Pro Solo Sunday Morning Recap

Sunday morning does not start out the way I had envisioned it to. Mike and I leave Jason's house for El Toro on time. We go to get on the highway and the on ramp is closed. No problem. We take the detour and get onto the highway and start driving. The next on ramp is about 1/2 mile down. When we get there, it too is closed. Now I'm getting worried. It's dark, I don't know the area and how I'm going to get to El Toro without too much delay. I try to indicate to my GPS that the ramp is closed and to find me an alternate route.

It says to turn around, so we do. After following the directions for 5 minutes, it takes us right back to the same closed on ramp. Not much help there. My GPS doesn't give me the ability to indicate the the ramp is closed, just to avoid an entire section, which I don't really want to do. Mike gives me a hand with his phone to try and find an alternate route.

We pick an alternate route and start driving again. My GPS recalculates and gives me a new route that looks really strange. It looks like it is going by all kinds of side streets. Mike is familiar with this highway, so we stick to the highway.

On the way there, it rains in places and I start wondering how much time I can shave off against my competitors if it is wet. Will it be enough to move me back up into the trophies? This weather was also most unexpected. I checked the forecast on Saturday morning before I left home and chance of precipitation was listed at 10% for both days - yet it rained both Saturday and Sunday. As a result, I wasn't prepared and didn't have my rain gear with me. Oh well. It's not the end of the world. Right now, I was more concerned with getting to El Toro and still have enough time to do all the prep since we ran first.

We arrive 15 minutes later than originally planned. Not too bad, but that did leave less time than I wanted. We do a quick walk of each side and then prepare the car with the intention to walk again if there is time. As it turns out, there isn't time, so we have to settle for one course walk.

The car is running, the camera battery appears to be holding it's charge, the MaxQ is running, and it's drying out rapidly with no more sign of moisture, so it's now or never to catch up.

I'm lined up to start on the left side this morning. With a decent right side time, my primary concern is getting a decent run on the left side without getting a red light. I make my run and I don't red light (yippee), but I hit a cone. My right side run is uneventful. Everything is going by in a blur. My 2nd left side run is now do or die. I make sure to wait long enough to not get a red light, giving me a lousy reaction time, but at least the run was clean. It was a good 1/2 second slower than my fast time on Saturday. I continue to attack the right side and my time drops to a 46.1 so I'm happy. Now we have to see how the other drivers do to see if I move up in the standings.



Mike takes his runs, and goes faster on both sides, but unfortunately not enough to change his final position.

Now we head off to impound and much to my surprise, the final results were brought out within minutes of us pulling into impound instead of a long wait. There was a big crowd of STS drivers around the results sheet and I couldn't see my result, so I wait. Mihai is kind enough to look over everybodys shoulder (he's tall) and tells me my final position - I had done it. I had worked my way back up into 3rd place, behind Andy Hollis and Kevin McCormick. Given this weekends events, I'm happy with the result.

I put my hat into the drawing for the bonus challenge. I want another shot at the course. After the drawing, I'm not one of the lucky eight, but Mike is. He gets a make up session for missing his Saturday afternoon runs. I'm exhausted and head home early to be with my family.



Mike ends up placing 2nd in the Bonus Challenge, which earns him some money towards ChaseCam products. Very cool. Congratulations Mike.

At the end of the day, this is how the International Allstars/Lucas Oil/Hyper16Valve team performed:

2nd in Bonus Challenge (Mike)
3rd in STS (Stephen)
3rd in Honda Tuner Challenge (Stephen)

Pro Solo Saturday Recap

Saturday morning was on the cold side and I was nervous. The tree start isn't something that I'm familiar with. This is only the second event that I've had to deal with the tree. I also found out that Andy Hollis (who is considered by many to be the fastest STS driver in the country) had switched from STS2 to run STS also.



The start order is based on car number. Mike goes out first and I'm following up in the 2 driver group with Kevin McCormick. The chosen method of launching was a dismal failure as I'd watch Kevin pull close to a full car length on my in the first 60 feet. The morning wasn't what I'd consider to be a success, but the other drivers were faring even worse, so I find myself in 2nd place at the end of the morning sessions. The video recorder is showing no power and we have a blown fuse for the external camera, so we ditch everything for the morning session.






While I'm taking my morning runs, I see a worker start running behind me and I know that I'm clean. It turns out that one of our fender liners had fallen off.

Between sessions, I'm asking lots of questions about the tree and other drivers on how to do a better start - just to try and keep up with the other Civics. We also replaced teh fender liner, recharged the video battery and fixed the fuse on the external camera. Thanks to everybody that came to help.



The Saturday afternoon was quite different. We switched up to run in order of finishing times from the morning. With a 2nd place in the morning, I was paired up against Andy Hollis. The new launch method works better now. Andy gains less than a car length on me at the start. Of course, his times are very fast and mine are respectable. Unfortunately, I red light both runs on the left side, which drop me down to 7th place by the end of the afternoon session. If my times were good, they would have kept me in 2nd place. By the time it was Mike's turn to drive, the Civic would not start. Fortunately, Jason and Moe had come to watch and jumped right in to give us a hand troubleshooting. We were not able to get the car started and running again in time, so Mike missed his afternoon runs.



By the end of the day, Moe has the car running again. The wires behind tumbler for the ignition key had shorted out, so we weren't able to start the car or keep it running. Fortunately, Moe had the part on hand, so we were back in business for Sunday.



With only 1 timed run on the left side (that had a cone) and 3 red lights, the pressure was on to get a decent time on the left side on Sunday to stay in the race. We shall see how Sunday turns out.

The Saturday morning...

The Saturday morning session is finished Andy Hollis is in first place. Steven Yeoh is in second place and co-driver for today is Mike Palero is DFL. More updates later. listen

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Today is the National...

Today is the National ProSolo is at 10 past 5 a.m. and I am driving to El Toro, I am looking forward to today. listen

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Article from SCCA.com

Toppled Cones Lead to Surprise Wins at San Diego National Tour

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (March 19, 2008) – The San Diego Region welcomed Soloists to Qualcomm Stadium this past weekend for the second stop on the 2008 Tire Rack® Solo National Tour.

The new bar code driver identification system continued to operate flawlessly and while rain threatened to hamper Sunday’s events, it instead came early Saturday during the final runs and gave everyone a damp course to start with on Sunday.
And a challenging course it was, put together by D Stock driver Carl Miller. While it may have been a touch slower than previous San Diego Tour courses, there were no complaints from the more than 250 entrants who appreciated its character.

Gary Thomason had a rough start and end to the weekend, collecting two cones on his first Saturday run and then another three in his final Super Stock run on Sunday. It made for a tight finish between Thomason’s Kumho Porsche 911 GT3 and Jason Munchhof’s Lotus Elise, with Thomason, of Oceanside, Calif., taking the win by 0.649-second.

Closer still was the A-Stock showdown between Scott McHugh, of Santa Clarita, Calif., and Joey Schilling, of Lakewood, Calif. After a DNF in his first run on Saturday, followed by a cone penalty on the next run, Schilling did what he needed to do on Sunday, posting fast time of the day. Unfortunately for Schilling and his Dial ONE Schilling Plumbing Honda S2000, it wasn’t enough, and McHugh took AS by 0.048-second in a Kumho/McRacin Chevrolet Corvette. The lone female in the AS open class, Rita Wisely, of Lake Elsinore, Calif., followed 0.165-second behind Schilling in a Kumho/Skin Perfect Chevrolet Corvette.

A-Street Prepared was a spirited battle between Kevin Dietz, of Federal Way, Wash., and Ken Motonishi, of Orange, Calif. Dietz’ Evolution/Realty Executives Chevrolet Corvette was the faster car on Saturday, but lost considerable ground to Motonishi’s Kumho Chevrolet Corvette on Sunday thanks to some cone trouble. Motonishi would take the win by a slim 0.110-second. Meanwhile, Randy Chase, of San Diego, Calif., nearly stole the runner-up spot from Dietz, finishing only 0.060-second back in his ChaseCam/Lotus Garage/Blackwatch Lotus Elise.

Ryan Buetzer, of Long Beach, Calif., trounced the C Stock competition in his Evolution Driving School/TimBo Motorsports Mazda Miata, including his own co-driver, Tim Albin, of Torrance, Calif. Buezter took the win by a massive 4.613 seconds.

Making the trek from Des Moines, Wash., Keith Brown jumped out of his D Prepared Mazda Miata to run the family Mini Cooper S with wife Kristi. The couple swept G Stock and G Stock Ladies in the Chase Race/Tight n Tidy Racing Mini Cooper S.

The largest class of the weekend, C Street Prepared, was won by Scott Fraser, of San Jose, Calif. Fraser’s Siastuning/A.R.E. Mazda Miata took a 0.908-second win over the MiataRoadster.com/HiDef Racing Mazda Miata of defending National Champion Bill Schenker, from Los Angeles, who might have had a better shot had it not been for those four cone penalties.

Street Touring® Ultra Ladies competitor Annie Bauer earned Saturday’s Pace Lap Challenge award for the most consistent runs of the day and B Stock Ladies entrant Jennifer Isley took the honor on Sunday. Bauer’s three runs varied by only 0.277-second on Saturday, Isley’s by a mere 0.215-second on Sunday. Both are now entered to win a new Pace Pursuit® trailer at the end of the season.

Also handed out at the Tire Rack Awards Ceremony hosted by Bridgestone Motorsports were the Solo Performance Specialties Top Performer Awards, which went to A-Stock’s runner-up Schilling and Street Touring® S winner Jason Flores for both coming from behind to claim their class trophies.

Soloists have more than a month off before the next Tire Rack Solo National Tour stop, May 3 – 4, at Texas Motor Speedway, in Fort Worth, Texas. The Tire Rack ProSolo Series will kick off shortly however, March 29 -30, in El Toro, Calif. Full results from the San Diego Tour and information about upcoming Solo events are available by clicking the orange Solo tab at the top of the page.

Easter..whats Easter?

...we were fortunate to have the chance to practice on this wonderful weekend thanks to the kindness of our wives and girlfriends, and we thank them.

Here are a few photos from the practice...we definitely learned a few new things at the practice as we tuned the car a bit more. Also we are having one of our outstanding pit crew members Michael "Cowboy" Palero compete in the the Pro Solo next week. Due to schedule conflicts one of our normal drivers will not be able to compete, but we feel that it will still be a great success and a great showing for the team and all of our sponsors nonetheless...

Final Shots from MAKOFOTO.....

Review of SD Tour Day 2 - from the other seat

Wow, the worst option (for me at least) happened where the course dried up rapidly during our run group. In football, this is equivalent to a game being played on a snowy field and instead of a full 60 minutes of play, you get one hail mary with a ball coated in oil, throwing to a receiver that has one arm tied behind their back to determine the winner.

It was already starting to dry out when it was time for our first run. I knew that with the current conditions, the early runs would not matter as the last run would be the critical run. With that in mind, I went pretty aggressively in the first run to test the limits and I found them. I was rewarded with a bunch of cones on my first run. At least I had a pretty good sense for how much traction would be available.

My second run was about 1 second faster than my first run and the course continued to dry out. It was definitely going to come down to who had the best 3rd run. Jason also put in a solid second run to fall back on if needed. I was a little surprised to see that I was in 1st place at the end of the 2nd run. Kevin McCormick had run a little faster, but had hit cones. With the way both of us were driving, I felt that we had a very definite chance to trophy if not win the event.

By the time we started 3rd runs, the course was quite a bit drier and times were dropping by 1-2 seconds for most people. This last run HAD to be a good one. At the very least, you couldn't afford to hit any cones. I went out for my last run and made a silly mistake early on in my run that resulted in a bunch of cones against me. That eliminated any chance of my doing well. Now it all came down to Jason.

Jason has been running very well in San Diego and was full of confidence. Jason was also the second last driver to go out for the class. Everybody had gathered round to watch the last set of drivers finish their runs. It was a very tense period. Steve Ekstrand lays down the quick time to take over first place. His wife is jumping up and down celebrating. Then Kevin McCormick goes even faster to take first place from Steve. His co-driver starts celebrating. Now it's Jason's turn to finish. He crosses the line and it seems like forever before the display shows his time - the display lights up and he was 3/10ths faster than Kevin. Jason takes over 1st place. Our friends go wild. Now the nail biting starts. There is one more driver who is already on course and just about to finish. All eyes turn to watch the last driver. He crosses the finish line and we wait for the display to light up - Clint does not go any faster. The crowd goes wild and we line up to wait for Jason to come back to the pit.

This was more exciting than me winning the Tour. Absolutely unbelievable! It was great. Our photographer friend Mako made the trip down to take photographs and capture the moment for us. You'll see his great action photos throughout our blog as well.

I'd also like to thank our sponsors:
International Allstars
Lucas Oil
Hyper16Valve
South Coast Performance
JLB Motorsports
Rally Innovations
Sighren Graphics

Thank you to all our friends who have supported us through the year also. This is just the beginning of a wonderful year.

Review of SD Tour Day 1 - from the other seat

At the end of Saturday, Jason had driven really well and was in 1st place. I had two dirty runs earlier, so I made a conservative 3rd run in order to stay in the hunt for the second day.

The conservative run still left me in 4th place by the end of the day. I can't complain about that. At least I still had a chance to do well on Sunday.

After returning to the hotel, we reviewed the day and looked at the weather forecast for Sunday. I wasn't happy with the forecast. It showed that the morning would start out wet and would dry out as the day progressed. These are the worst possible conditions for an autocross. It turns the event from a 3 run day into a 1 run day and the driver that goes last would have the best chance of winning. I felt that either completely wet or completely dry would have favored us more.

We had to get up early for Sunday, so we went to bed nice and early.

INTRODUCING THE NEW INTERNATIONAL ALLSTAR / LUCAS OIL / HYPER16VALVE STS CIVIC!!!

Well its official!!!!

International Allstars and Lucas Oil have finalized an agreement with us just in time for the SD National Tour and boy what great timing!!!

With the new additions we were able to get on board with a great automotive marketing company as well as some top notch racing oils.

We are very excited about our new additions and we hope that we can be a strong contributors the compaines that we represent to the grassroots demographic in which we race.

Here are the photos and results from our 1st place finishing car and its drivers: Jason Flores, and Stephen Yeoh, all the photos were taken by our professional photographer MAKOFOTO

SD Tour Day 2

SO RACERS!!! Day 2 of the SD National Tour and we have a 1st and 4th place position locked down after a tough 1st day.

Stephen and I were able to get a good dinner in after the first day of racing and also we came back to the venue to take a look at the course till the hail started falling. Also we were surprisingly home much earlier then we usually are from races and were able to review all of our 1st day video as well as get a decent night of sleep.

Morning came much quicker then we thought and we were out the door in a blur with all of our personal belongings since we had to check out as well. It looked like it had rained all night so it looked like it was going to be a very interesting day since we love to race in the rain.

We wanted to make sure we got some food in our stomachs so that we wouldn't get hungry half way through our run group so we headed to a hearty breakfast then to the track.

Since the car was pretty much setup from the previous day, we check the adjustment of the REAR shock and went to go walk the course till then dragged us off the course and told us to get in the grid.



There was lots of buzz in the STS section of the grid, it was a close race and the weather was going to make it challenging. Over night it had pretty much poured all night with intermittent hail. but luckily the rain stopped and the ground was just wet, since the sun had not come out completely yet it dident start drying.



Both our first runs were in the complete wet and we put down respectable times but quite a bit behind Kevin McCormick. Our second runs the ground started to dry and we were re evaluating some line changes to keep the tires in the dry without sacrificing time. Stephens 2nd run was able to put him in the 1st place spot after 2nd runs. By the time our 3rd runs came the surfance had really dried up and it looked like it was going to be a one hit wonder day. UNfortunately Stephen caught and early cone and forced him to have to stand on his 2nd run time as his fastest. The times continued to drop as more cars went out and I was the second to the last car to go out right behind Kevin McCormick. By the time I reached the start lines I looked over and the grid had all eyes on us and it was nice to see a lot of my team mates there anxiously waiting to see how my run was going to be. So as the story was told to me Kevin came in with a blazing fast time and the announcer Kevin Dietz was calling it all over and then I came into the finish with a time 0.3 seconds faster and I went crazy when i heard him announce my name as 1st place, and in the background I could hear the cheering of the crowd as well. As I returned to the grid everyone was headed toward the car clapping and thumbs up. I jumped out of the car and ran to Stephen in excitement of my first 1st place finish at the SD National Tour.



For the rest of the day I was on cloud nine. I cant thank my co-driver Stephen Yeoh enough for all of his guidance and leadership though the last 2 seasons and cant wait to continue our journey of the "Road to Topeka" without you stephen I would still be braking too early, turning to hard and missing 8 out of 10 apex's.

A deep felt thanks also goes out to all of our sponsors new and old:

International Allstars
Lucas Oil Racing
Hyper16valvE
South Coast Performance
JLB Motorsports
Rally Innovations
Sighren Graphics

..and for all the people that have made this project happen over the last year we thank you, you know who you are...

It's hailing, it's pouring...

After dinner tonight around 7:15pm, we went back to the event site and the entire course was lit even though it was dark, so we walked a few more times. A few others had the same idea and were walking too.

At around 8:30pm, it started raining AND it started hailing big chunks. You could see the little pieces of hail bouncing off the ground. For a minute I thought I was back in Buffalo. Will it rain tomorrow? That's the million dollar question.

Day 1 of the San Diego National Tour

PRE-REPORT
Day 1 at the SD Tour looks like its going to be a great day. To start off we want to start the day by thanking the International All Star and Lucas Oil Racing for coming on board in the last few weeks. We are proud to be part of the team and hope that we can make everyone proud.

POST-REPORT
Day 1 of the San Diego tour is over, and we have some wonderful results to report. Jason finished the day in 1st place and Steven is sitting in 3rd place. Both of us are ahead of Kevin McCormick. Very very cool. Jason also surprised me with new uniform from our sponsors, they look pretty cool. Come check us out. listen

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It is about 3 minutes...

It is about 3 minutes to 6 the drive to the stadium took 17 minutes and we are in lot G2. This place is almost totally dark still we can see lots of trailers parked here already. Nobody is moving though. It is a ghost town. We are looking forward to a good day. listen

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