STS was a mess, Major Props go to Kenny Montonishi, Kevin McCormick, Leslie Cohen and Andy Hollis, it was an all out slugfest between them. Unfortunately it will be overshadowed by the drama/DSQ of the 63/163 car.

I ran in an 01 Prelude in STX (BBK, Quaife LSD), as the second driver, and usually the fastest of the two of us I had expectations of finishing in the top 1/2. But I'll boil my performance down to 2 words: I choked. I was easily top half fast, but coned my way to 31/34. I guess not bad for a rookie in a car that could be considered a sword in a gunfight. I'll be back next year, to get killed in CS.

It was a very good year for my local organization SPOKES (www.spokes.org) as we swept SS, and CS winning both open and ladies class, and Anne Hollis jumped into Jason Wong's WRX and won STXL. I lost track of the number of trophies we brought home, I think it was near 13.

Kevin's South course was very technical, with complex sweepers, and an arhythmic serious of offset chicago boxes. It definitely favored NA cars. The rain split my mid way through first drivers, first runs. It made my day because we were on nearly fulltread Kooks. Andy's north course wasn't as technically demanding, but you had to know where the edge of your car was, the Kook's felt vague the whole time. And the long periods of WOT favored the Suby's a bit more IMO.

And of course next year everything we know about SCCA Nats goes right out the window!!

My pictures of are here: http://www.pbase.com/mtb_zack/2005_solo_2_nationals
More pics from local guys.
http://www.pbase.com/mikeroberts/2005_solo_2_nationals
http://www.pbase.com/cwilliams/2005solonats&page=all
http://www.axwaresystems.com/pics/05Nationals/

Enjoy!

 

Those pages have way too many pics! Any direct links to ones of you racing?

 

hahaha, I have no idea, haven't really had time to sort through them... prolly skip my galleries, since I didn't get pictures of us driving.

 

I saw pics. But I'm not going to go back through them.

But yeah it's easy to "choke" your 1st time at Nationals. Which is why I didn't have high hopes last year when I attended for my 1st time. The car owner Jim Harnish commented "Man you are really calm and you don't look nervous at ALL! It's your 1st Nationals too"

I said "Yeah I am. I'm not nervous because I'm just your tire warmer and I don't expect to do that well since it's my 1st time. So I'm here to just have fun"

So my 1st run out I was really relaxed like I was at one of our local events. Ripped out a good run too except I coned every run at the same spot in the slalom. Not being used ot how wide the car was AND not used to running on R tires compared to street tires. I expected some sliding, but the car kept turning in too fast

I would have trophied if I had a clean run the 1st day because 2nd day I jumped up like 20 places due to the rain.

 

After the Divisional series, where my driving sort of regressed, reallly my main goal was not to finish DFL. I know I'm much better than the results show, and next year I'm taking my new car (99 miata sport) and being trophy fodder in CS. (yeah yeah I know the "new MX-5" is out, we'll see how that goes)

Josh Sortor and Andy Basham are incredible drivers. It was great to race with them, and the entire SOLO 2 community.

 

Makes you want to invest in a golf cart eh?