Buckeroos, trying to acknowledge everyone who wore a white hat at this year’s Wild West-themed Tire Rack SCCA Solo National Championships is like barkin’ at a knot; it ain’t gonna do no good. But we can admire some real ace high performances without putting too much mustard on it. During the Sept. 3-6, 2024, Solo Nats, we recognized numerous cowpokes during the Wednesday party, including Rick Ruth (winner of the 2024 Solo Cup), Mark Scroggs (the 2024 Driver of Eminence recipient), and Chris Pruett (who was posthumously honored with the inaugural Heart of Solo award). Then on Friday, just before everyone drove off into the sunset, a few more members were recognized.

The following Magnificent Seven – just like the original – features some of the coolest cowpokes to ever walk the land.

Sportsmanship Award

There were 10 nominations for the Sportsmanship Award at this year’s event, but the chosen one was Josh Brockman.

Kinch Reindl was searching for his first National Championship after more than 20 attempts, but he was suffering car troubles in his Acura. Brockman sprang into action, first trying to help his fellow competitor fix his own car, then offering his Honda for Reindl to finish the event in. With Brockman’s car, Reindl captured his title.

In addition to earning the Sportsmanship Award, Brockman also receives a trip to the SCCA Prize Closet for his efforts, where he gets to select from a number of prizes from SCCA partners, like Hawk Performance, Summit Racing Equipment, Malco, EBC Brakes, and Track Night in America Driven by Tire Rack.

Bob Woods Cup

The Formula SAE class at the Solo Nationals is a supplemental class that allows college students who work hard at their programs the opportunity to test their speed against other colleges. The final piece of that puzzle is a capable driver, and the Bob Woods Award recognizes the quickest college student driver in the class.

Steve Tang and the University of Texas-Arlington topped this year’s runners – and for fun, the team brought some older, modified cars to the A Mod class to go with it.

Small Fortune Racing FTD Award

We almost feel bad for Christopher Dunn, who spent less time on the course than anyone who didn’t have a mechanical issue. Dunn and his A Mod car earned the “fastest time of day” (yes, over two days) with a combined time of 95.939sec.

Kiesel Guitars Top PAX Awards

The coolest trophy in motorsports just might be the Kiesel Guitar, with five custom versions given away at Solo Nats each year. We already told you about these three winners, but there’s two more we have yet to reveal.

Top PAX runners on each series of days (Tuesday/Wednesday and Thursday/Friday) grabbed those final two custom guitars, valued at $4,299 each. This year’s top PAX winners were a pair of Roberts, as Robert Pendergest from D Street Prepared and Robert Lewis from C Prepared each now have a new six string to practice on.

Top Ladies Index Awards

The Solo Nationals has always been special for not just its Open class competition, but for the incredibly strong Ladies class battles.

In a sea of National Champions, Shelly Monfort (on Tuesday/Wednesday) and Nicole Wong (on Thursday/Friday) topped the Ladies PAX, making them the queens of the cones for 2024.

Rothney-Kozlak Cup

The Rothney-Kozlak Cup, awarded annually to the top finishing female driver participating in an Open class at Solo Nationals, was named for Lynne Rothney-Kozlak, who took a giant leap during the 1994 Solo National Championships and entered into Open class competition – something that wasn’t often done at the time.

Established in 2017, the Rothney-Kozlak Cup was named in her honor to recognize this moment and to note Lynne’s decades of sustained Open class participation and mentoring efforts to advance the skills of other women in Solo. The recipient either has the widest margin of victory in an Open class or is closest to the Open class winner regardless of where she placed.

This year’s Cup went to Caitlin Dunlap, who was just 1.084sec off the C Street Prepared winner, putting her an impressive seventh in the class.

Photo: Jeff Kiesel (left) presents C Prepared National Champion Robert Lewis (right) a custom guitar for scoring top PAX on Thursday/Friday.  

Photo by Jon Krolewicz