CART Autox at Rowley Spring by Liam Dwyer

On Sunday July 11th CART held its seventh autocross of the season at Rowley Spring in Bristol with Bob Johnson taking his stab at being the Event Chair. Seventy-three drivers took part in the event and tried to master a course laid out by Jim Duphiney. Duphiney’s course was a bit more open then the course two weeks ago. It started with a wide 4 cone slalom, and making a left hand bend at the top of the lot for 2 more slalom cones before making a 270 degree decreasing radius left hander and switching back hard right and coming down along the slalom. A skid pad 1.5 lap skid pad kept drivers in check before exiting out on the left side and making a left bend to a right kink finish. The skid pad was a test of patience for drivers with many during the day pushing too hard on exit and plowing into cones or getting off line for the left hander before the finish. The course at first favored agile cars then after the return down towards the front it switched to cars with big tires and lots of grip. The course was a good combination of both and ‘leveled’ the playing field for all. On top of a level playing field, great clear sunny weather shone done on the event all day ensuring everyone had dry runs.

Tom Cavuoto showed up and by merely paying and completing one run, took home another SS class win. In B stock, it was STi vs STi, or gray hair vs gray hair. Jim Armstrong fooled many of us this year into thinking he was taking an early retirement. Turns out he was just applying for early AARP membership. Armstrong finished just behind John Williamson in B stock. In C stock, Tom Mak took another class win in his 370z. Tom laid down an impressive 38.1 pass and took almost a full 2 second class win. John Westermann earned another D stock win this time out pacing fellow Cooper S driver Tom Duran. A great battle took place in E stock with course designer Duphiney against the England father and son duo. Going into 5th and final runs it was John W in front with a 40.429 followed closely by Duphiney with a 40.715 and John E with a 40.761. Duphiney improved to a 40.620, still shy of first in class, John W took a full seven tenths off dropping to a 39.7 and John E kept his composure and posted a 40.528, just nipping Duphiney for second place.

In BSP, Liam Dwyer threw on his r compounds and took a shot at the class. Seems Dwyer got tired of losing to Mak in his 370z. Dwyer had a tire warmer with Chris Roddy and posted an early time of 37.795. Dwyer couldn’t get faster and each and every pass he watched in fear when the Maton’s Cayman and the village bicycle would line up. Lucky for Dwyer his time held for the class win with father Jim Matons taking second just .019 seconds back. Paul Omichinski showed up again and used the excuse the dog ate my car to drive Kevin FitzMaurice’s Miata again. Paul is so addicted to Miata’s he went out and bought one himself. FitzMaurice lost the chance at a class win due to his generosity as Omichinski posted a very impressive 38.1 second run to take another class win. In ESP, Mark Eastwood will be ashamed he didn’t show up as he would have actually had a class to run in. Instead it was Chris St. Mary’s GTO taking on the 95 Mustang GT driven by Bob and Rob Johnson. Father Bob came in with all the confidence seeing as he has ALL this experience driving RWD while son Rob has pretty much only driven FWD. St. Mary checked out early and let the family battle take place. Times were close after run number 1 with dad catching a cone. Run two saw dad clean up and the son make his best Whirlpool impression. Run three, the son handed Dad a Skip Barber driving school card as he posted a time Dad would only dream of, and then to add insult to agonizing injury ran faster on his last run. The Dad went home limping, probably crying himself to sleep and wondering, “What do I have to do to beat him?” Sorry Bob, you’re best chances of winning were taken away with the keys to the Fusion. In FSP, Greg Cullen took another class win and Matt Skibisky narrowly missed being DFL.

X-prepared was a very large class on Sunday with 11 cars in it. There were many inner class battles taking place that could easily be looked over. First, a congratulations is in order to John Santos first not only taking the class win, but his first FTD with an impressive time of 37.1 seconds. Jumping to second on his last run was Andy Breault in his over- tired MR2. Bob Doiron was second for most of the time until Breault’s hero run. Doiron does get the satisfaction of beating Joerg Bode once again. Speaking of Bode, and the other X-prepared drivers, the middle of the pack had a great battle. Fourth to eighth place was separated by less than eight tenths of a second. Before going into final runs, Bode was sitting in fourth some six tenths ahead of Dewey Tsang’s Miata. Tsang sat in 5th, Matt Cummings Merkur in sixth, Adam Nogiec in seventh and Covino in eighth. Those 4 drivers were separated by one tenth of a second. Cummings could feel his first points victory over fellow Merkur driver, Covino. Nogiec was feeling pretty good as this was only his second time driving since spending time over in the Far East. Cummings went to bat and dropped another tenth putting a lot of pressure on Covino. Covino was able to put it together and vault from eighth up to fourth passing Bode at that point, but Bode was able to get quicker and secure his fourth place spot. Tsang couldn’t take the heat and not only got slower but coned away his last run and Nogiec couldn’t find any time. The results after last runs were Covino fifth, Cummings sixth, Tsang seventh and Nogiec eighth.

Eric Lanzl made another appearance in STA and earned another class win. Scott Murray was second in his STi. Nick Fandacone drove a red 350z to another SMA class win. Nick only needed three runs and had FTD in Dwyer’s car until Santos found his line.

Imran Dandia was your Y-novice winner in a Miata. Father and son duo John and Chris Rivera battled it out for the z-novice win in a 350z. Chris was in the lead heading to final runs but couldn’t find any more time. John found just enough on his last run to take the class win.

Thank you all for coming out. CART's next event is Monday July 19th at Monticello. The next autocross is July 25th in Bristol.