They're baaaack Autox 2006 # 1 by Liam Dwyer

The Saturday's of last minute preperation and Monday morning boastings have officially begun for drivers with the Connecticut Autocross and Rally Team. April 19th marked the first points event of the season and saw over one hundred drivers take to the wheel. The weather more than cooperated and Event Chair Matt Cummings laid out a course that required patience and proper car placement over power and speed.

It started where the non points finished two weeks ago. The start bent slight left before dropping into a quick 3 cone slalom. You exited the slalom with the last cone to your right, then dove into a 90deg Chicago box that brought you half way up the left side of the lot before turning into the center. You went through an intersection box then started a 270 degree decreasing radius left hander. The exit of the left hander was a jog right with a quick straight before you had to scrub off a lot of speed for a tight 180deg left hander. This 3 turn sequence was one of the keys for turning a quick lap. If you entered the last left hander too far to the inside you had to scrub off too much speed. This corner required patience and keeping your right foot off the loud pedal. But try as they might, drivers in the morning tried defying this and pushed and drifted their way around this corner. Another straight led you to a 180 degree right hander that brought you into 3 offset gates then into the finish. You had to scrub speed early, keep a tight line and again be patient with getting on the gas. The first offset gate, made the right hander tighter than it seemed. If you tried putting the power down early, you pushed wide and ruined your rhythm for the next two offsets. If you held a tight line and again delayed application of the loud pedal you were rewarded with 2 quick jogs before diving into the finish.

The two Street Mod classes have been combined and the Street Touring classes have been combined. To go along with that, stock class has become more 'arrive and drive' friendly with a new rule of street tires only, being implemented. Any person in stock class running r comps was moved to Street Prepared. These rule changes saw bigger classes and more competition with some of the underdogs coming out on top.

In A Stock, Liam Dwyer was bumped from BS. He didn't let that stop him as he made his last run a hero run, enabling him to come from behind and pull the class win. Eric Carlson and Joe Solury finished .25 seconds back, respectively, in Corvettes. C Stock saw a bit of an upset as Charlie Aucion just whooped up on Jim Duphiney. You can actually see the question marks falling out of Jim's ears as Charlie kept getting faster. Matt Cummings took the win in a huge class of G stock cars. His GTI bested the Mini's of Brad Snow and John Westermann. Matt was seen leaving timing trailer after all of Brad and John's runs. Nobody claims to have seen him do anything, but an investigation is in place.

B Street Prepared saw bunch of B stock and A stock cars on R comps get moved into it because of the new tire rule. That didn't faze Jeff Guerrera none as he dominated his was to a 1.2 second win and FTD. Brian Elzin nipped Keith Scala but just over .1 seconds for 2nd place. C Street Prepared saw quite the upset with Joe Barbato being moved out of C stock but still beating the likes of Tom Bracci and Paul O. All wasn't good for Joe as he watched faster times being posted by Tom, but Tom couldn't make those runs clean, thus giving Joe the win.

F Street Prepared was won by Joe Rathbun in his Neon. Good thing because I don't think any of us wanted to hear the Skibisky family argument if father Joe won the class beating son Matt. As it was, Joe still showed his son the fast way around and beat him for 2nd place, with Matt finishing right behind in 3rd. X prepared was a bump class for all sorts of cars. Dennis Polio's Stingray was sitting .005 seconds back behind Joerg Bode's Fiero with one run remaining. Dennis did some awesome driving and was able to find just enough time and steal the class win from Joerg by .04 seconds. Sitting over a second behind them for 3rd was Jim Jaffe in his turbo Miata. Bob Doiron in his hissing Fiero finished 4th ahead Tom Mak, Greg Cullen and Noah Perkins rounded out the class.

C prepared could develop into a class this year. Ray Covino, last years CP champ, took the class win over Dan Koch's 98 Mustang. Ray's co-driver Matt Teicholz finished 3rd ahead of Marc Boerma's Mustang. Dan coned his best run which opened the door for Ray to take the class win. Glad to hear you got home ok. A mod saw Eric Gebhardt in his no bodied Miata take the win. Eric had his hands full in his first run, but changes through out the day enabled him to stay ahead of Chris Zelle's MR2 and Warren Elliott's Audi.

The combination of all the Street Tire classes lead to a total of 12 ST'A' entries. The STU cars of Jake Namer and Doug Perkowski finished on top with Jake's Sti beating Doug's Evo. Yury (you spell that last name) co drove Jake's Sti to third just nipping Mark Daddio's Neon. SM'A' had Nick Fandacone's name over it all day. His 350z finished ahead of Bob Pielli's deceptively fast Mini and Justin Baltrucki's S/C Miata.

Justin Osserman took the win in XN with his S2000. His 37.495 run was good enough to take a 2+second win. Nick Schriver in his Bow Tie Cavalier reigned superior in YN over the Blue Oval Focus co driven by Jason Borden and Ken Labadie. In Z Novice, Jake Stevens' edgy Z4M lead the way over Anthony DeFelice's 350z.

Thanks to everyone for coming out. The next event is May 3rd again at Rowley Spring. We are looking for an event chair for that day. If you have a course in mind or would like to chair, email Liam at ldstang50@yahoo.com.