2009 El Toro ProSolo Sunday

Both of us arrive early to walk the course one last time, then off to get ready as we run 1st heat again. It's a cold morning, somewhere around 50 degrees and overcast. It doesn't look like the sun will come out in time to help warm up the ground or the tires.




I'm up first and I'm lined up against Marco in a Subaru 2.5RS. With the cold temps and me not launching properly, I watch Marco open up at least one car length on me before we reach the split where we go off on our own. Grrr! The same thing happens on the right side and I'm going for everything now. I come back and hear the crowd cheering as the announcer says that I've moved up into 2nd place. It's not over yet, so I'm lining up again and this time I'm paying a lot more attention to a correct launch. It looks like this time, I'm no more than 1/2 a car length behind Marco by the time we split - I'm happy about that. I go faster on my last left side run and I'm happy about that, but looking at the posted results, I have 2 mystery cones on my time that I didn't hear announced when I returned from my run. Grr, deja vu. The same thing happened to my Saturday morning left side run. My second right side run is wasted as we have too little fuel and I experience fuel starvation while on course.



We add some fuel and Jason gets to make his Sunday runs. He posts a good left side that puts him in the 44's, but there is a late cone call. There is no improvement on the right side, but he does improve the left side for his fastest left side of the weekend.

Things are moving much faster now and before we know it, Julie is up to make her runs. With some encouragement, she is now pushing harder and ends up moving into the last trophy spot in L1. Congratulations Julie.



The best compliment I heard all weekend was how Julie loved how the car handled the way Jason has built it. She wants what we have! We also know they will continue to stay on Bridgestone tires.

By the end of the event, Julie has finished in 6th, Jason has finished in 8th (on the result sheet, that would give him 8 88) and I beat Kyle to 2nd place by a very small margin of 0.005 seconds over two days of competition.




The tire wars in ST are going strong with the leader board made up of Toyo, Bridgestone, Kumho and Dunlop tires.

2009 El Toro ProSolo Saturday

We arrive nice and early, get teched and walk the course one last time. This is a great course that combined all the elements - technical without being visually difficult to see, fast in sections and slow in other sections. You had to get it all right in order to do well.

Just as we are finishing our walk, we receive a phone call to see if we'd be open to Julie Avard driving our car so that all the ladies can be in single driver cars. Julie is currently on Bridgestone tires at home, so this should be a good fit.



With the lower car number, Jason starts off as first driver in the morning. He has good times on both sides and ends the morning session the faster of the two of us. With the combination of starts and a few minor delays, the morning session doesn't end until around 1:30pm. It seems to be the trend for me so far at these events. I end up dirty or red lighting on one side so I'll only have decent times for one side. For this event, it was the left side that was giving me grief. I'm in 4th place by the end of the morning.



In the afternoon session, the faster driver goes first, so Jason goes out and takes his runs. He improves on the left side, but not on the right side. With the runs being back to back, the time goes by very quickly. The RE-11 tires are holding up to the heat of back to back runs very well, getting up to operating temperature and staying there without the need for cooling. My afternoon runs come up and my focus is to get a clean left side so that I'd have a decent time at least. My first left side run is an alien run that would have put me within 1/10 of Ken on the left side, but I cone it away and end up standing on a clean 2nd left side run. The right side dips into the 43's for a decent time.

Julie takes her runs and it's getting late. I have a feeling that they will not be able to finish all their runs before it gets dark. Everybody is hurrying to try and get all the runs done before it gets dark. Julie has not driven in a while. She's not pushing the car, so we encourage her to push harder. The tires are not getting up to 150 degrees, but staying in the 120 degree range.



When the Saturday results are posted, I'm in 3rd place and Jason is 6th. Both of us are still within striking distance of trophies.

I'm very tired. There seems to be very little down time at a ProSolo. The course will be the same for tomorrow, so we pack up and go grab dinner. We can walk again in the morning.

A look at the ST competition

So here is a quick wrap up of the ST competition here in So Cal.


Of course there's the "Allstar/Bridgestone ST Civic" Driven by Stephen Yeoh and Jason Flores


The "Pro Parts/Centric Parts (Wong-mobile) Civic" driver by Jeff Wong and Nicole Nagler


The "Power Honda Performance (Pedo-bear) Civic" driven by Jon Lugod and Michael Palero.


The "Team Toyo Civic" driven by Ken Motonishi and Lily Liu


The "Jue Motors/Whitehead Constructions Civic" driven by Kyle Williams and Paul Whitehead


The "I-Speed/Kartboy/SCNAX Subaru" driven by Marco Vasquez


The "JLB Motorsports (Rios-Mobile) Civic" driven by Sebastian Rios and Shauna Rios


Lastly we have the "Metrosexual Teal-Blue Civic" driven by Steve Ekstrand, Tadd Ekstrand, Stacy Miller and pretty much anyone else who needs a ride in ST!!!

2009 El Toro ProSolo Friday

The car was getting the Bridgestone RE-11 tires mounted onto a nice set of Enkei RPF-1's and wasn't brought to the Friday practice.

I had family stuff going on, but with two courses to learn, I wanted to come down Friday to give myself enough time to walk both courses and not have to rush on Saturday. It was nice to just chill with a bunch of really cool folks anyway.

Jason came down after work and we walked the course together. The two courses are not exactly mirrors - some of the spacing between cones is quite different. The way it worked out, it looked like the left side was faster going out and slower coming back and the right side was the opposite.



This will be my 3rd ProSolo and with no prior drag racing experience, I was a little anxious about the tree start. I watched the lights a few times and Jon (who has drag racing experience) explained how to launch the car. His method was very different from what I had done previously, so I tried to picture how that would work.

After walking, we headed off to get a good nights sleep. Big day of racing tomorrow with a record crowd in attendance for this ProSolo.

Allstar Civic featured at Leon Lounge in Stanton CA

Leon Lounge
By Bill Montogomery

This was last week at a night club we threw together within two weeks. All in all it was a great event but some people could not show up but still we had 25 to 30 really nice show cars, 12 Allstar Models looking good, another 50 to 75 people from Allstars friends and guest, a few VIP's and good dancing. Enjoy some of the photo's before we moved to the inside!!! Thanks, Bill

2009 San Diego Tour - Sunday

Sunday seemed to come in a blink of as eye. As we were scheduled to start an hour earlier then Saturday.

Since the car was prepped we got a chance to take a few walks before they changed the course so we walked AGAIN...then they were thinking about changing one more section and we went out yet once again but there were no changes so by this time we are almost pooped from walking.

We get back to the pit and we make last min preparation to the car, rotating tires and pointing our exhaust away from the sound meter.

As we get closer to our run group we watch the sky temp rain but with no result. Just overcast then clear then overcast again. As our group grids it looks like we are going to make it and there appears to be a clearing in the distance that will last our run group. We head over to our grid spot and ready ourselves for our day 2 runs.



Jason is the first to go out and is looking more confident than day 1 already. He puts down a time that already moves him up in the standings, coming back with a smile on his face looks like he is ready for battle! Next Stephen goes out and is flying though the course and on the last turn before the finish isn't able to get it slowed down and DNFs the last turn but pulls a time if it was good that would have boost him into 2nd place. Jason gets one more run in and improves but .5 seconds solidify a 4th place spot after his run. Then the weather begins... The drizzle begins to fall but it still looks optimistic it may hold off. Then unfortunately it begins to rain steadily. We switch over to rain gear and strategy, and we get ready to run. We hope that Stephen can get one more run in before the rain gets worse but the times are getting slow fast and everyone in the group is having trouble putting down times close to their dry times. In the end most of the ST class ends up standing on their 1st runs from day 2 or their wet runs.



When the rain clears we end up in 4th and 7th place. Not a bad finish for our first tour on the new RE-11 tire.

As for the RE-11 performance it is a great tire in both the dry and the wet, with great feel and increased grip as compared to its predecessors. We are looking forward to next weeks Pro-Solo Event at the ever grippy El Toro!!!












We want to extend a big thanks to Rod and Josh from Bridgestone and the International Allstars for their support on both days of the race. Especially Jenn and Bill who helped get some great coverage for both Bridgestone and Allstars both days not to mention to keep Stephen and I out of the sun and rain during the race.



See you next week!!!