neohiosccasolo

As many of us do every year in September a number of NEOHIO members made the long trip to the Solo National Championship. Now in its second year in Lincoln, Nebraska the venue continues to impress and many of the annoyances present in the first year were addressed with really only banquet arrangements still needing to be improved upon.

Of the NEOHIO members in attendance in 2010 two were rewarded with National Championships. Dan Wasdahl again repeated as the 2010 National Champion in AMod and rookie Andrew Pallotta in just his first appearance secured the Street Touring Unlimited championship while driving a ‘borrowed car’ that he hadn’t driven before arriving in Topeka.
Dan was looking forward to the 2010 National Championship as Gary Milligan and Joe Cheng were scheduled to bring their long-awaited and highly developed 2007 Vancouver Special to Topeka to once again see if they could raise the bar in A Modified. As a matter of fact the 2008 BBR/Phantom DVS-1 piloted by Dan Wasdahl was the previous Milligan/Cheng car although since he had purchased it has been changed in many ways both large and small.

Day one competition was close and Dan found himself back from Gary Milligan by just a bit. The Milligan/Cheng car was notable in that they had developed their new car to rely much more on mechanical grip rather than the highly developed (and big!) wings typically found on today’s AMod car. Day two would see which approach would hold and perhaps set the direction of the class going forward.

Unfortunately, Gary and Joe’s car developed a terminal engine problem on Joe’s last run on day one and from there Dan’s fate was pretty much sealed. While Gary stepped into a competitor’s car in order to get times for Day 2 Joe elected just to sit out which enabled Dan to ‘coast’ to a margin of victory of just about 3.5 seconds.

Over in STU Andrew was having the event of his life although it was far from easy. In a class that invites a lot of high-dollar parts the car that Andrew piloted was in comparison to the rest of the class pretty much ‘stock’. Andrew laid down solid runs on the first day and found himself well in contention just a little over a tenth back from the lead. The question was whether Andrew was going to be able to stay in touch on day two or would the pressure of competing in the ‘Big Event’ get to him. Andrew answered that question rather convincingly with a first run on Day 2 that was solidly in the hunt. After catching a couple of cones on his second run Andrew came back on his third and final run with a 61.2 that was a couple of tenths better than the Day 1 leader and came away with his first National Championship.

Of the other NEOHIO members competing Jeff Blumenthal came home with a third place trophy in FMod and Scott Hearne (finally) overcame his run ability issues to secure fourth place in GPrepared.

Jeff overcame both adverse weather conditions (it rained at the beginning of his heat) and adverse course conditions (a Solo Vee lost a valve cover and oiled down about 80% of the course) to come from far back in the field to claim his third place. While running a solo event in the rain is generally not as much fun as running in the dry it is especially miserable in an open wheel car that is wet when you strap in and just gets wetter as you run the course! Despite everyone’s best efforts to try and keep things dry it was a lost cause by run 2 because of the rain and the previously mentioned Solo Vee that dropped oil on the course prior to many of the third runs of the heat. As soon as it was realized that there was oil on the course the heat was stopped and a massive cleanup effort began that lasted nearly two hours! In the length of time it took to clean up the course the weather cleared and the unusual decision was made by the Course Chief to grant everyone in the heat their third run. Sometimes you are good and sometimes you get lucky. In this case Jeff turned his luck into good with a solid 3rd run and moved himself in third place overall for the class.

Over in GP Scott Hearne had finally figured out (with the help of many, many friends) what was causing his car to lose power – a *&^% fuel filter and started Day 1 with a car that was finally running well but also one that he really hadn’t driven ‘quickly’ all year. His opening run was solid and clean and further attempts on runs 2 and 3 were marked with pylons. He was going to have to be content with sitting in 5th place and the last trophy spot after Day 1. Compounding the running issues was the fact that both of his front shocks were ‘blown’ and he had managed to borrow another set from Robert Chrismas and had them installed for Lincoln. Since he was running in the first heat of the day and the Koni guys weren’t super busy he talked to them about looking at Robert’s shocks and found that one of them was ‘blown’ as well. Koni was able to repair it and they were back on the car ready for Day 2.

On Day 2 with a car that was now running right and front shocks that were 100% Scott laid down three solid runs, left all the cones standing and moved up one spot in the standings to 4th place. It should be noted that his time on Day 2 was the second fastest of all class competitors.

Of the rest of the NEOHIO crew Paul Magee’s luck was the opposite of Jeff’s in FMod as he caught a couple of cones on his last dry run ending his day just below mid-pack. Paul’s better half Lisa Holdren acquitted herself well in the ultra-competitive FMod Ladies class facing off against multi-time Champion Jane Willis and the winner of the class Michelle Quinn in the Blumenthal FMod. For her first time at Nationals she did very, very well.

In Street Touring Xtreme Niles Patel drove his BMW and Joel Higgenbothem piloted a borrowed Street Touring Civic. While neither came away with the result they desired both of them came away happy that they could be a part of the 2010 event.

Special thanks go out to Paul and Lisa for graciously allowing all of us to hang out at their ‘base camp’ and provide us all with not only a great place to hang out and relax but feed us (very) well too!