Arnot Mall: Father’s Day
Runaway
The
2008 Solo season is now three events old and going strong. What better way to
celebrate the season and Father’s Day, simultaneously, than an Arnot Mall
happening. Running at the Arnot is a long tradition for the Glen Region and one
of my favorite locations. Oh, the lot is a little small, but there are
elevation changes, off-camber turns, and even differing surfaces,
adhesion-wise, to keep the drivers on their toes. Best of all, Sunday, June 15
was mostly sunny and definitely warm on the lot surface and 46 drivers were
more than ready to give it their all.
The
small lot at the southeast corner of the Mall is always a challenge to course
designers. Invariably, the result is a figure-8 or hourglass design and many
laps are built in just to get the average car up to 45 seconds of track
exposure. This time, the designers opted for a figure-8 first lap followed by a
clockwise oval second lap and it seemed to work quite well. Specifically, the
course opened with the figure 8, a gentle, leftward arc into a patented and
infamous Glen Region “Pearly Gate.” From the “Pearly Gate” the course arced
sharply left and uphill before straightening and heading back downhill through
the “Pearly Gate” in the opposite direction. This led to a sharply arced,
uphill, right hand turn to complete the figure-8 portion and commence the
clockwise oval for one lap before exiting. All in all, a pretty decent use of
the lot.
The
largest classes du jour were G-Stock
with six drivers and H-Stock and Street Modified 2 with a respectable five
apiece. G- and H-Stock seem to be the most popular classes this year at Glen
Region events, something not at all surprising in the Glen Region or to this
former G-Stocker. In G-Stock, only a couple tenths of a second separated
brothers Mark and Matt Lockhart in Mark’s ‘07 Mini Cooper S, but that was
sufficient for Mark to take class honors. Right behind the brothers Lockhart
was some incredibly close competition in the guise of Cody Chambers, who took
third in his Subaru Impreza 2.5 RS. Meanwhile in H-Stock, Richard Ayers (Honda
Civic Si) barely led after the first run group, but worked harder on the second
set of runs to take first decisively from Bruce Coulombe (’92 Honda Civic) in
second and Jason Balliet (’01 Honda Civic EX) in third. Over in Street Modified
2 was a continuation of the father-son battle between Dave and Colin Raymond in
Colin’s ’92 Mazda Miata. Colin led at the end of the end of the first group of
runs, but remembering it was Father’s Day permitted Dave to edge him out by
6/100 of a second in the second group of runs. It made little difference to
David Savage (2006 Nissan 350Z) who showing no respect for Dave’s fatherhood
(after all, Dave’s not David’s father) edged by the Raymond family to take
class honors by a scant 3/10 of a second.
In
other multi-driver classes, Tom Deneka (Toyota MR2) voted the ugliest yellow of
the yellow cars in attendance [It was a fair vote, Tom], had the best times in
E-Stock getting by Nile Heermans (RED Toyota MR2) for first place. In the “All
Camaro, All the Time” F-Stock Class, Bret Bauer (’00 Camaro SS) continued his
domination of F-Stock and PAX with some incredible driving, leaving David
Hendrickson to battle for second place over his brother Ryan, both in the same
’87 Camaro Z28.
C
Street Prepared was a blast from the past as former competitors Brian Bell (’95
Mazda Miata) and Ryan Jones (’99 Mazda Miata) mixed it up with as in years
past. It was a close, well-fought battle, but Ryan triumphed by 2/10 of one
second over Brian, leaving third place to Liz Lozier (’99 Mazda Miata), whose day will come.
In
Street Modified, Julius Carozza (BMW 318) showed no respect for Glen Region
Solo Board leader, Kyle Kubick (‘94 VW Corrado SLC) or for Tom Sterling (‘04
Pontiac GTO) and won the class, handily. Meanwhile over in F125 Shifter Kart,
it was Casey Creamer Day as he decisively beat out challenges from Rob Craig
(1991 Techno Kart) and Pat Scopelliti (1991 Techno Kart) to take the day both
in class and for FTD in his MW Chassis 100cc HPV.
Pat Scopelliti did manage, however, to set what I believe to be a new Glen
Region record by ending up atop seven cones. Yes, that’s atop and not
necessarily knocked over. Perhaps Pat reasoned that the cones would give him
additional traction, but it didn’t work out that way.
There
were several other single and two car classes at the event that were well worth
watching. Check ‘em out along with all of the official results online at http://www.glen-scca.org/solo/schedule.asp. While you’re at it, you
might want to check out the seasonal point standings at the same location.
Once
again, the Glen Region thanks all the folks who made the Father’s Day at Arnot
Mall event possible. This is especially so for the folks of Arnot Mall. You,
the stores and staff, always go out of your way to make us feel welcome and
this event works well, because of you. As for the event, itself, Ben Heater was
superb as event chair, ditto for Richard Ayers and Cody Chambers in
registration, and Ken Moyer and Tom Deneka as safety stewards. A big thanks to
the course design and setup crew: Casey Creamer, Pat Scopelliti, Bruce
Coulombe, Ben Heater, and Bret Bauer. Finally, Ben Heater and Ken Moyer deserve
a special vote of appreciation for driving the new Glen Region van to the site,
a largely thankless, time consuming job. As always, if I omitted anyone, I’m
sorry. Speaking of being sorry, my deepest apologies to giving our fearless
leader a new last name in the last write-up. I know better, Kyle, honest I do
and sure wouldn’t want to do anything that might make your life any more
miserable than it might be already.
The
next event is scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, June 28 and 29 at the Seneca
Army Depot. This event will be co-hosted with our friends from the Central New
York Region and should be exciting. More information is available on our
website at http://www.glen-scca.org/solo/.
As always, we'll keep the timing lights on for you.