Photo Credit: Autoxpix
Wilmington Spring ProSolo Results
If you've been to Ohio, you know the weather is very unpredictable. Saturday mid-day threatened of rain with constant winds, but managed to hold out for everyone to get 8 runs. Sunday produced beautiful and warm morning runs, with almost no wind to speak of. It was as good of weather as you could ask for in what Ohio still sometimes considered winter. With a tight and very challenging course, most drivers found it extremely hard to put together a complete run. Hard braking zones along with some very tight angle turns meant precision was of the utmost importance. The ability to dig out of slow corners was one of the highest priorities this weekend and it showed in a lot of the results.
Starting off the weekend with some strong Saturday afternoon runs was your 2015 STX National Champion David Marcus, being the first driver in STX to dip into the low 35’s with a 35.145 right side. He aided that time with a strong 35.612 on his afternoon left to give him a 7/10 lead over course designer Kyle Herbst driving a 2012 BMW 128M who had a 1 second gap on 3rd. On Sunday morning Herbst managed to find 2/10 of a second on both sides, however Marcus would find 3/10 on the left and another 10th on the right to maintain a .742 lead at the end of the session and punch his ticket as the #5 qualifier in the Super Challenge.
R2 action ended up being the battle of two Besties. Friends Tom O’Gorman and Dave Montgomery went at it all weekend in pair of monsters both with impressive launches. O’Gorman started off the Saturday morning session strong in Brausen FP Evo running a pair of low 33’s with 1.5 60’ times to hold a 1.3 second lead over the rest of the class. Montgomery in the 914-6, not happy with his driving made adjustments and came back in the afternoon session to drop 2.25 seconds and spring into the lead by .25 seconds. Tom found .5 seconds on the right but was dirty so it was no help. Sunday morning rolled around and the two were lined up head to head at the front of grid. On their first 2 cold tire runs, neither was able to find time. O'Gorman back on the right was able to clean up and put down a 32.867 to put him within .014 of Montgomery with one run to go. Crossing through the lights, neither driver was able to find time giving Dave Montgomery the slimmest of victories when combining two run. God's holy trousers!
It should be noted that all of the true Prepared cars (the Lotus in R2 was an SSM car) completed all of their runs. This alone is a victory and they should all be happy!
SSM is always being one of the classes to watch, this weekend was no different. Out to an early lead after the Saturday afternoon sessions, Randall Wilcox driving the Anderson Miata ended the day with a healthy 1.2 second lead over past SSM champion Matt Glagola in the orange Lotus Elise. After making some minor shock and tire pressure adjustments, Glagola would go out Sunday morning to be the only SSM driver to break into the 32’s on the right side, and then proceeded to do it on the left to give him a .391 margin of victory over Wilcox who was not able to find any time.
R1 ended up being the Clements Burger show all weekend in his LeGrand Mk18. Starting off his first run of the weekend with a 30.369 on the left side, he would stand on the run only being able to match it one other time Sunday morning. He would manage another low 30.4 time to take a 2.621 win over the class and become the #1 qualifier for the Super Challenge.
Bump 4 saw the 240sx Street Mod Panda run away from the rest of the class. PJ Corrales and co-driver David White both of G-Fab fame spent Saturday fighting for who could get the lowest coned run on the left side. White would carry the lead into Sunday morning runs. Both drivers put down almost identical 33.2xx runs on the left side, but it was White who put down a 33.293 right for a 6/10 win over his car owner.
L1 appeared to be anyone’s game at the start of the weekend. Wielding her newly built SSP Porsche 911 Turbo 4S detuned to JUST 600whp, Su Brude started off Saturday with an early lead. It wasn't for long though as afternoon sessions showed why Tamra Hunt was named Rookie of the Year 2015. Hunt put down a high 33.8 that would stand as her fastest right side of the weekend, and 35.2 left to pull ahead of 2nd place Katie Lacy and Jordan Towns in 3rd. Sunday morning saw a shake up but only south of the 1st place position. Su Brude found the time she was looking for jumping Lacy and Towns who were unable to improve position. Hunt found 8/10 more to end the weekend 1.8 seconds ahead of 2nd place.
James Yom, flying in all the way from California to drive a borrowed S2000, started the morning session off with a pair of 35.x runs that seemed very distant to the rest of the class, except the ND MX-5 of Brian Karwan who held within 1/10th. Karwan improved to drop 8/10th Saturday afternoon, while Yom was not able to run. Sunday morning Yom put down his best runs shaving .4 per side, however Karwan in the MX-5 had similar success shaving off 5/10 to take the win over the class.
The Super Challenge became a "tail of two David’s" between David Marcus, who had won STX in his Scion FRS, and David Spratte in his HS Mini. Marcus took a somewhat Street Prepared route knocking off first Jason Kolk and then David Heinrich both of ESP, then Eric Campbell of DSP-B2. Against Mike Snyder in the Semi-Finals, he broke out to move on to the Championship round. Spratte had a more diverse route taking out first Danny Popp of AS, then Daniel Gross of STF, and finally James Yom of STR to make it into the Semi-Finals. There Spratte would face the winner of his class, Phillip Mitchell who had broken out in the previous round. Spratte would take the win and move on to the finals against Marcus. As the rain started to come down on the Wilmington site, both drivers went out for their runs pushing for that top spot. Marcus would catch a cone on his run, and Spratte would use that to carry himself to the win.
