Photo Credit: Randall Wilkinson
Under a brilliant blue sky at the South Georgia Motorsports Park, the 2015 Dixie Champ Tour drew to a close, and judging by the action, the road to Lincoln is going to be very exciting in the coming year. Amidst a couple small showers and a minor oil slick, some old favorites added to their stable of wins, and a few new faces topped the podium for the first time.
Photo Credit: Sarah Maddox
Always fast, Sam Strano took top honors (and top PAX for the event) in SSR, with Brandon Davis and Michael Snyder rounding out the podium. CS competition was tight across both days, with the top three separated by just .338 seconds by the end. After the dust settled, Nick Amick took the win over Day 1 leader Jason Stroud, with Jake Engstrom coming in third. Moving over into STR, Ricky Crow, coming all the way from Texas, put on a clinic for the rest of the field, taking a win by over 2 seconds over codrivers Andy Thomas and Ryan Davies. Repeating his result from last year, John Waight took the win over Elliot Harvey in an always hotly contested CSP class. Matthew Glagola in SSM, Steve Hoelscher in XP, and Event Chair Robert Lewis in CP also added to their cadre of wins with some fast runs in their wild machines.
Photo Credit: Sarah Maddox
Among the newcomers to the top step, Tevin Richardson took his first Tour win in FS in a very stock and new to him BMW 135i. The talk of Sunday came from Randall Prince, having never won a tour before and in an unfamiliar Subaru BRZ, laying down a Sunday time almost a full second faster than anyone else in STX, giving him a 6/10ths of a second victory in an extremely competitive STX class. In the ever fast and impossibly light Volkswagen Lamborbunni, Steven Duckworth took home his first Tour win in FSP over car owner Geoff Zimmer (and honorable mention to Maria Mayorga, in her first national level event for taking the top spot in FSPL in the same car, and being the highest PAXing driver among all Ladies classes). In SM, Tim White used that all wheel drive magic to launch him into the lead in SM over codriver Roy Blakeney, with Jadrice Toussaint close behind in third.
The biggest news and surprises of the weekend came not from cars or drivers, but from the reappearance of Bridgestone and the arrival of the new RE-71R. Their US tire development team, having been given essentially zero budget for the promotion, begged, borrowed, and stole to get a truck onsite to provide support and take notes on the performance of the tire at its first large scale test on a national level. And boy, it did not disappoint! With the tire appearing across six classes, it won three, and took 2nd place in two others. The Bridgestone representatives were candidly answering everybody's questions over the weekend. They plainly expressed the goal of making a 200 Treadwear street tire that "gripped like a slick", and numerous comparisons to R-compound tires were made by competitors. With the pending arrival of the just-announced BFGoodrich Rival S, only time will tell how the latest batch of extreme performance street tires stacks up, and with Lincoln fast approaching, there is definitely further testing to be had.
Photo Credit: Robert Ippollito
From here, the SCCA Championship Tour series heads off to the other side of the country. On March 20-22nd, Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego plays host to the next Champ Tour. For those who will be trying out the new Bridgestone tires, the support truck will be at this Tour as well as the Texas Championship Tour and finally, the 2015 SCCA Solo Nationals. Anyone who has a set of Bridgestones can expect free mounting and balancing if you bring your tires to the event. Remember to keep an eye on the uStream feed, linked on sololive.scca.com, for live coverage of the event, and as always, tune into SoloMatters for all the latest updates and results!
