Another fun party to end the season! Held at the Loudermilk Center in Atlanta, we had a Toys for Tots drive, a social hour with our friends and a yummy dinner and awards presentation.

Click here for the pictures from the event.

Its been an AWESOME year here in the Atlanta Region! I have been lucky enough to capture nearly all of the points events and post my pictures after each event. This season I have taken over 20,000 pictures and have posted over 10,000 of them online for your enjoyment.

Of those 10,000 pictures posted… I have taken the top 500 and set up a “Year in Review”

 http://picasaweb.google.com/atlantamx3/2009ARSCCAAutocrossYearInReviewHighlights#

Thanks for a wonderful year, folks! I look forward to next season!

2009 ARSCCA Banquet
Annual Awards Banquet & Christmas Party
Date: Saturday 12/12/2009
Time: 6:30pm Social Time
7:30pm-10:00pm Dinner & Awards Presentation
Place: Loudermilk Conference Center
Address: 40 Courtland Street, NE
Atlanta, GA 30303
$20.00 pp
Please make your reservations on line here no later than 12/8/09.
Attire is cocktail party festive

Social 6:30 - 7:30 PM
Dinner followed by Awards, starts at 7:30
Open Bar Included - Beer, Wine & Soft Drinks Only
Tea/Coffee served with dinner

This is also our annual Marines “Toys for Tots” Christmas Event.
Please bring a new, unwrapped toy for a special child in need.

Your reservation must be received no later than Tuesday, Dec 8th
You may also MAIL reservations or call the office (770) 455-7222)
Mail to: Atlanta Region SCCA
3783 Presidential Parkway, Suite 120
Atlanta, GA 30340
Make checks payable to : Atlanta Region SCCA

Charge is $20 each for members and guests.
Children under 12 are free.

Please join us at the El Azteca on Roswell Road in Sandy Springs - 7:30ish - ???? on Saturday, May 30th. Let Joyce Ann know if you’ll be attending and how many will be in your party so she can give the restaurant a fairly accurate headcount.

View Larger Map

by Tom Shuman

Points #2 was held at Turner Field on April 5th, 2009. With 173 drivers registered and 20 novices it was going to be a full day for Team Solo. A factor to possibly pinch us for time during the day was daylight savings; the sunrise at 7:30 was a bit later than we were used to. But more importantly, the weekend weather had been looking a bit sketchy as to whether it would be dry or if the low temperatures would play a role in the event. Luckily the rain stopped Saturday night, but the temps would be quite low for autcrossing, hovering in the mid 40’s for most of the day. Team Solo does everything from timing and set-up, to tearing down after the event and everything inbetween to keep the event running. The faithful minions of this all-volunteer group began to show up shortly after 6:00 am, the trailer was the next to arrive and the course design and set-up team started to put out cones for the course. We had a volunteer, Mark Davis, design the course. As an ES trophy winner last year at Nationals, people were expecting a fun, fast course and got it from Mark’s wide-open design. Grid, waivers and electronic equipment were set-up at the same time as the course was laid out. While our ever-diligent head Safety Steward David Steger (CS) was approving the course for walking, morning check in and tech got the event underway. Atlanta Region employs a morning and afternoon session set-up that is also broken down into two run groups per session. The early morning temps never rose because of the wind and lack of sun. It would make the morning session chilly and tires cold. But I say, that as long as it is dry, what the heck. Although most of the course was dry, it seemed like someone was cleaning out the drains on Sunday, as a small river of water four feet across was flowing across the course for about two hours. This was after the course was complete and approved, so we would have to just deal with it. The course was looking good, a medium start left-hander into a 5-6 cone slalom transitioning into a fast sweeper. The next element was a right-hander over some bricks to a downhill left-hander. This was made just a little bit more interesting by the previously mentioned river that passed through the sweeper and into the downhill left-hander. The course next went up to an optional 4-cone slalom; it was never decided as to which way the fastest side was. Brake hard for a downhill off-camber right-hander over some bricks (if you were wide) and up the hill to an open Chicago box. The next element was a left hand turn with an ‘oh crap’ cone (if you went too far), to a fast right hand finish that was a controlled speed area. Too fast would result in cones, and too slow and your times would suffer. It was by everyone’s account a first-class course. Thank you Mark!

The morning session was made up of these classes; Street Prepared (SP), Prepared (P), Modified (M) F125 and Pro class. The first group was ASP, BSP, CSP, DSP, ESP, XP and the always entertaining CP. In ASP Tom Simon held off Susie Merrill (back from a short break from autocrossing, nice to see her back) with his 2005 Corvette to win with a 49.010. Next was BSP with 4 drivers. That was won by Jeremy D in a 2007 Honda S2000 with a time of 48.453, second was Rory Liu in a 2005 Subie STI. Looks like some good competition is brewing as this was the opposite results of Points #1. The next class was CSP, the 2nd biggest class of the first run group. Seems like the Kevin Boswell car is the class of the field so far this year, it is just a matter who is driving the car. Tom Shuman won the class over Kevin with a 45.242. Again, this is opposite of the results of Points #1 (Oh, it’s on, KB!). Next up, DSP, which was won by Mike M in a 1987 Bmw 325e with the winning time of 51.097. Nice to see 4 cars in the class, keep it up. ESP had two cars in class and was won by Kyle F in a 2005 Subie WRX with a 50.206. FSP class made it’s 2009 debut with Peter W in a 1984 BMW 318i with the winning time of 53.613. Next up was XP, surprisingly the biggest class of the morning. It’s a new class where almost anything goes that included seven cars ranging from a Factory Five Cobra to a Lotus Elise. Wayne Van Carhores was out driving and teaching Perry in a 1965 Factory Five Cobra (you are a trusting man, just kidding) who beat Nick T in his 1995 stripped down Mazda Miata with a winning time of 45.782. This is a class to watch for fun. Next the CP boys, with Sean Ittner back on top with a winning time of 50.90, Randy seems to be closing the gap though, better watch out…

Next up was the second run group of the morning session, consisting of EM, EP, DM, FM, F125, SM, SSM, and the uber-fast Pro class. In EP, Lee P won in a 1984 BMW 325e with a time of 49.873 over one other car. DM was three cars strong with the 2007 Caterham Seven winning over Dad and son Januarys (Rick you would have beat Chris if you hadn’t coned all of your runs!) with the time of 51.444. In another class with familial battles, EM went 7 cars deep with the ever-improving Nick (with a 47.499) beating father Russ with a 49.361(you got to be proud!). Stephen Defayette, the points #1 class winner, came in a close third with a 49.664. Look for this class to be a dogfight all year. Next up, once they found their grid spot, was ‘Lawnmowers-R-Us’, better known as FM. I poke fun, but this car is very quick, especially with the drivers we have in the region. They even had a Formula Vee to test themselves against. Steve Brueck was FTD, but not by much. He stated “the cold weather was the factor” but in putting down a “so-so run” the FTD was 42.676. Nice work, pray for sun next time. The lone F125 was next. On a warm day Byron D can hang with FM most of the time, but the cold and the water on the cart were too much, he ran a 50.454 to win. The SM crowd was next, and I do mean ‘crowd’. With 15 drivers, it was the second biggest class of the morning session. First was the 2007 Subie STI, I mean Forrester, of Mike M (winner of points #1) with a 47.829, second was a 1972 Datsun dime driven by Chris C in 49.530. The next seven drivers were all within the same second. AJ Parcon, Wes Stuckey and Perry Bennett (our great photographer for our events) rounded out the top five drivers in SM. SSM had eight, mostly miata drivers. A couple of drivers from last season moved to other classes and some weren’t there this week, so it was wide open, I think it will be that way all year for this class. The drivers that finished 3rd, 4th, and 7th at Points #1 ended up 1st, 2nd and 3rd this time. Mike ‘Faux-hawk’ in the beautiful 2002 titanium Miata won the class at 46.638 followed by Patrick D in a nice red 1991 Miata at 48.499, followed by guess what - a 1997 green Miata driven by Joe T at 50.871.

The last class of the morning session was my favorite to watch, the uber-fast Pro class. Some classes are fast in raw times, but Pro class usually produces the top PAX at every event. It didn’t take long for the fireworks to begin. The class was the largest, with 26 entrants, and has by far some of the best drivers in the Southeast region. As I said before, if you take the top ten finishers, only two haven’t won a national trophy and those two have won tour trophies; can you say ‘deep field’! So, let me also say that the whole field put times in the middle to low 40 second runs. First, with the opening shot of reigning STS National Champ Tim Smith (note these are pax times as it is a pax class) with a 37.124 to take a win over his co-driver Bill Bounds “Thorton” by .188 in the La Fawnda’ Civic, followed by national STS contender Matt Glagola by .046 back in his Sunny D’ yellow Honda CRX. Glagola ran a faster time, but the pax gave the place to Bounds. Fourth place went to Randall P with a smoking fast run in Brian Bell’s BMW, where he took off .5 seconds off on his last run. The 5th place went to multiple national trophy winner Tommy Pulliam in a 2006 S2000. Sixth through tenth place, with only .5 of a sec. separating them all, were as follows; Paul Barros, Rick Cone, Jim Fossum, Chris Raymond, and David Carroll. Pro Class uses a 3-run format to prepare them for national events, where this is the norm. It is interesting to note that the winner of Points #1 finished up Points #2 in 14th position, which shows you must ‘bring it’ every time in this class. A person I know once said” If you can win in Atlanta, you can win anywhere”, the Pro class results seem to back up that remark. Junior karts were run inbetween rounds of runs of the cars in the morning. The karting class had three drivers with Corrie Smith getting the better of her rivalries with a winning time 64.014. We should be proud as a region for the fine karting program we have in Atlanta.

We had a small break for afternoon check-in and a novice meeting and then were back up and running for the afternoon session. This session was for stock classes AS, BS, CS, DS, ES and the street-tired classes of ST, STS, STX, and STU. We started with a one person class of SS. The class seems to be down on entries, but it is because it has many entries in the Pro class. Tim C won SS with a time of 50.245 in a 2006 Lotus Elise. BS was next with a 2000 BMW Roadster winning with a 50.468, driven by Carl D. Next came CS, which I will go out on a limb and say the winner of this class will be REAL hard to beat all year. Wayne Walter in his 2000 MR-2 Spyder won the class of six entrants with a smoking time of 45.384, followed by his co-driver Ben Credle with a 47.047. Next up for the afternoon was DS, with 7 entries. It seems Jim B has the 2008 Mazda MS3 running well to take the class at 49.339 for his second win of the season in as many events, but it is always competitive all year long. ES action saw Tim Engle switching classes from his HS front-wheel drive to a Miata in ES. Lookout when he gets a handle on this car, you have been warned. His time was a 50.345, good for never haven driven the car. Something maybe just funny, but is FS going ‘high class’? We seem to be going from Camaros and Mustangs to CLK Mercedes and SC 400 Lexus. That’s fine, it just proves you can run anything you can bring! The CLK won for Mauricio F with a time of 52.896. GS with its six entrants, was the last stock class of the afternoon. Peter St.P. (admit it, you’re addicted) won with a time of 48.398, and second place went to Stephen Turner, a longtime Team Solo member that had taken some time away from auto-x. Stephen’s best time on this, the maiden voyage in his new daily driver 2009 Honda Civic (what else!), was 49.816. See, it’s just like riding a bike, nice to see you back, Stephen.

The following street-tire classes had a total of 37 competitors in them, starting with the newly-named, but otherwise the same, ST class. The class was won by recent Dixie tour winner Laura White in the Smith La Fawnda’ civic, with a time of 47.276, followed by the always fast Amy Smith in the same car (48.285). Places 3 to 5 were separated by a total of .4 of a second with Blair C, Cory P and Richard B. Just an observation, we have the fastest group of women drivers of any region, bar none. Some regions have one or maybe two fast women drivers, but between Laura, Meredith, Amy, Jodi, Megan, Corrie and others I would say it is quite a group. It is something to be proud of as a region. The next class, STS, had 6 drivers; the top two making their last runs count with a 50.424 to a 50.848. Deech M drove the ‘Muff-mobile’ beating Austin H in a 1989 Honda CRX. The next class, STX saw Brian Bell seeming to get a handle on his 1997 BMW 328 to take the win with a 46.619 over a pair of la Fawnda drivers Brian Cembor and Jeff Burnett only .074 apart. Patrick D and Cory D wound up in the trophies, only .115 apart from each other. The last class of the day was STU. Marc G took the win over Joey M in an STI vs. STI battle. The winning time was 63.665.

As I close this article I would like to Thank J-Man for coming out and running with us, he is not only a sponsor but a fellow competitor which is always fun to see. We also had a Novice class that was somewhat noteworthy. Besides, it was one of the most fun jobs to do all day, instructing. J Brett and Tim did a great job of lining up 7 Cobras to teach - with this kind of perk I will always sign up as an instructor. Seriously though, they do a great job of teaching and making things fun, as both are former National Champs. The greatest thing to me is to see a novice that comes back to the next event. It means they had fun, and isn’t that what this is all about!

Atlanta Region will be hosting a SoloPro school on May 16th at AMS. There will be 18 spots available and the cost will be $250 per student.

About the Intro Class:

The basic fundamentals are addressed in the Intro class. This class is specially designed to cover the most important components of sound autocrossing techniques and strategies. All students will receive personal instruction from the opening bell until the last lap of the day. Covered in the Intro class are:

course walking strategies
timed runs*
ergonomic considerations
driving mechanics - the hands, feet, and head
an introduction to the psychology of driving and other human factors
Whether you are a first time driver or a seasoned veteran, working on the fundamentals of driving is critical to success. The Intro class is arguably the most important class in our line-up.

More info at:
http://www.soloprodrivingschool.com/

Registration will be open shortly!!!!!

They’re here folks! The 2009 Season Passes are available for purchase on DLB.

2009 Season Pass will include all 10 Points Events, plus the Champion of Champions Event. That is 11 events for the cost of 9…

The Fine Print: All season pass holders are required to be members of the ARSCCA. Season Pass holders will be required to show an active membership card and valid drivers license at the time of purchase. If the season pass is purchased online, buyer must present these items at the first points event attended by the member.

Go to this link to make your purchase:

http://www.dlbracing.com/clubs/register … entID=3782

Greetings,

My name is Meredith Najewicz, and if you don’t know yet I’m the new Solo Chair for Atlanta Region this year. While I’m very excited to be taking over this position, I follow in the footsteps of many great chairs that have made our Region one of the best in the country. 2008 was such a great year for our Region and hopefully we can make 2009 just as wonderful. If you haven’t heard, Atlanta Region is now home to the current STS (well now ST) National Champion, Tim Smith, as well as another round of national trophy winners. While I understand not everyone in our Region competes on the national scene, I do believe its the good competition and camaraderie of our Region that makes it so great and allows for us to grow.

We have another fantastic schedule planned for this year, with 10 points events, two Test and Tunes, two Novice Schools and a Mirrokhana thanks to our site acquisition member, Joel Ferhman. Redline Performance Group has come in again and provided us with sponsorship for the season. Their support has been wonderful over the past year and I am very excited that they have returned to offer us such great support again. While in years past we have hosted our annual DoubleCross Challenge, this year we will be hosting a Mirrokhana in its place. Mirrohkana is the predecessor of sorts to the DoubleCross and is a great way to get members interested in our national ProSolo series. Hopefully in 2010 we will host the DoubleCross again.

Last year our regular points events proved to be extremely popular yet again as we had high attendance at almost all of them. While having high attendance may be a blessing it can also be very demanding on the events and TeamSolo staff. I can’t thank enough all the members of TeamSolo who usually are the first people on site and the last to leave. Please keep in mind that all these folks are volunteers and they still have to change tires, check their oil and get their cars ready as well as make the event run smoothly.

My better half has been kind enough to put some numbers together on how to format our events (he’s lovingly known as “Data” by some members). Due to popular demand we will be returning to the dual “Morning & Afternoon” format of 2007. However we will be making a few changes to old format.

Using data (no pun) from 2008 we have determined how to split the run groups based on past attendance. Classes will be splitting into an A group and a B group. We will start off the year by running A in the morning and B in the afternoon. At points two A and B will switch and so on. However the run order in each of the groups will not be posted until registration. But the classes in A group and B group will never change; members will know if they are running in the morning or afternoon at any given event. This will allow for TeamSolo to make the necessary balances within the two groups to split the run order with the registration numbers so we can have course fully staffed with workers. I believe this is the best comprise between running our events smoothly and giving our members a head’s up on what’s going on and flexibility with their Sundays.

As for our other programs, we will continue to have a PAX based Pro class as well as a novice orientation and Jr Karts. Our Pro class will rotate between the second heat of the morning and the first heat of the afternoon. Junior karts will run with a fixed heat for the rest of the year. We will continue our novice orientation at each event (except for our night event) and we will fix it to afternoon heats. J Brett Howell and Jeff Burnett will be heading up our novice program this year, it’s a big task and help grows our membership.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of our members who have made our program such a success in the past and continue to do so. I look forward to leading the Solo program and am honored that I get to work with such a great Region.

See you out there!

Meredith Najewicz
AR SCCA Solo Chair

Have you ever thought about the idea that the course workers are the most important part of an event?
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