CART Autox # 2 April 18,2010 by Liam Dwyer

Like MLB baseball, CART’s autocross season starts in April. The winter training with GT4, Forza 3, go-karts and tweaking over the winter are at hand this time of year. The first event always brings out the possibility of new challengers and the first chance for those challengers to see how they stack up against their competition.

The SCCA made some big changes this year with classification of cars that is bound to shake things up. B Stock was moved down to the C stock cars, so the RX8s, M3s and 350z’s are now running against the Pontiac Solstice’s and Mazda Miata’s The Mini Cooper was moved up D stock and SCCA introduced a new class this year called STR or Street Touring Roadster. All these changes came to a head at CART’s first event of the year on April 18th at Rowley Springs in Bristol. Mother Nature cut the drivers a break in keeping the day dry and allowing the sun to peak its head through for a while. With 3 other events being run on the same down, the turnout was very low which allowed all drivers to get 6 timed runs and fun runs. Nick Fandacone was at the helm of the days events. Jim Duphiney went and set out a ‘two-lap’ course that was very fast but had two very technical ‘patient’ spots. The course started up simply enough with a straight launch to the back right of the lot. You were hard on the binders for a left hander that decreased its radius before allowing you to get back on the gas for a short straight that brought you down almost towards the start. The course made a 90 degree right, then really tightened up making another right before allowing the driver to get back on the gas. This second right hander required patience, if you tried making up time by coming in hot, you pushed wide, if you got on the gas early you snap over-steered killing any momentum you may have had. You then shot back over to the top right of the lot through the same left hander you first went through when you started. Instead of tightening up and heading back to the center of the lot, you stayed up top and accelerated over to the top left side of the lot where the course again bent left. Get the car rotated through here so the car is set up for the right right-left finish. The last two corners of the course required patience; braking early, not being abrupt with the gas. Those that were patient were rewarded with fast times, those that tried driving hard, scrubbed speed with an under-steering car or took out cones at the last gate.

The new C-stock saw a bit of revenge from last week where Tom Mak (370z) was able to put together 2 good runs at the end of the day and beat Liam Dwyer(350z) for the class win. Yaro Taeger (M3) was two tenths back in 3rd. After this event, C-stock looks to be a very interesting class with 3 different cars capable of winning any given week and all drivers at one point within a total of two tenths of each other. G stock saw Alex Lippay make a rare appearance. With the Mini being moved to D stock, no longer will you see Brad Snow’s name at the top of the leader board here. Lippay’s Mazdaspeed Protégé beat out Jui-Lin Chang’s Speed Protégé for the class win.

In Street Prepared, the Village Bicycle had a driver that took down Joe Solury. Brian Elzin sat two tenths off Solury’s time for most the day when Solury came out on his 5th run and dropped eight tenths off his best time. Elzin had already taken his 5th run and needed to drive his tail off, which he did. Elzin smoked the course with a 33.127 second run. Solury went out for one last shot and could do no better, giving Elzin the round one victory. Elzin was second in FTD. C-Street Prepared saw another tremendous battle between class champion Paul Omichinski and the Bridesmaid Chris DiFiore. Omichinski drew first blood as DiFiore shot himself in the foot coning away what would have been a .007 second win. FSP was lead by AARP card member Joe Rathbun. Rathbun beat up on the father son duo of Joe and Matt Skibisky, both driving the younger Skibisky’s Cobalt with the son taking the family victory.

The Prepared Categories saw new and old faces. C Prepared was lead by the defending champ Ray Covino. Covino will have a battle this year with Matt Cummings retiring his GTi from autocross duties and sinking his money into something older and requiring more maintenance than Paris Hilton and Kate Gosselin combined. F prepared, not only the home of Fiero’s, but also the home of borrowing friends cars and contortionists. Bob Doiron worked on his red Fiero all winter and had it looking sleek and fast; looking being the key word. On Doiron’s first run, the front motor mount decided after 22yrs of hard work (and no sign of retirement coming soon) that it was better to go on disability. The front motor mount broke, leaving Doiron yet another project to do on his car. Fortunately good friend and FP class champion of the past……decade, Joerg Bode, was nice enough to toss Doiron the keys. Bode was already lending his car to Bob Nogiec. All three drove the car with the car owner taking the class win.

In the Modified Classes, Warren Elliott brought out his monster Audi and laid claim to the class beating Bill Evans Fiero by over two seconds. In Street Touring All, Scott Murray, last years class runner up earned the win. Murray looks to be the class favorite this year with last years champion, Tom Lough, moving to Street Modified. Speaking of the SM class, anyone want to take guess who won? Picking up where he left off last year, Nick Fandacone is again the man to beat. Fandacone’s 34.029 second run was good enough for FTD. Fandacone will have some new challengers this year with Doug Perkowski and aforementioned Tom Lough making the jump up to SM.

Thank you all for coming, our next autocross is May 2nd at LAZ in Hartford. This Wednesday April 21 is the monthly meeting and the MG club is having a rally put on by CART this Sunday April 25th.