CART Autocross # 6 July 12,2009

Sunday July 12th, the Connecticut Autocross and Rally Team held its sixth autocross of the season at Rowley Springs in Bristol, CT. Eighty-nine drivers showed up on what turned out to be a very rare sunny and warm day. Erica Bonomi was the event chair and laid out a very nice flowing course that called for speed maintenance and patience.

The course started on the right side of the lot with a 4 cone slalom out of the slalom you turned hard left and swept partly over the back of the lot then down into an oval shaped skid pad. One lap around the skid pad to abuse the right side tires was enough before you exited onto the left side of the lot. You were able to gather speed before sweeping 180deg left hander brought you back up into the center of the lot. The key here as carrying speed into the corner but scrubbing it off early to make a 180deg right hander that lead into the finish. The finish was set up so that no one could try to make up time by getting aggressive with their right foot. The course sounds simple but with the changes in surface and slightly offset gates, numerous runs were off course or coned.

In the stock classes, fast time went to Charles Aucoin in his C stock 99 Miata. Congrats Charlie and good driving. Charles’ son Jason borrowed his dad’s car and took 2nd in C stock. In A stock another codriven father son car sat on top, but this time it was the son getting the best of dad. Dave Williamson beat father John in their Subaru Sti to take top class time. In B stock, a bit of an upset occurred as Liam coned away and went off course to give Yaro Taeger his first class win of the season. Doug Perkowski drove Liam’s 350z and was able to keep it clean and beat the owner for 2nd place in BS. In GS, Matt Cummings continued his dominance of the class by taking a 1.5second win over John Westermann.

In B Street Prepared, Jimmy Velgot lead the way in his 06 Sti. Jimmy almost gave it away by coning every run except for his last. He was able to keep it clean and fast on his fifth and final run which allowed him to beat a very large BSP field. Brian Elzin finished second three tenths back while Joe Solury finished in third. CSP saw the closest battle of the day and FTD. Quinn Kizis set the bar low on his 4th run and thought he had it locked when Austin Golankiewicz came out of nowhere and bested Kizis’ time by just .01 seconds. Golankiewicz’s time held as Kiziz couldn’t get faster on his last run giving him his first FTD and class win. Andy Breault finished second, just .063 seconds ahead of Paul O. Kevin Shea finally had somewhat of a class to run in, albeit a bumped class. The Joe and Joe show from FSP was bumped to DSP. Their front wheel drives couldn’t quite keep up with Shea’s rear wheel drive 240sx as he went on to a three quarters of a second win.

Jim Jaffe earned another class win in X prepared as his turbo charged Miata was able to hold off Tom Cavuoto’s Z06. John Santos was second followed by Greg ‘Always Getting Bumped’ Cullen. C prepared saw an extremely close battle between the Ray Covino and Marc Boerma. Ray showed he was consistently fast running three timed runs all at 36.1seconds. All runs were good enough to keep Boerma at bay, but that’s not to say it wasn’t close. Boerma on his last run looked like he had put it together but the time showed otherwise, try as he might, he couldn’t catch that 4 banger and lost by .027seconds. F prepared was the usual business….Joerg Bode on top Bob Doiron behind him. Maybe if Bob spent less time entertaining his multiple personalities he could atleast make an attempt to catch Joerg.

Chris Zelle was bumped to AM from DM in his MR2. He also decided it was time to drive and lay done some quick times. Chris held FTD for most of the day until those CSP Miata’s starting figuring it out. Zelle missed FTD by .03 seconds but still came away with a class win. In STA, Eric Lanzl earned the class win in dominating fashion. James Reinle finished second in his Civic. SMA was again lead by Nick Fandcone. Fandacone finished 4th in the FTD battle. Justin Baltrucki put the pressure on Nick all day but couldn’t quite get over that hump. He finished second a quarter second behind.

In the novice classes, Brad Hartl earned the XN win in his 01 Legacy. Tim Brodeur held second place in his 02 Celica. YN had David Motta’s name on top as he beat fellow BMW driver Sidney Chang by 1.7seconds. And ZN was two entries with Vito Stote’s 88 Porsche 911 beating James Motta’s 03 Jag.

Next autocross is in Hartford Sunday July 26th.