last updated 4/9/2002
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this is todd bowman, former CP Mustang driver, in his new toy. it's a formula continental, which he is driving at his first drivers' school in this picture. he hoped to be on the track, racing, by the end of 1997, but the dream had to wait until early 1998.
tim aro ran a CS Porsche 924S in 1997. he bought this car in the fall of 1996 after running a 1986 MR2 in CS for the few years previous. he's been extremely successful in the Porsche, winning CS at the Hampton, Georgia National Tour, Petersburg, Virginia ProSolo2, Columbus, Indiana ProSolo2 and the Northeast Divisionals in Rome, New York. he was second to kevin bailey at the Nashville ProSolo2 and Harrisburg ProSolo2, which is where the picture was taken. he finished second in CS at the Pro Solo2 Finale and the Solo II Nationals in Topeka, behind bailey again, but bailey admits that tim made great improvements throughout the year and that a win next year would be even more difficult. however, tim ran FS in 1998 in my car , and took the 1999 season off. he has since taken up the sport again, first in his 10ae miata running BS, then with eric petersen's new mr2 spyder. he won the 2001 prosolo championship in the spyder, and will be codriving with rod mcgeorge in a different spyder in 2002.
this is not the best picture of this incident, but this is my friend z-doc in rob robinson's old car. it's a 240Z body with a turbo RX-7 engine in it -- a sweet, fast car. this picture was taken from video, at the 1996 solo II national championships in topeka, kansas by gary "mal" woodford.
this was the witt brothers' ride, a tvr vixen (no longer yellow, but a viper red), which they hoped would take them to the AP nationals trophy. in 1996, greg managed to take fifth in FP, the last trophy position. scott had some problems, and only managed twelfth. however, scott redeemed himself in 1997 by finishing second in AP behind ron babb's lotus elan. the vixen's got potential, when it doesn't break. i've driven this car, and the only word that comes to mind is awesome.
cathy is my idol. okay, one of them. she started autocrossing
in the fall of 1996, after five or so years of racing a ministock car at langley
speedway in southeast virginia. she picked right up on autocrossing -- at
the nashville prosolo2, she was the top ladies club qualifier, and at the
harrisburg prosolo2, she won the club challenge (over rocket scientist
vince bly
). she and her husband barry had a little rivalry going on, but fortunately
he rarely ran the 968 (which was owned by terry baker
, now by polly and r.l. mitchell). terry let him run a CS 924S (red) last
year against tim aro
, which kept his ego small. ;) cat finished first in ASL at the Solo II
National Championships in 1997 and co-claimed the first timer award. barry
finished midpack in CS.
speaking of egos.... this is multi-time national champion dean sapp in his ride for 1997, a dodge viper that was classified in ASP (ISP in prosolo2). i don't know what he really thought of this car, but i do know that this was the first time in about ten years that he'd been competing in a car that was downright uncompetitive. considering he regularly ran against much smaller, more agile cars -- such as rex carle's lotus elan -- he was either crazy or thought that eventually the setup on the viper would overcome its size. in 1996, he ran in jeff fields ' GS camaro. he lost to john hayes by less than a tenth at the 1996 nationals. he has past championships in FS ('94, '98), and GS ('92). he gave up on the viper during the '97 Nationals -- after a less than admirable first day, he finished friday's runs in an RX7 and was 12th in ASP. in 1998 year, dean returned to FS in a '98 firebird, but is currently driving a '01 bullitt mustang.
hal drives his vw gti pretty hard, as you can see in
this picture. he regularly places high in the PAX standings, which equalize
the times of cars as different as hal's vw and dean's viper. notice the dent
on the front fender? it happened just before this picture was taken, when
a wheel came off of a formula 440, bounced across the road dividing this lot
and the paddock lot, and hit his car. the wheel bounced off the hood too,
leaving a backward imprint of "EYDOO" from the 440's goodyear tires.
roger drives one of the more awesome looking and sounding
cars i've seen -- a corvette zr1. he got a c5 in the fall of 1997, but still
campaigns the zr1 on occasion. the zr1 is classified in BSP due to the few
modifications roger has done to the car. the first time i saw this car at
an autocross, i was running right behind him; you never realize how intimidating
335 tires are until you see those steamrollers spinning off the line! i've
driven this car, too, and the power is unbelievable -- even in "valet" mode,
it would walk away from the camaro.
greg is one of the "senior" members of blue ridge region.
he autocrosses anything he can get his hands on -- he used to have an MGB
and he will also run his formula vees (yes, he has more than one). this is
his old vee, which is now campaigned at summit point by glenn tupper, son
of perennial regional winner bob tupper. it's a caldwell c4. he also has
a vista, and he just bought a car from tim rooney at the double MARRS event
in 1997. he's not as much into the autocrossing as he used to be before the
road racing, but you've got to make a commitment to one or the other if you
ever want to get truly good.
jim michaels is the guy who indirectly got me interested in autocrossing by introducing my ex to it. here he is running his old AS porsche 911. he bought an RS America package 911, which he will be running in ASP. i think he was happy to hear that roger garrett 's car was reclassed to BSP right after he bought the new car.
matt was a student at virginia tech, and finally graduated in 1998! he worked for gm in michigan, but is currently with joe gibbs racing (yes, the nascar team). this is his old ride, a 1989 saleen mustang, which ran BSP. after driving my car last year, he decided that the saleen sucks, and he wanted to buy a 1998 z28. he took deliver of the teal z28 in june 1998 and ran it at the evansville national tour. he even let me run his car at a blue ridge regional event in april 1999, and was surprised that i beat him by 0.5 in his own car. ;)
neil ran in ITS with this 240Z before 1998. that was one of his better years, with the car making it through the entire season in one piece. since 1998, though, he's been running a spec rx-7, and doing even better -- winning at four marrs races in 1998 and qualifying on the pole too!
alex tziortzis was the scourge of illinois area FS drivers. here, he is pictured in his 1994 black camaro Z28 which he sold to gary krichbaum of the blue ridge region. he had a '98 camaro -- black, of course -- that looks just like this, only with a different "nose." his latest toy is a 2002 z06 corvette. alex finished second in FS at the 1997 national championships after a screaming north course run. known for his conekilling talents, he was calling all the shots at nationals -- he said no cones on the south course, and he had no cones. he said one cone on the north course, and he only had one cone there. how do you pronounce that last name, you ask? per schroeder (HS celica) best described it as "swordfish." ;)
this is just a little picture of a little car driven
by a guy who doesn't know the meaning of the word "quit." mikey came down
to the 1997 pennsylvania state championships (from buffalo) to run as the
only non-neon in DS. guess who won, despite being an underdog? get mike in
a car that has a suspension, and watch out! and it just might happen now,
since he "retired" the nx2000 at the end of '97, and is currently running
an mr2 in ES.
john is the one of the next wave of neon drivers -- and i sincerely hope that other people start noticing how fast he really is. after all, john ryan is living proof that a neon can be fast and have a muffler!!! john's a very gung-ho driver; he's fast, but he's cone-happy. he's working on that part, and i think once he's cleaned up his runs, he's going to be a serious force to reckon with, as evidenced by the fact that he's beat mark chiles (1997 DS national champion) before, and was second at the 1999 harrisburg prosolo.
this is my brother's 1979 camaro z28. he bought this
in 1992 as a toy and his daily driver. it's now strictly a toy, since its
gas mileage would drive him to the poorhouse if he actually commuted in it.
since tinkering with the latest version of the engine he's put in it, the
car has run mid-12s at 75-80 dragway. he's currently working on yet another
engine to try to get it into the high 11s. he also owns a ragged out 1968
camaro z28 that may one day grace the lovely roads of maryland as well. ;)
this is dave cole, in his 1997 car -- a turbo trans am, which was classified in FS at the beginning of the season. while it was relatively quick, and he did win the columbus pro, i don't think it was as quick as he (or kevin youngers, who also bought one) thought it was going to be. dave finished 5th at the 1996 nationals in the car sam strano now drives, and he finished 9th in 1997 in what was arguably a tougher FS class. dave was very helpful on friday at the 1997 nationals, walking the north course with me and pointing out exactly where i should be in the turns by indicating things that could be seen easily from the car. thanks, dave! dave has since sold this car, and bought a dark blue 1998 camaro, which first surfaced at the 1998 harrisburg pro. below is the new beast at the 1998 northeast divisionals. you can't miss it -- it's the yellow wheels, which dave is currently harassing pat salerno about.... something regarding a copyright infringement.... ;)
vince has one of the coolest paint jobs on his car of any car i've seen. this picture does not do the brilliant copper color justice. vince has had up-and-down years the last few, but one of the 1997 highlights was making it to the final round of the harrisburg prosolo club challenge, before losing to cathy strathmann . he now is running the new Street Touring class with a teal Honda Prelude, and is looking to take an STS championship!
this is one of my former students' cars, which he begged me to put on my website. ;) jon's mustang allegedly runs mid-to-low 13s at the dragstrip, but it usually can be found exactly where it's sitting in this picture -- the driveway! i look forward to running against him at the drag strip!
jeff fields' camaro was the v6 variety, and a very quick
one at that. he was one of those favored to win GS at nationals in 1997,
and took several firsts in both national tour and prosolo2 events throughout
1997. this is also the car that dean sapp
drove in 1996. jeff sold this car at the beginning of
1999, and is currently a "free agent," running jen wilson's SS RX7 at
the harrisburg prosolo and jean kinser's ES neon at the petersburg prosolo.
terry baker
we call terry "mr. car du jour," for a reason. this is just one of the cars he ran in the 1998 season, in addition to a 1998 camaro in FS. mid-season he also bought a 1991 camaro that he is currently building for ESP. in 1997, he ran a porsche 968. in 1996, it was a bmw 3-series. in 1999, it's a bmw z3 coupe in AS/P4, though the draw of FS may be too great for him to resist an FS ride at the 1999 nationals. most recently, he is building a bmw to run in SM.
marcus is from the detroit region scca, home of scandals and other such fun (at least according to dennis grant and jim crider!). this picture is from the 1999 petersburg pro, where marcus very kindly let me run his newest beastly creation, this 1994-98 mustang cobra "r" in ESP. this car has the 351 that the cobra r uses, and is prepped to cobra r specs right down to the missing rear seat. in 1998 and previous years, marcus ran a red new-gen mustang in ESP, and in 1997 he shared that car with chris lindberg.
i met scott at a blue ridge rally that he drove down for with his co-driver steve liebl. this is his old rally car, which bit the dust sometime after this picture was taken (not with him driving!). he now owns, among other things, a white firebird that he uses for autocross and some track events, a gmc typhood and a z24 wagon that he "created".
this is shannon's beautiful little subaru impreza
rs, before he inadvertently went offroading with it. he did get it fixed,
but as a poor college student, has found the car a little too expensive to
keep. the blue ridge region GS competitors breathed a collective sigh of relief
at this news, as shannon regularly stomped the class even on street tires.
randy started autocrossing with this 2.3l mustang in HS. Now it runs in Prepared! since he's started runnning this car, he's moved to connecticut and back to virginia, and has added a lot to the car as well as to his driving skills. besides autocross, he takes this car to track events.
eric and fred heller
the hellers' corvette has appeared in grassroots motorsports
magazine, and if you've seen the article, you know it "goes like heller."
;) fred bought it off a used car lot a couple of years ago, and since then
has improved steadily plus pulled eric (his son) into the autocross scene
as well. in the past year, however, eric has felt another pull -- that little
red car behind the corvette is his roadracing ride. he is currently working
on getting the car set up and getting his competition license. look for eric
in T1 next year.
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