PACKWOOD, Wash. (July 10, 2012) – Stephen Hui, of Bellevue, Wash., gathered a Gumout Super Challenge victory at last weekend’s Tire Rack SCCA Packwood ProSolo in front of postcard level scenery at the old Hampton Mills Lumber Yard. Meredith Brown, from Los Alamos, N.M., captured the Ladies Challenge at the same event.
While much of the rest of the country was experiencing temperatures in the triple digits, the Washington weather ranged from just the mid 70’s to mid 80’s, with a light breeze blowing off Mount Ranier to cool the pavement.
The picturesque backdrop includes a unique feature to ProSolo events, with the paddock and tech areas located inside the former lumber yard buildings. The course also posed a challenge for the team of designers from the Northwest Region, led by Geoff Clark, with odd shapes and some pavement variations to do work around.
On the track, Hui got a boost in the Thanks Charly! Subaru WRX with the top qualifying spot in the Road Tire Index breakouts, giving him the fifth seed in the 32-car bracket elimination round. After Hui disposed of Dean Chen’s Honda S2000 in the opening round, it appeared initially that his weekend would end in Round Two.
In ProSolo’s elimination rounds, index times are used to determine the winner. Glen Hernandez’ top qualifying Street Touring Sport Evolution/FatCat Motorsports/PDM Racing Mazda Miata crossed the finish line first after the second round, presumably giving Hernandez the round win. However, the indexed times were not recorded correctly, giving Hernandez an unfair head start. Hernandez was the one who pointed this out to officials – a great example of SCCA sportsmanship, but one that ultimately cost Hernandez the round win after Hui crossed the stripe as the leader in the re-run.
Given a second life, Hui topped Ryan Otis’ Street Touring R class PPE Engineering/Ohlins/Toyo Mazda MX-5 to advance to the semi-finals, where he faced Tom Kozian.
Kotzian had topped qualifying in the Street Modified FWD class behind the wheel of the OS Giken/Les Schwab Tires Mini Cooper S, but was no match for Hui.
Hui moved on to the finals, where he faced Jack Yeung’s D Stock fast qualifying Acura Integra Type R. Yeung had defeated Jim Daniels’ Mazda Miata to advance to the finals, before Hui topped Yeung for the championship.
Kotzian outran Daniels in the Consolation round to take third place.
In the Ladies Challenge, Brown drove the Plastic PP Racing/MidAtlantic Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette to a win over Avril Morrison’s Petrel Data Systems/VCMC Swift DB1 in the finals to take the victory.
With three Tire Rack ProSolo rounds to go, Blytheville winner Andy Hollis holds a nine-point advantage over Mineral Wells winner Andrew Hahn, with Michael Feineberg, Anthony Savini, and Erik Strenieks in the top five.
The Tire Rack ProSolo Series moves from the Northwest to the Southwest in two weeks, with the Farmington (N.M.) ProSolo at McGee Park, July 21-22.
More information on the TireRack SCCA ProSolo Series is available at www.scca.com.
Information, including results, from the Packwood ProSolo is available here.
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2012 Packwood ProSolo
