There's possibly only one site that has sold out every single event ever held there, and for good reason, Wilmington is the best place to autocross. It's for that reason that Solo Nationals tends to be the only time you gather as much talent from the autocross community around the country!
Sunday runs for L1 was packed with excitement, as Tamra Hunt coned her first two runs. This left the door open for Hunt to become the hunted as Shelly Monfort aimed to close the gap, eventually cutting it down to a scant 5 hundredths of a second. Hunt red lit her final runs, leaving her vulnerable as Monfort took to the left course. Monfort put in everything she had, but in the process tagged a cone negating a run that would have given her a 0.019 second lead had it been clean.
In L2 it was another close race, with Saturday leader Rachel Baker managing to drop some time as she became more comfortable with her borrowed C6 Corvette after her Porsche suffered an engine failure on Saturday. Jordan Towns, however, was able to drop even more time, vaulting her from 4th to first by just under 2 tenths of a second. Cindy Duncan managed to close the gap to Baker, but fell less than a tenth short, with Jennifer Bedell and Julie Heaton also close behind to round out trophies.
The A in A Street must surely stand for "Alien", as the battle of aliens continued with Tom O'Gorman defending his lead over Mark Daddio. Daddio started off Sunday runs with a red light and a dirty 33.2 that would have matched O’Gorman’s best right side run. Unfortunately, on his final right side run, Daddio wasn't able to match it and came in 4 tenths slower while staying off the cones. While it was an improvement in overall time, it wasn't enough to catch O'Gorman, who took the win by 3 tenths. Behind Daddio in a relatively close third was Lawrence Casey, with Jeff Cashmore and Mark Sarcevicz rounding out trophies.
Yet more epic battles ensued in 3rd heat with Super Street R, a class so unmatched that you won’t see this class running at lesser venues. Matthew Braun set out to defend his lead, but Sam Strano started off quick, with the time he needed on the left side to lead, but still having problems with cones. This left him just one final run to catch Braun for the lead, as he was unable to improve on his final right side run. Not only was Strano able to clean up the left side run, but he improved on time and took a 3 tenths lead over Braun, who could only improve slightly to stay in 2nd. Josh Luster gained time but came up a tenth short of Braun and settled for 3rd as Grant Reeve was set back to 4th, with Tony Savini and Mike Snyder rounding out the trophies.
The excitement in 4th heat was in E Street Prepared, as an all Mustang battle ensued with class leader Bryan Mancuso trying to stay ahead of David Heinrich. Mancuso's 2 tenths lead was holding going into the final 2 runs, as both drivers improved by about 2 tenths. It was in those final runs that Heinrich made his move, picking up just enough time to nip the lead from Mancuso, as Mancuso coned away the improvement he needed to stay in the lead. In the final run, Mancuso red lit, as Heinrich was unable to improve. This left Heinrich with a slim 0.058 second lead, as Mancuso held 2nd with just 0.047 over Ron Bistrais. An even slimmer margin to 4th was Mark Stevens, just 0.004 back. 4 or the 6 drivers in this class sat within a tenth of each other, all qualifying for the Super Challenge!
Despite the hectic competition within ESP, Mancuso was able match his dial in enough through the challenge rounds to advance past Jen Wong (GS winner) to face Daniel Gross. A downed cone on the first run of that round led to a re-run of the round, giving Mancuso a chance to advance as Gross red-lit his second attempt at the light. In the next round, Mancuso faced David Spratte of HS, and advanced from there to the semi-finals. Here he faced Scott Wright, who had defeated ESP class winner David Heinrich in the first round, Danny Popp in the second, and Sam Strano in the third, earning him the title of a V8 killer at the time. His streak of defeating American iron ended against Mancuso, as a cone on Wright’s first run gave Mancuso the advantage to head into the final against Jed Peterson of STR. Into the final runs, Mancuso held just enough of a lead to even out the disparity in times between sides. On the opening slalom, Peterson was the first to cone, but this was offset as Mancuso coned almost immediately after that, but was able to pull enough time on course to take his first Super Challenge win! Joining Bryan Mancuso as challenge winners was Jordan Towns from L2, who won the Ladies Challenge, and Kim Whitener from STF, winner of the Bonus Challenge.
The Wilmington Summer ProSolo is only the second to last Pro event before the Pro Finale, but will probably stand as the ultimate preview for the Finale, and also possibly for Solo Nationals to come. The Cincinnati Region hosted a great event with a well-balanced course set by Gordon Maciulewicz. One can only hope the Pro Finale course can match it!
