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Moment of Truth: SCCA ProSolo Meets the DoubleCross Challenge

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

Moment of Truth: SCCA ProSolo Meets the DoubleCross Challenge

 

Atlanta, Ga. (July 5, 2007) - Adventurous SCCA Solo competitors headed
to the Tire Rack(r) SCCA Atlanta ProSolo, June 30 - July 1, where the
Atlanta Region hosted a innovative event on the Solo calendar dubbed the
DoubleCross Challenge. 

 

At the heart of the DoubleCross challenge is a course designed in the
Mirrorkhana-style of autocross, where two competitors enter and finish a
single course at different points. Using the traditional ProSolo
Christmas tree start, competitors essentially followed the same route
half a lap behind each other.

 

Saturday was composed entirely of class competition. Each driver
received three runs from each entry point on the course. To ensure
legitimate dial-ins for Sunday's elimination rounds, times were not
posted for any of the Saturday runs. The main purpose of Saturday's
class heats was to build a master index and divide the 155 entrants into
five equally distributed brackets for Sunday's elimination rounds.

 

A Stock and Street Touring Sport 2 were the largest fully subscribed
classes at 12 each. While AS had a lot of car diversity, STS-2 was
populated by the usual Miatas and CRX's. STS-2 competitors continue to
make a strong case for advancement to full National status in 2008 with
another strong showing in Atlanta.

 

The novelties continued on Sunday as drivers had to lose twice to be
eliminated from one of the brackets. Additionally, two line judges were
used at the finish line to determine the winner of each heat. The top
six finishers in each bracket plus the two highest overall seeds to be
eliminated were sent on to the Hawk Super Challenge, run in traditional
single-elimination format. It all made for a long day indeed, but
Soloists benefited in the end with more runs than a traditional ProSolo
event.

 

The five bracket winners were Michael Johnson in an A Stock Prepared
Chevrolet Corvette, Steve Waters driving a Super Stock Chevrolet
Corvette, Mike King driving a Street Touring S2 Mazda Miata and both
Robert Carpenter and Mark Mccrary in a shared E Stock Toyota MR2. 

 

The final match up of the Hawk Super Challenge was quite suspenseful.
The skies began to darken considerably and rain seemed imminent as
Johnathan Roberts' A Stock Subaru STi and Robert Carpenter's Miata
approached the start lines. The finish proved too close to call when the
two finish-line judges disagreed on a winner, thus the cars were sent
back to the starting boxes for another run. The second time around,
Carpenter came out the clear winner, taking his first-ever Hawk Super
Challenge win.

 

Of the 32 drivers in the Hawk Super Challenge, 12 were in Hondas for the
largest contingent of entries into the concurrently run Honda Tuner
Challenge during the 2007 season. The battle to determine the Honda
Tuner Challenge Hot Shoe of the event pitted Solo veteran Mike King in a
Honda CRX Si against high school senior Danny Carroll in an Acura
Integra R. Call it wisdom, experience, or just plain skill, King took
the win and the extra $250 prize.

 

Like Sunday's prequalification brackets, the Ladies Challenge was run in
a double elimination format and saw Ladies 1 class victor Karen Kraus in
a Subaru Impreza versus Ladies 2 runner-up Tara Knoll in a Honda CRX Si.
Kraus' Subie hit the finished line with half a car length on Knoll, who
had ironically been strictly a Subaru competitor until this season. It
was the second ProSolo win in a row for Kraus who also claimed victory a
week earlier in Washington D.C.

 

While the overall length of the event provided some challenges and the
format left several Soloists scratching their heads, the Atlanta
Region's DoubleCross Challenge was a compelling event for all involved
and appears to have a future in SCCA ProSolo.

 

"The Atlanta Region Solo Committee is to be commended for taking the
original Rocky Entriken and Salina Region Mirrorkhana to the next level
and creating an entertaining experience for the competitors," SCCA Vice
President of Solo and Rally Howard Duncan said. "We were pleased to make
it part of the 2007 Tire Rack ProSolo season in this year of
experimentation and program development as it gave us a lot to think
about for 2008. The format presents difficulties for handling large
turnouts, but there is no doubt that it is intriguing and that at least
elements of what we saw will make it into our future plans."

 

For full results from Atlanta, visit the Atlanta ProSolo event page at
www.scca.com.

 

The Tire Rack SCCA ProSolo returns to action July 21st at Seneca Army
Depot for the Finger Lakes ProSolo in Romulus, N.Y.

 

-30-

 

Attached image: The Subaru STi of Jonathan Roberts lines up next to the
Toyota MR2 of Robert Carpenter for the Hawk Super Challenge.

Credit: Kerrie Turner

 

 

 

Erin Cechal

SCCA Public Relations Specialist

800/770-2055 ext. 354

ecechal@scca.com

www.scca.com

 

 


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