THSCC Forums

This weekend the SCCA Pro Solo was in Oscoda, Michigan, which is four hours north of Detroit along the shores of Lake Huron. It's a long drive, but a very good site.

Tom Hoppe won STX, was the #1 qualifier for the Challenge, and won the Super Challenge for the second year in a row there. Tom was awesome and did a great job all weekend. Way to go Tom!

Also, Tom's girlfriend Miranda won the Bonus Challenge - she did a great job.

G.H. Sharp won D Stock and was the #6 qualifier for the Challenge.

Eric Peterson won C Stock and was the #8 qualifier for the Challenge.

Donna Frank was 4th is L1.

Donnie Barnes was 5th in C Stock and I believe President Whipple was just out of the trophies in STX. Chuck Frank had some good runs in GS, but I don't remember where he placed. I think Aaron Buckley finished around 5th in STS.

I'm sure everyone is tired today from the 14 hour trip home

Shawn edged out a 2nd place, even after redlighting away a lot of time I finished a lowly 7th. The car was much better, but the course was a tough one for cars without low end grunt or larger wheelbases. I was shifting to 1st in 2 spots on the course Even still, the class of 11 was separated by 2.2 seconds from 1st to 11th, which makes for a tough class.

Everyone else from the THSCC area drove well, which was nice to see. Next time, I need to remember to get sleep in the car, for 36 hours straight without sleep, makes for poor driving. - AB

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'14 Toyota Sequoia Platinum 4WD
Super Westerfield Bros - '93 Integra - LeChump Du Jour
STX 93 - Scion FR-S

Shawn had only 1 clean run on the right and still managed a 2nd. I think the brakes gave him a bunch of confidence in the car and he drove well! A little luck goes a long way for me

Here are a BUNCH of pics we took this weekend http://www.tomhoppe.com/Pictures/04_07_ ... /index.htm . There are a couple of sweet ones of donnie http://www.tomhoppe.com/Pictures/04_07_ ... 0015_2.jpg and buckley http://www.tomhoppe.com/Pictures/04_07_ ... G_0049.jpg Of course 75% of them are of my car



-Tom

Finally a Pro solo that was dry! There was quite a bit of controversy about the course design, but the the course checking committee and Tasha bowed to the local course designer and only moved one cone. It would be nice if national event course designs were done by a pool of people with good national course design experience or were not thought of as an "opportunity" to see how many cones can be used or or what clever (read torturous) features can they come up with.
It was not a Celica friendly course, but I was still pleased with finishing 5th in the combined GS/HS class, since I was much closer to the trophy spots than I have ever been. I am currently in 4th place in series points only 4 points out of third going into the finale. We will be going to Peru next month for the last pro even tho we have maxed out the number of events for points in hopes that Donna can block a couple of other ladies from moving ahead of her.

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SPIN or WIN!
there's no glory for going slow.

While I had a pretty horrible driving performance myself, I don't see what all the hubbub was about with the course. I've seen *far* worse pro courses that weren't complained nearly as much about. Why? They weren't as *hard*. They were visually bad or were "too fast" or a myriad of other things, but people didn't complain as much.

I didn't find this course visually problematic. In fact, it was *easy* to follow if you looked ahead. It was tight. It had a *very* difficult turnaround. It had several *very* difficult 90 degree turns. It did favor cars with low end torque because of the turnaround and 90's, but that's Just Gonna Happen(tm). Was it horrible? No. Was it tremendously difficult? Yes. Reminded me a lot of South Course at Nationals last year to be honest. Maybe that's not the way pro courses are "supposed to be." *shrug*

I guess people are used to more open pro courses or something, but I didn't think it was that bad. Sure, it had a lot of elements in it that *I* suck at, but I'm pretty sure I got better at them with 12 pops at it.

Congrats to folks that did well, especially Tom and Miranda. Eric did a great job to win the class in our car, especially since we went into the event with Yet Another Completely New Setup(tm), but he *nailed* the setup and was able to get fast pretty quick because we weren't having to adjust the car a ton. With a small class I got enough points that I shouldn't have a tough time making the Finale (I think my best three finishes out of my first four are fourth, fifth, and sixth now). Hopefully this baby comes early so I can actually go!


--Donnie

http://www.scca.com

"Twice Is Nice: Hoppe Wins Oscoda ProSolo for Second Year in a Row"

Sweeeet

-Tom

Tom is famous.

At least I get credit for taking the picture

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OK so I'm back in. Now which tire should I buy??

And telling me how to drive the course

-Tom