Aditya Madhavan's C-Street Team - the largest class of the event.
Under a sweltering sun, the first day of the Georgia Match Tour was marked by lots of grip and lots of cones. With 134 competitors and roughly 10000x as many gnats, our day one class champions were crowned. In A Street, driving Christian Shipp’s Corvette, Nelson Antunes takes a solid win with his codriver coming in second. B Street brought three different cars into the trophies, with Jason Rucker in his S2000 coming in 3rd, Dat Nguyen in the MX-5 MS-R in 2nd, and taking the win with his Corvette, a solid 2.475 seconds in the lead, Edward Fisher in 1st. C Street was the largest class and had a lot of shuffling at the top for the six available trophy spots. Jason Stroud moved up one spot from his finish at the Dixie Champ Tour for 1st place. The father and son team of Scott and Scotty Dobler took the rest of the podium, with the younger Scotty showing his dad how to do it and edging him out by three tenths of a second. In CSL, Laraine Wilkinson put the hammer down on her last run, beating codriver Caitin Dunlap by almost a full second. Ian Stewart continues his domination of D Street in his 2015 Subaru WRX, establishing that that is the new hot package in that class. Laura Campbell drove Lee Chhit’s WRX (Lee taking 2nd in DS) to the win in D Street Ladies. Jonathan Roberts, edging out Phil Currin in his Toyota MR-S, took his 1999 Mazda Miata to the top step of the podium in E Street. Ray Brake had a very fast morning in G Street, but by the end of the day, Clay McCool moved into first place in his perennially fast Dodge SRT-4.
Moving onto Street Touring action, Justin Harbour took the lead in STS on his last run of the morning and never looked back, beating codriver Rick Cone. Mike Licursi took the final podium position. In a very fast and competitive STX class, David Marcus beat out codriver Jason Ruggles for the top spot, with barely two tenths between the two of them. STR was another very tight class, and when all was said and done, Wes Hughson won with his codriver Jesse Waymire in 2nd, only .2s behind. After deciding at the very last minute to sign up for the event, Brian Flanagan walked away with the win in a very close and diverse STU class, with Perry Ellwood in the Corvette FRC, another two tenths behind.
With the street-tired cars making up the bulk of the field, the race tire classes were not laying down the rubber we’ve come to expect on a concrete course. Nonetheless, some quick drivers made some very quick times. Michael Bright in BSP took one of the highest PAX events of the event and the win in class. Another father/son duo, Romesh and Mark Canekeratne, filled the class in DSP, with Mark taking the win over dad. Similarly FSP was a two car class, with codrivers Justin Barbry and Mark Miller, giving up two of their morning runs due to brake issues, and Barbry came back to take the win in the afternoon. Moving into Prepared, Tommy Pulliam won in CP, after the Lewis Sledgehammer sheared a driveshaft early in competition. In E Prepared, Darrin Disimo fended off a charging Marko Horn to take the win in class. Codrivers Tim White and Chuck Pyanowski took the top two spots in Street Modified, with car owner Tim a solid 1.2 seconds over Chuck. In the cars vs. physics class of Street Modified Front-wheel-drive, Jonathan Bennett solidly won over codrivers Cody Johnson and Arty Gallegos, with a 2.8s margin of victory. Most of the action in Modified came down to EM, with Scott Minehart establishing a solid lead in the morning, after Steve Brueck suffered engine troubles in the first part of the day. However, the Jeep was fixed over lunch and Steve came back to set the fastest time of the day. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to dethrone Scott as the EM winner.
With class competition over, everyone is gearing up for day two of the Georgia Match Tour. Three runs in the morning determine positions for the Super and Club Shootouts, with a remaining eight drivers making up the Bonus Shootout. Be sure to tune in for results on sololive.scca.com!
