Thursday-Friday pictures

Text, text, text ...


Oh hai, ur no. 1!!


Jason Becker in grid in his SSM BMW M Coupe.


i am at ur solo nats, stealing ur downforces.


Jason Huepenbecker, Lee Piccione and Terry Baker watch Holly Schwedler hit the course in Lee's Kao-lifornia Special Shelby Mustang.


Shane Chinnon-Rhoden works the camera on Jason B's BMW.


Team Ziptie chillaxing in grid.


Sam Strano advises Learic Cramer: "Go that way really fast. If something gets in your way, turn."


Josh Luster, Sam and Shane help keep Learic's tires nice and cozy.


Allen Kugler advises Brian Karwan: "You make a gnarly run like that and girls will get sterile just looking at you."


Jeff Jacobs (center) and Big Mike Snyder (right) try and figure out who dumped oil on the east course on Friday.


1,200 horsepower combined between these two cars. But in the rain, they rarely went flat out.


In the long run, I'm not sure if this was such a bright idea. The Garfield kids make adults look slow as it is driving little karts -- what will it be like when they drive real cars?


When you're fast, people want to talk to you.







For more pictures and hi-resolution images, see my collection on flickr.

New National Champs!

In addition to Julian Garfield in FJA from Tuesday-Wednesday competition, the SCCA just crowned three more WDCR members as Solo National Champions. Mike Stanley won in FSAE, Brian Karwan won in SMF in his first appearance at the Solo Nationals, and Sam Strano won (again) in F Stock. Well, Brian is just a "Class Winner" since SMF is still in the inception phase (even though there were more competitors than A Stock ... and that's all I have to say about that).

More details and photos to come. Probably more on the photo side.

Solo Nationals Report from Thursday

After being shutout from Tuesday-Wednesday competition, Autocrossers, Inc., members are finally making some noise. Sam Strano is leading F Stock with the 4-5-6 trophy spots occupied by Jason Hopenprayer, Lee Piccione and Big Mike Snyder. Wow, it's like FedEx Field has moved halfway across the country! (And gotten really flat and a lot more grippy.)

As for the rest of the WDCR members, Mike and Mike with the University of Maryland FSAE car are puttin' a hurtin' on the rest of the competition. Stanley leads Cook by 0.902, and Cook is ahead of his next closest rival by 1.6 seconds.

Brian Karwan has almost a two tenths lead in the SMurF class. Nobody knows who that is in the faaaaassssssssssst little white Civic except us. Hopefully he can keep it up on Friday.

Brian was running in the third heat on the west course on Thursday, and it was interesting because there were three other WDCR members in the same heat. Learic Cramer and Holly Schwedler came through on their final runs to move into second place in C Stock Ladies and F Stock Ladies, respectively. Learic is two tenths out of first while Holly is three tenths out, so both of them definitely have a shot on Friday. Jason Baker was also running in that same heat and after hitting multiple cones on his first two runs, he pulled out a clean run to move his BMW M Coupe into 12th place in Super Street Modified. There is A LOT of firepower in that class.


Speaking of firepower, in ASP, Courtney Cormier is in a trophy spot in fifth place but coned a run that would have had him in second behind his co-driver, Junior Johnson. ASP ran in drizzling conditions that had most of them running about a second off their faster times on their third runs.

In C Stock, the Robeson-Thomas Mazda RX-8 is attracting attention from the cones, but I think both of them are just happy to be driving after 2-3 days of sitting around and watching everybody else drive.

Don't forget, things kick off Friday at 9 a.m. EST, and you can keep track of the action at http://sololive.scca.com. Results have been posted in near-real time -- many competitors can be seen in grid staring intensely at their phones as they figure out where they are standing in class.