CART autocross # 4 at Siemon Corporation
The sun was shining bright and clear on the park like facility at the Siemon Corporation in Watertown as the Connecticut Autocross and Rally Team met to contest the fourth round of the 2007 season of autocross. After warming up with the previous three events, the club members were primed and ready to go out and have the best event of the year. One hundred competitors, including twenty nine novices registered for the event.
The course engineering team of Pete Day and Paul Omichinski put over 50 years combined motorsports experience, from many genres of competition, to layout the crown jewel course of the year. Faced with a few challenges to overcome, based on the lot configuration, the duo combined speed with precision, accuracy with bravery, coming up with a layout that complemented the beautiful parking lot, and made wonderful use of the smooth, clean pavement.
An appreciative crowd of competitors and bystanders were treated to a first class track layout. The course started with a brief surge of speed, and jinxed right in a 45 degree, late apex turn. A moderately tight slalom combination of left, right, left fed into a sweeping left turn. A decision was needed here: make the turn a large, two hundred seventy degree sweeper, or a series of three lefts connected by short straights. If great car control was your forte, the sweeper was your choice. Beware, if your car twitched in the slightest, it was hard to recover the speed. As you drove out of the series of lefts, the course followed a pivot to the right, and then a speed section, gentle, accelerating serpentine. A tight, brutal right left slalom came next, the toughest section of the event. Bleed speed, go smoothly, accelerate to the finish. Come in too hot, lock the brakes, get a collection of cones. Driver after driver had a good run come to grief as Paul and Pete sprung this trap on them. It was amazing how many times the same people could get caught out by the simple, but effective placing of the cones. If you survived the trap, it was full tilt ahead to the finish, and your first chance to breathe.
In A Stock, the first three positions were also the first three cars in the FTD derby. Joe Solury took another class win and FTD in his Corvette, just beating Pete Day's Evo and Charith Perera's Lancer. Tom Mak's 350Z was fully recovered from his agricultural racing experience at Pocono, winning B Stock over the co driven MR2 of Key Frey and Ramon Cruz. Michael Sargunas in the Cobalt won D Stock by about a second over Bob Sayles in a Maxima. G Stock was an all Mini class, with last year's champ, Brad Snow leading the parade by 1.3 seconds over John Westerman. Luiz Gomez won H Stock in a Jetta, just beating James Reinle' Honda by less just over two tenths of a second.
In Street Prepared, Paul Omichinski's Porsche continued to domintate CSP, beating back a hard challange by Chris DiFiore's MR2. E Street Prepared was old muscle versus new muscle, as Phil Mackaronis' Camaro handily won over Shayne Capers' GTO. F Street Prepared was a lot closer, with the win recored by Matt Cummings' Jetta over Tom Bollettieri's Focus. F Prepared was a familiar story, with Jay Bode leading the Fiero pack over Bob Doiron.
Street Touring S was won by Michael Lodsin's Honda in a move from his normal class, beating Timothy Kong's Subaru RS by less than a second. In Street Modified, the "I's" had it, with James Velgot's STI beating Justin Baltrucki's GTI by a little over the three tenths of a second. Street Mod 2 was another close effort, with Nick Fandacone's 350Z winning against Stephen Gartner's Miata by just over three tenths of a second. Did you know Nick was last year's driver of the year? E Modified was a win by the newly restyled MR2 driven by Chris Zelle, beating Stan Marcewicz's Lotus by less than five hundreths of a second. For the novice classes, YN was won by Rober Pielli Jr. in a Cooper S, XN was won by Jason Brooks in a MR2 and ZN was won by Mark Kirves in an STI.
