SSSCC Yakima Event Re-Cap
FRIDAY SETUP
We had plenty of help with Friday setup. Thanks to Kathy Orr, Cody Boschert, Greg Swank, Mikey Hall, Lynn Rogers, Jason Miller, Manichanh Ratts, Jim Walker and everyone else who helped with course setup. Lynn even redesigned the course map to incorporate the tweeks that were made during course setup. He burned a disc and took it to Office Depot to make 300 copies. (way to go Lynn!) Friday night we all went to a Mexican restaurant and enjoyed some great food. Steve Schreiber joined us a little late (turns out his shop was about a block away from the restaurant)
SATURDAY SETUP
We all arrived at the track around 6:30am. The caravan from the Tri-Cities arrived around 7:00am and immediately began working on setting up Registration and Tech. We had a few issues with handling the 100 entries (I believe this is the largest event the SSSCC has EVER attempted), but there were very few complaints and runs started at 10:15am. It was very impressive to see how well Registration/Worker Assignment and Tech got 100 people through in about 1.5 hours. Great job guys! Everyone got three runs in the morning, broke for lunch around 1:00 and then three additional runs in the afternoon.
SATURDAY RESULTS
Saturday's event was billed as the East/West Challenge. There was some stiff competition from the West Side folks, but in most classes, the East Side drivers put up a great fight! You'll see that the Non-Stock drivers did a lot better than the stock class drivers.
Stock-1: Robert Powell and Norm Powell took 5th and 6th in their S2000, Bob Bromm finished 7th in his Corvette and Mark Jennings (great to see you again Mark!) finished 8th in his beautiful Porsche 996.
Stock-2: Lynn Rogers put up a good fight against some VERY stiff competition and finished 5th, followed by David Crabtree in 7th and a name we're all glad to see racing again.Vern Lenz in a MR2 Turbo in 8th.
Stock-3: I drove our temporary autocross car (2003 Protege) to a disappointing 6th place, but I did manage to hold off Jens Darsell by only 3 hundreths of a second!
Non-Stock 1: Here's where the SSSCC dominated. We filled the entire class! Mark Reib ended up 1st in his Evo 8, Dan Ball 2nd in the Works Mini Cooper (Dan, you need to talk to the SCCA about re-classing your car) and Jason Gaudet in 3rd in his beautiful Porsche 951.
Non-Stock 2: Mikey Hall, was up against Jim Daniels (Portland) in his Miata, but managed to finished 2nd, only 4 tenths of a second out of first place. Kyla Lathem, one of three people driving Duke Langley's Corvette, finished in second only 2 hundreths behind Mikey! And Tonya Langley finished in 8th also driving Dukes Corvette. It was good to see the girls racing again and we hope that they will continue to participate this season.
Non-Stock 3: Steve Schreiber in his E-Mod Fiero was up against a 3 time national champion, but managed to hang on and took first place by more than half a second! Way to go Steve! Gene Wattenburger, driving the rotary Midget in only it's second event finished in the 3 spot only 1.1 seconds from Steve. (Steve better watch his back this season)
Non-Stock 4: Andrew Howe (Portland) was the class of the field driving his Imprezza 2.5RS to first place. Some of you may remember Andrew as one of our instructors at last years Novice school. Mike Hall driving the family Mitsubishi Eclipse finished 5th and Mike Parker (recently re-located to Seattle) finished 6th in his WRX.
Street Tire-Stock: Here's another class where the SSSCC dominated. Stan Crow impressed all the West Side drivers by putting his S-10 pickup in the first spot! It was fun to see all the spectators gathered around Stans truck trying to figure out how a pickup could compete against more sporting vehicles. Lawrence Danton, drove his V6 Firebird to the 2nd spot, only 2 tenths behind Stan. Stan better watch his mirrors this season as Lawrence hasn't fully prepped his car yet. James Olsen surprised everyone by showing up in a brand new Mini Cooper S (was it even broke in yet James?!) and finished in the 3rd spot. Kathy Orr decided to race against the boys in her Miata and finished in the 5th spot.
Street Tire-Non-Stock: We only had one SSSCC member in this class, but that's all we needed as Karter Riach drove his Mitsubishi Galant Turbo (Mark Rieb's old car) to victory over some stiff West Side competition. Way to go Karter!
Ladies: With Dad driving the new Mini Cooper, Jennifer Olson was left with the old S2000, but she pulled out a great 3rd place finish! Jenna Hall finished in 4th only 7 hundredths of a second behind Jennifer. These gals are going to be fun to watch this season in the Ladies class.
Street Modified: Jim Walker driving his 323GTX Turbo pulled out a 2nd place finish behind the big $$$ Civic of Tony Lemon (Seattle). Jason Miller (driving his STS car in SM.I don't know why) finished in 4th. John Gussenhoven driving his Civic 3-door and Manichanh Ratts driving his Civic sedan.
Street Modified 2: This is where the high dollar boys play. But Duke Langley (Umatilla) showed everyone that he still has what it takes with his Corvette (normally a BSP car). He finished in first place and Fast Time of Day! Nice driving Duke! Greg Swank in his Supercharged MR2 with a brand new suspension setup finished in 4th.
Novice: Once again the SSSCC finished on top with Ross Bartholomew driving his S2000 finishing in the top spot by 2.3 seconds! (how a car on V710 race tires was allowed to run in Novice I don't know) Allen Hare, driving his RX-8 in only his 3rd event finished 2nd!! Way to go Allen! Quentin Christensen joined the SSSCC at this event and finished 10th in his 1999 Miata (nice car!) and Timothy Gilliam kept the 280ZX together for yet another event for 13th.
Summary: By my count that was 36 SSSCC members attending! That's a lot more than we had anticipated! It's great to see that many people from our club willing to make the drive to Yakima. (I can remember when we'd struggle to get 25 people at a local event) The total number of entries was 99, so this was a very fun and profitable event for our club!
The full results are available online <http://www.ssscc.org/2005/05schedule.html>
