We're going to mix things up a bit this week with our event recap from the Peru Match Tour. SoloMatters spoke with a number of people to get the inside stories on what went on behind the times you see on SoloLive. Instead of just letting you know who won, we want to share some important and interesting stories about the people with spectacular performances and awesome sportsmanship. So, let's dive in to a few highlights from the weekend and begin with our first heat drivers...
Michael Figliolia had never received a trophy at a national event, and after struggling with some car troubles in past events, he managed to shoot himself into second place in a tough SSR class. Not only did he take second place in SSR to Sam Strano, but he managed to beat his car owner, which was the first time he had done that in an SCCA event. With that being said, his performance placed him into the top eight on index, moving him forward into the Super Shootout; a very rewarding day for him.
Speaking of first tour trophies, Scott Dobler II earned his first National trophy this weekend; ladies and gentlemen, mind you Scott has been autocrossing for 20 years! He managed to pull second place in C-Street over the third place driver, Chris Harvey. Taking the win in CS was Sean Grogan; Sean almost didn't come, he thought he didn't have a shot as he runs a weird staggered tire set up and daily drives on his tires. The deciding factor to make the trip was Kokomo's night life. Well, he must have had a good time because his winning performance in CS netted him eighth qualifier for the Super Shootout. Sean said the best part of the weekend was being able to sleep in on Sunday morning; he probably needed after a night on the town. In E-Street there was another first timer, Michael Ron in his 1999 Mazda Miata. He was attending his first national event; heading to the event he was gunning for Eric Peterson, wanting to see where he stacked up. Well, question answered; he came out 0.058 seconds ahead of Eric and took 2nd place in class, netting his first national event trophy. Not knowing who Robert Carpenter was he was very humbled to come in second place to him and will certainly be looking forward to a rematch in Lincoln.
Moving on to second heat shenanigans, Ryan Finch has owned his car since June 21st and made a last minute decision to bring it to Peru for the Match Tour. He forgot his spacers and had to borrow a pair (and a jack) from the Feigner’s and a pair from the Weaver’s. Marcus Merideth jumped up and helped him with adding nitrogen to his shocks between his third and fourth runs. After fourth runs and first drivers he was sitting pretty in first, until Dave Heinrich dropped a half second and shot into first. Ryan ended up netting his first national trophy by taking second in ESP, and his first contingency wins. His outstanding performance in his new car managed him a top eight spot in second heat qualifying him for the Super Shootout. In STX, Bill Cook lead the way until fourth runs, when Allen Chen had a hero run and found himself almost 1.2 seconds ahead of the class and earned himself a spot in the top eight qualifiers!
In third heat action, Brandon Lavendar was the top qualifier for the Super Shootout. To this point his C-Modified car hadn't survived a single event this year. He was happy to just make it through the event drama free, but qualifying for the Super Shootout was an added bonus. Paul Magee tried a new alignment set up on his F-Modified in Toledo and it proved its worth this weekend. Paul ended up being in the top eight qualifiers for third heat, but we'll get back to him. Will Lahee, in his first season in the new F-Modified, car managed to put some pressure on Paul this weekend and his outstanding performance in class gave him an added bonus, also qualifying for Sunday’s Super Shootout.
After the competition runs on Saturday, the real bragging rights began. Fun runs. Matthew Braun, Shelly Monfort, Nick Meyers, and Tom O'Gorman decided to duke it out for bragging rights in Nick Meyer's Lotus Elise. The fun runs took place on the course run backwards with some minor tweaks for safety. All competitors were allowed to sign up, and getting you 4 additional runs. In case you were wondering, Tom won the Lotus Challenge with Nick Meyers coming in second. I think Nick needed a hug after Toms runs. There was also a small challenge in the Boreen’s CSP Miata, which lead to Tom and Brian Harmer driving it until it broke. The power steering went on the car, which would have undoubtedly gone during the following day's shootout had no one ran it during fun runs. According to Bill Loring, Gus Hammerly stepped up to the plate with the parts they needed and provided the proper tools to finish the repair on Sunday morning. He helped them fix it and never mentioned that he had to run first heat.
Matthew Braun and his co-driver, John Li, both made it into the Club Shootout. Between the two of them, they hit 18 cones this weekend, which would explain why they lost a fender liner during the event. Despite the cone troubles, they both advanced it to the final four in the club shoot out. However, Kenneth Tsang was the one to drive to the win in the Club Shootout. In the first round, he was paired up against Bill Loring; Kenneth knew he just had to stay consistent and he did, all of his times in the Shootout were within a tenth! After his pairing with Bill he was matched up with Sam Platt, where he nudged out a win and moved onto the final four. Next round he was paired up with John Li, who managed to keep it clean, but the time wasn’t enough to defeat Tsang, moving him to the final round against Matthew Braun. With another consistent run, he was able to earn himself a win over Matthew Braun and take the win in the Club Shootout!
In the Ladies Shootout, Crissy Weaver had already started to pack her things when she was called for the shootout. She decided the few extra runs and seat time were worth it, despite that decision, she was almost late to grid because she was watching the boys finish their runs. She actually had to be yelled at to get her butt into the car! She said her main motivation was her son cheering her on. She was paired with Stephanie Reeve in the Panda 240SX and Kate Regganie in a shifter kart. Crissy never expected to win, but stayed consistent and pulled out the win in the Ladies Shootout.
Chrissy Weaver is shown here releshing her Shootout win!
The Super Shootout first heat winner was Sam Strano. He fully expected to be knocked out first round by Jason Frank. Even though Sam felt he had some cushion, but stated, "(he) didn't have any sand except what he was driving through Saturday morning, as the course was very dirty." Sam managed to breakout the first round by 0.462 seconds and move onto second round, where he was paired up with the same car, different driver. Mike Leeder out of STS carried cones early and didn't have a chance, even without the cones Sam would have still advanced to the next round. In the last first heat matchup he paired up with Sean Grogan, Sean slowed down from his dial-in from Saturday competition and was nudged out by Sam Strano, giving him the win and moving him onto the Super Shootout finals.
Second heat Super Shootout spared no excitement. Aaron Miller was lined up with Allen Cheng out of STX, both of them hit a cone on their first run, so they only had one shot at the course. Mind you, this was Aaron's only cone of the weekend and if you know Aaron this is a victory in itself! Aaron managed to match the time, clean this time, and move one to second rounds. In the final four he matched up with Scott Giles. Scott ran a tenth off of his dial-in and Aaron broke out by a tenth, moving him on to the second heat final round against Ryan Finch. Ryan ran within fifty thousandths of his dial in time, but Aaron wasn't done dropping time. He found another three tenths of a second moving himself onto the Super Shootout finals.
Apparently, the course was so boring, some CM and FM drivers figured they could just nap before taking their runs.
Third heat provided some entertaining stories as well, beginning with Will Lahee being paired against Nick Meyers. When Will told his wife that he was paired against Nick, she said "at least it will be over quickly"; he had to prove her wrong. Later both in the round Will and Nick were caught NAPPING before their run. Prove his wife wrong he did, Will managed to run a clean run and Nick coned out both of his runs to give Will the win. In the next round Will matched up with Dave Montgomery in the FP Porsche, Will put down a real flier, breakout out by over 0.5 second to take the win and move to the third heat final. Paul Magee was paired with Chris Miller his first round, Paul managed to breakout first round advancing him on to the final four against Brandon Lavendar. Both drivers slowed down, but Paul managed to slow down less than Brandon and advance to the final round against Will. Paul was really nervous going onto this round because Will had just found a lot of time on course. That didn't stop Paul though, as he managed to run two tenths faster than his dial in and Will slowed down by four tenths. This win moved Paul onto the finals with Sam and Aaron. In the final round of the Super Shootout each heat winner received one run to get it done, both Sam and Aaron slowed down by a half second and Paul put down a run within a tenth as his dial-in. Paul had won the Super Shootout! Paul was having a few carburetor problems on Sunday morning and was pleased to find that it cleared itself out by the second run of the day, and stated the car was working very well for him. This format suits Paul very well, he claims to be a slow and steady learner, so the more looks he has at the course the better off he is, chipping away time slowly. When you're going for consistency folks, this is the best way to do it! The biggest gain in time for him was being patient and setting up well for the walloms. Congrats to Paul and all of the competitors who showed up for the Peru Match Tour!
Thanks to Perry Bennett for this awesome picture of Paul Magee! Look how fast you can go when you're not sleeping!
Take a ride with Paul and see what the Peru fuss is all about.
For a complete list of official results form this weekend, please click here. Stay tuned for our Packwood Championship Tour recap and make sure to tune-in next weekend for the Packwood Pro! All the action starts at 9:00am PST, so tune-in to uStream to listen to all of the action and follow all our live results at sololive.scca.com. The next round of the Tire Rack® SCCA® Match Tour will be held at the home of the Milwaukee Brewers, Miller Park Stadium, in Milwaukee, WI on August 15th-17th. Whether you’re a seasoned competitor or never done a national event, circle the date and make plans to join us in the Brew City!
