CART Autocross Hartford CT 7/26/09 Going in circles

Welcome to LAZ Parking Lot in Hartford, CT, home of punctured tires from nails, screws, broken beer bottles and the remains of glass from cars previously parked and broken into. Sunday July 26th was our first date back at this downtown location and warm sunny weather brought out 80 different drivers to run through the cones. Nick Fandacone took the reins and was the event chair. He came up with an idea that SCCA uses on a National Events weekend. Do three runs on one course then three runs on another and combine the times, the driver with the lowest combined times wins. Because of the size of the lot, the second course would actually be the first course run backwards but with a slightly different ending for safety reasons.

The first course started with a hard 90 degree right that lead into a long left hand sweeper. The sweeper brought you to an optional three cone slalom. Everyone kept the first cone to their right which made the slalom a quick offset. Taken correctly, it was a continued left hander that brought you down the opposite side of the lot into a turn-around-Chicago-box. Most drivers downshifted to first here. Once through here you went partially back up into the center of the lot for a long sweeping right hander that tightened up at the end. Scrub speed early because a hard left hander followed by a pointer cone to the right brought you into the finish. Many runs were toasted here as drivers tried to carry speed but ended pushing thier way through here and getting offline and behind the car.

The second course was the first course backwards but about two to three seconds slower than original design. The finish was changed for safety the sweeping right hander tightening up at the end before breaking off to the left into the finish. The adding of the times together and only 3 runs made for a very interesting day. Some leads that were had after the morning runs couldn’t be held due to cones or other people just getting that much faster.

B-stock was combined with A-stock to form a 5 car class. Ammonis Lampkin’s Evo had the lowest combined times as Liam Dwyer, who finished 2nd in his Z, coned away his best runs on both courses. In D-stock, Jim Duphiney (bumped from E stock) had the lowest time by almost 2seconds beating out John Akin's Speed3. In G stock Matt Cummings earned the class win. Things weren’t easy for Cummings as he was given a run for raw time on the first course and was actually beaten by Martine Duran for raw time on the second course. But none of Cummings competitors could put fast runs together on both courses giving him another class win. In BSP Brian Elzin used his first course raw time to hold off Claude and Jim Matons’ Porsche Cayman. CSP was lead by two stock class cars on r-compounds, Joe Barbato (from C stock) and Pat Huxley (from H stock). Barbato made it look easy taking a two-plus second class win. Huxley on the other hand had to hold off CSP regular Chris DiFiore for second place ultimately beating him by two tenths of a second. In FSP, Matt Skibisky went into the afternoon with a two tenths lead over Joe Rathbun. Rathbun was fast and clean, Skibisky was slower and dirty. Skibisky couldn’t keep it together for any of his runs and handed Rathbun the class victory. X-prepared was once again a bump class for Super Stock, F-Prepared and B-Prepared. And once again, Tom Mak lead the way, this time in his own car. Mak had the fastest time on both courses and had FTD after the morning session but wasn’t able to maintain the pace in the afternoon. He held on for the class win and third in FTD. Joerg Bode was able to hold off Dennis Polio for second place. C-Prepared saw Ray Covino lay the smack down on Marc Boerma. Covino had fast class time on both courses by about two seconds leaving Boerma to settle for second place. E-Prepared finally had a class of its own at Dewey Tsang (recently moved from CSP) was bumped from D-Prepared. Brian Mongillo’s Datsun 510 held a slim .15 second lead over Greg Cullen in the morning. He opened that up in the afternoon and posted an eight-tenths of a second win.

In A-mod Eric Gebhardt once again made the trip from New Jersey and this time brought a friend, Bruce Buchner. They co-drive Gebhardt’s “Miata” aka The Beast. Gebhardt was second fastest in the morning and fastest the morning, combining the times not only gave him a class win over his co-driver, but also his first FTD. Chris Zelle, who was in contention for FTD last week, was a bit off the pace this weekend, but he was still able to put together quick runs on both courses and take home the D-Mod class win. STA saw its lowest turnout of the season but it was still the closest battle for position. Scott Murray didn’t post a fast time on either course, but was able to stay close enough to the front and earn his first win of the season. Tom Lough sat seven tenths off the leader after the morning and in fourth place, moved all the way up to second by posting the fastest afternoon time. Art Desrosiers held onto third while James Reinle finished fourth.

Reinle was fastest in the morning but couldn’t drop his time to the more powerful STI’s. He finished in fourth place. SMA had Nick Fandacone on top again and the one second win looks easy. But in the morning, Nick had his hands full keeping second place finisher Phil Mackaronis behind him. After the morning session, Mackaronis was less then one tenth off Fandacone’s time. But in the afternoon, Mackaronis couldn’t keep pace and finished one second back. Justin Baltrucki was third in his supercharged Miata.

Joe Kolomyjec was introduced to auto-x by fellow XRT4-Ti driver, Ray Covino. Kolomyjec didn’t let Covino down as he posted fast times on both courses and took the Y Novice win. Ryan King drove his girlfriends beautiful MR2 to a Znovice win. King was third after the morning session barely ahead of fourth place, but he was the only one in class to keep his afternoon runs clean thus earning the class win. Thank you to all for coming out. Our next event is August 9th back at LAZ.