Some Stroll, Others Steal Way to Titles on Tire Rack SCCA Solo National Championships Final Day
TOPEKA, Kan. ( Sept. 16, 2005) - A couple had leads that were safe. Others did not. No matter how it shook out, however, the final 32 National Champions were uncovered at Forbes Field Friday afternoon, putting the wraps on the 2005 Tire Rack SCCA Solo National Championships. G.J. Dixon III, of Scarsdale, N.Y., found himself more than six-tenths of a second down in D Stock going into the final day, but he roared back Friday in his 2003 BMW 330i, making up the gap with three runs all below 56 seconds (the only DS driver to do so) and squeezing past then-leader Mark Smith, of Denver, Colo., to take the class crown by 0.060-sec. Glen Hernandez, of Marysville, Wash., was third behind Smith's SCR Performance 2004 Volkswagen Golf, driving his Evolution Driving School/Fordahl Motorsports 2003 BMW 330Ci. IN Street Touring Xtreme, Josh Sortor, of Glendale, Ariz., found himself in third place after Thursday's runs, but barely, as he was trailing second place by just 0.085-sec. and first by a bit over two-tenths of a second. Friday, however, was Sortor's day as he stormed out on the course to post a 55.963 (the only STX entry to break 56 sec. on its first attempt). From there, Sortor turned in even better times his next two runs, ending with a 55.378 in his Progressauto.com/Yokohama/5Zig 2002 Subaru Impreza WRX. The time slashed away the deficit and gave Sortor a wide victory margin of 0.892-sec. over Andy Basham, of New Albany, Ohio. Basham, in his understeer.com 2003 BMW 330i, also had a magnificent final day, slicing his way through the STX field from 7th place to finish second. Tommy Regan, of Leander, Texas, started the day second but finished third in his motor-force.com 1992 BMW 325is, just 0.075-sec. in back of Basham. Gerald Fink, of Media, Pa., might have thought his E Modified Championship was in the bag as he carried a 0.394-sec. advantage into Friday. But in reality, Fink had to fight his way all the way to the end and did, taking the win in his Advanced Engineering, Inc. 2004 Lanover Concepts Viking by 0.048-sec. over Wendell Karr-Ake, of Yukon, Okla. Karr-Ake hit a whopping four cones on his second attempt and ended up with a 58.273 on the run, which, without the cones, would have put him in the lead. He rebounded with a clean run (50.888), but it was just short. Scott McQueen, of Huffman, Texas, finished third in his Scott McQueen Racing/James Industries/Hoosier 1998 3 Rotor Sprite. Peter Maassardijian, of Escondido, Calif., didn't exactly blow anyone away in B Prepared, but he did enough to slightly increase his day-one lead and take home the class title. In the end, Maassardijian's Carvin/Mazdaa/Hoosier/ARE/7part 1993 Mazda RX-7 was 0.275-sec. better than the LG Motorsports/Janco/ARE 2004 Chevrolet Corvette driven by Stan Whitney, of Frisco, Texas. Jeff Kiesel, of Poway, Calif., was third co-driving the Maassardijian RX-7, while Randy Herrick, of Topeka, Kan., was fourth in his Reliable Car Shop 1966 Chevrolet Corvette - the oldest car in the class. In all, 70 National Champions were crowned at the 2005 Tire Rack SCCA Solo National Championships, which again brought more than 1130 competitors from 47 states and five Canadian provinces, backing up the claim that the Solo Nationals event is arguably the largest amateur Motorsports championship in the world. For complete results as they become available, visit www.scca.com <http://www.scca.com/> .