Photo Credit: Mack Tsang
The first stop on the 2015 Tire Rack SCCA Prosolo Tour is in the books and what an awesome one it was! Mother nature held no surprises for the 230+ autocrossers in attendance as the weather was typical socal with highs in the 70's. A big story for the weekend came from the street and street touring classes. It was not an uncommon thought amongst the crowd that whomever was on the new Bridgestones would have a distinct advantage. They did fare well but Hankooks proved to be pretty competitive also.
When thinking about large time gaps in class between 1st and 2nd, R1 is not usually the class that first comes to mind but Jeff Kiesel in his 2013 KFR turbo Sprite did just that by putting almost 3 seconds indexed time over Eric Clements in his 1994 CM Honda Van Diemen. That was good enough to secure top qualifier status for Kiesel. Other dominant performances over the weekend belonged to Michael Heinitz in his 2002 Acura RSX Type-S with a 2.58 second win in STF and Brian Peters in his beautiful blue 2011 Ford Mustang putting almost 2 full seconds on the rest of ESP. These performances earned them 2nd and 3rd top qualifiers respectively. On the opposite end of the spectrum there were some really tight finishes that provided a lot of excitement at the very end. In STS, Kinch Reindl in his 1989 Civic Si had trailed Stephen Yeoh, also in an '89 Civic Si, from the start all the way through first runs of the final session. Yeoh improved on his last run of the weekend but so did Reindl and enough so to take the win by just 0.252 seconds. Another last ditch run for the win came in SM. After DNS'ing the Saturday PM runs due to a broken axle, Greg McCance in his 2002 Subaru WRX threw down a final hail mary run to knock off almost 2.5 seconds. But in the end it was not quite enough as Peter Bollenbecker in his 2007 Subaru STi held on by a scant 0.096 seconds!
Photo Credit: Van Townsend
On the ladies front, Christine Grice in the ASP Berry Family Racing Evo had no problem dissecting the L1 field with a 2.5 second win over Diane Bollenbecker. Shelly Monfort in her 2013 GS Focus ST on the other hand had to sweat it out as Meredith Brown driving a 2012 DS WRX coned away the win on her last run. That left Shelley with just a 0.113 second advantage in L2. In the largest of the ladies classes, L3, Catherine Tran driving a 2013 STX Subaru BRZ knocked off an amazing 1.5 seconds on her final 2 runs to leap frog to the top. This moved Teddie Alexandrova in a 2003 STU Nissan 350Z down to second.
Photo Credit: Van Townsend
Fast forward to the challenges and we saw the foursome of Brian Peters, Michael Heinitz, Jeff Kiesel and Chris Cox (who was driving his 2014 FS Ford Mustang). Kiesel knocked off Cox while Peters was able to take care of Heinitz. Interesting to note that Peters broke out in each of his 3 pairings leading up to the final with Kiesel. But the new dial ins seemed to have no effect on him as he still was able to best Jeff for the Super Challenge win albeit thanks to a cone by Kiesel. Michael Heinitz was able to overcome Chris Cox in the 3rd place runoff.
Super Challenge Finalists Brian Peters (the eventual winner, Left) and Jeff Kiesel (Right)
In the ladies challenge, Shelly Monfort worked her way up through the field while Christine Grice did the same. But in the final pairing Monfort proved too much for Grice and took the Ladies Challenge win. Kristen Acharya in a 2015 DS Subaru WRX overcame Teddie Alexandrova for the 3rd place runoff win.
Photo Credit: Quoc-Viet Dang
The Bonus Challenge provided some fun for those who otherwise did not make the previously mentioned challenges. Starting with 8 randomly drawn drivers the field was narrowed to 2 drivers, Michael Yanase driving a 2013 SM Scion FR-S and Dennis Trevino driving a 2012 STX Honda Civic Si. Trevino would be the victor.
