that he was loved by many in the Solo community and it was always great to see him and his family at the races. The best part of the past 10 days was just spending two 12-hour drives with my Dad back and forth to Arkansas. That's the important stuff.
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