CART autox August 10 by Liam Dwyer
August 10, 2008 the Connecticut Autocross and Rally Team held its ninth autocross at LAZ parking in Hartford. The weather forecast called for a chance of thundershowers; the skies remained clear for most of the day with a quick light sprinkle coming for a brief moment early in the afternoon. Erica Bonomi was the event chair and she insured all aspects of the day ran smoothly. She ran a great event and no one would have any qualms about her being in charge again. She was able to get a course set up that allowed for 6 timed runs AND fun runs. And ontop of that, she did this all knowing the lot needed to be vacated for the big trucks and confederate flags by 4pm.
The course started with a quick right hander that opened to a short left hand sweeper before turning in early to a left hand skid pad. After one lap of Saturday night circle track racing, it was back out to the outter part of the course where you opened up heading to the top of the lot. An off set 4 cone slalom was set up to scrub off speed. The first two cones had wide spacing making many drivers think they can go in fast, but if they weren't looking far enough ahead, the last two really bit them hard as it tigthened up before making a hard left to the inner part of the lot. Getting slowed in time in the middle of the slalom was key to getting in line for the tight left. Once through the left you were able to straighten the wheel before having to bring the car back almost 180 degrees right to the other side of the lot. Many competitors ran wide here throwing their line off for the tight left that brought them into the finish.
Ninety-nine drivers showed to test their mettle against the clock and cones. In the stock classes, Joe Solury and Brian Elzin showed how brute force gets it done in finishing 1, 2 respectively in A stock over Julia Walters' German Boxster and Tim Anderson's (bumped from B stock) 350z. C-stock was a Japanese parade of Miata's and MR2s with Joe Barbato taken another class win and top PAX time over Mike Koloniaris' Miata and the shared MR2 of Robert and Chris Mills. Colin MacInnes' Mopar couldn't quite keep up with Erica Bonomi as she was able to find enough spare time to set the fast time in D-stock. E-stock saw James Duphiney take out Rob Carter once again. G-stock became a bump class with Mike Demaio moving up from H-stock with his Subaru Legacy to take out Brad Snow in his Mini. Brad still posted top G-stock time......again.
In the Street Prepared classes; Tom Mak showed the way with top time. He was bumped from Super Stock and took out Tom Canuoto's Z06 and Andy Pyle's TVR. In BSP, Japanese AWD reigned superior over the ultimate driving machine as Leo Ficks whipped up Peter Agapoglou's BMW. In CSP, Paul O was absent from competition. Austin G. was able to take top honors in his Miata. He beat out CSP's favorite bridesmaid Chris DiFiore and Stan Marcemicz. In DSP Todd Kean ran fast lap of the day bybeating Greg Cullen in his Saturn and Chris Fuhrmann's Mirage. In Mustang Street Prepared, it again was the 05 GT showing the way but this time with Marc Boerma at the wheel. Yaro would follow closely Mark Eastwood in his 03 nippin at his heels.
For winning F prepared and being the fastest red Fiero AND the faster Fiero of the day, Bob Doiron gets his own paragraph here in the write up. Bob ran top class time on his firstpass, but I guess he wanted to really rub it, so he made his 5 other runs and got faster and faster. Because Bob is now so fast, we should probably permanently move him to A-mod where he can race Warren.
Speaking of Warren, he was the unlucky recipient of being classed with Ray's Merkur, Bill Evan's Fiero and the formula car being co driven by the father son combo of Andy and Tony. Andy showed the way and took FTD with is Dad finishing 2nd in class behind him. Ray (another victim of constantly being bumped) was 3rd, Warren 4th and Bill 5th. Don't worry Bill, we're working on having Bob permanently classed with you.
In the Street Tire category, Patrick Huxley borrowed Mike Lodsin aka Big Bear, and took the win in STS. Jose Garcia lead the Subaru only class of STU and beat out Jim Armstrong's STI.
Street Mod had Phil Mackaronis' Camaro on top. Justin Baltrucki was 2nd. Justin lead for most of the day until Phil figured out how to reign in his RWD beast. Justin had one last shot in his over powered GTI, but couldn't keep the tires from spinning and thus finished 2nd. In SM2, Nick Fandacone was nice enough to let Liam Dwyer borrow his car. Liam did the unnice thing back and beat him. However, luck was not completely on Liam's side as he would lose to the formula car for FTD by .001 seconds. Thats not a typo, .001 seconds, by far the closest finish of FTD all season. Michael Phelps .01 second win is an eternity compared to this.
In the win and move to your class classes, Rick Zotti wiggled his MR2 to a X novice win. Ivan Aguilar showed why front engine RWD is superior to midengine RWD as his M3 beat out Eric Karacsonyi's Fiero. Kurt Craver was the only car in Z novice and process of elimination shows he won too.
FTD battle was Andy Jagodnik first, Liam Dwyer 2nd, Nick Fandacone 3rd.
Next event is August 24th at LAZ for another auto-x before CART takes off to PA for another day at Pocono.
