Wow, what a summer this has been!

As I’m sure all twelve of our regular visitors have noticed by now content more or less ground to a halt about the end of June. There are many reasons but the two that come immediately to mind are that autocrossers become pretty busy during the ‘season’ (who knew?) and I had way more trouble converting my trusty CRX from a faux EP car to a ‘sort of legitimate’ GP car. I won’t bore everyone here with the details other than to say that the troubles began with the removal of the TWM individual throttle bodies and really hasn’t fully concluded just yet! While I was able to compete in the car at Nationals my fuel pressure problems bit both me (day 1) and my son Mike (day 2). Through all that I had the help and support of the Friends of the Rogues and especially John Fessler, Chris Raglin and Robert Chrismas. Thanks guys (and girls, you know who you are!) you all helped Mike and me turn a disaster into a memorable event!

After all that I fully intend to continue the build series on my CRX. I now know what is wrong and everyone will be able to see how it gets fixed. I also know now that just stripping the interior from a CSP CRX and putting 6� wheels with slicks on will not be enough to get the job done. What everyone feared would be a complete pummeling of the newer cars over the older cars just did not happen. There is a lot of life left in those cars and the ‘new’ GP cars are going to have to work a lot harder…

I can’t tell you how impressed I was with the new Lincoln site. The size of the place is enormous. While there are a few issues that will need to be addressed I have no doubt that the event chair and the various chiefs have already identified all of the trouble spots and have taken steps to get them corrected for next year. The only real downside of the whole event was the Awards Banquet arrangement but as in everything else I am confident there will be improvements. I have been around long enough to remember the first years in Topeka and Forbes Field were not as good as everyone now remembers them (you know, that familiar saw ‘the older I get the faster I was syndrome)! One final note: The Haymarket part of downtown Lincoln was just awesome!

Our Thursday night cookout was great and many thanks go out to Paul Magee for bringing along his grill and acting as a very capable chef for everyone in attendance. Hopefully we will be able to expand on this for next year. We would also like to be paddocked near those Atlanta and Texas folks too. They were A LOT of fun. Huh, Sean?

We are now hard at work getting our profiles lined up for all of the 2009 Solo National Champions. We are also going to be taking a closer look at some of the others in the field in other finishing positions. Things will quickly be back to normal here and we promise to keep the material flowing!

Since most of us who are attending the 2009 Solo National Championship have not been to Lincoln, NE before we thought it would be useful to provide some information to make your visit to Lincoln more enjoyable. Hopefully the information here will give you a head start on having an enjoyable experience.

While my name is listed as the author I can assure you that the content herein has come from Ed George (FSP 96) and Velma Boreen (CSPL 87) who did the research and provided me with all the information for this piece! This is meant to be an interactive experience so click the links, explore and enjoy!

In broad strokes the following links will give you a sense of the Big Picture:

Lincoln for the football fan (bars restaurants)

Lincoln things to do:

Restaurant Reviews:

Traveler’s articles:

FYIs:

Liquor Sales: Monday-Saturday 6am-1am

Getting Around:

Lincoln’s major arterials are laid out in a simple grid. Numbered streets run North to South, Lettered Streets run East to West. O Street is the N/S dividing line. Many downtown streets are one way.

Speed limits are 25mph unless otherwise posted. Right turn on red is permitted unless posted. Right turn on LEFT are permitted from a one-way to a one-way street. Seat belts are required for all front seat occupants and anyone under the age of 16. U-turns permitted and arterial intersections unless otherwise posted.

Map of area:

Lincoln

Parking:

On-street meters are $.50, length varies from 10min to 10hrs. Meters are not monitored on Sundays or after 6pm.

Nebraska State Patrol offers road conditions by dialing 511.

Food:

Misty’s Restaurant & Lounge 6235 Havelock Ave 402-466-8424
Steaks and Prime Ribs, in bus. 40yrs. Also have Restaurant Brewery on 11th and P.

Lazlo’s Brewrey and Grill – Haymarket 710 P st. 402-434-5636
Casual dining, hickory fired grill, private and outdoor dining.

FireWorks (same owners, sounds similar to the place in Topeka, more upscale than Lazlo’s) 5750 S.86th.

Steak House 3441 Adams 402-466-2472
Established 1949. Featuring 21-day naturally aged Midwestern beef. Seafood, chicken and pork also available.

Local owned “fast” food

daVinci’s – pizza, pasta, salad

Runza – made to order sandwiches and burgers

Valentino’s – Italian Buffet

Other area eateries (click on the name for more info)

Wilderness Ridge-Lodge Restaurant
Romanos MacAroni Grill
Vincenzos Ristorante
Spaghetti Works
Parthenon
Famous Daves Bar-B-Que
Parkers Rib Ranch
Venue Restaurant and Lounge
Lone Star Steakhouse and Saloon
Chipotle Mexican Grill
Brewskys Food and Spirits
Skeeter Barnes
Old Chicago
Granite City Food and Brewery
Scrumpy Jacks
Beacon Hills

For more information on Lincoln eateries click here.

Vet Care:

Veterinary Emergency Hospital: 402-489-6800

The “It” Part of Town:

Downtown Haymarket and Iron Horse Park (Similar to Cleveland’s Warehouse District, but from the 19th century. Tons of restaurants, bars, clubs, and shopping). Information here and here.

Cool Museums:

Lester Larsen Tractor Test Museum

Museum of American Speed (where Monday night reception will be, very cool!)

Strategic Air and Space Museum – 30min east on I-80 28210 West Park Highway Ashland, NE 68003

They have a SR-71 and a B-36!

Mueller Planetarium (also Nebraska State Museum)

Hyde Memorial Observatory

Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center (20min SW of Lincoln) 800 acres, miles of walking trails. 11700 SW 100st, Denton, NE

Go Karting:

Champions Fun Center 1555 Yolande Ave, Lincoln, NE 68521
1/4 mi track, 22 karts (not counting the family karts)

Replacement for Maggie Moo’s:

UNL Dairy Store 38th and Holdrege Streets 402-472-2828
On campus dairy, ice cream store on UNL campus for 90 yrs!

Ivanna Cone 701 P St. 402-477-7473 (website not up yet)
Lincoln’s one and only old-fashioned ice cream parlor and soda fountain

Souvenirs:

Nebraska Bookstore 1300 Q St.

Huskers Authentic 625 Stadium Drive

Husker Headquarters 1120 P. St.

Happenings:

Nebraska State Fair – through Sept 7th
Tractor Pulls, Pig Racing and a beer garden… can u say utopia?

Cornhusker Football
Sept 5th (1st Game of Season) vs. Florida Atlantic
Sept 12th vs. Arkansas State

Auto Racing:

Eagle Raceway (12 miles east of Lincoln)

Nebraska Raceway Park (20 Miles east of Lincoln)

Wavelink Raceway Park

Hopefully this will be enough information to get everyone started! Drive carefully on the way to Lincoln and everyone here at rogues-racing.com looks forward to meeting each and everyone one of you.

Scott Hearne          GP 149

Mike Hearne          GP 49

Paul Magee             FM 95

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We celebrate multiple national solo champions, and right now John Thomas with his 15 titles sits as the Zeus among solo gods. We haven’t heard from E. Paul Dickinson for a quarter-century now, but he was the first to do it more than once.

In fact, he was the first to do it as many as four times, winning A Stock (that was the top stock class then, children), the first four years of the solo Nationals. Yes, that means of all the 15 champions who won at the first Nationals in 1973, E. Paul was the only one to repeat the feat in 1974.

Dickinson drove a Porsche 911T, which he was proud to point out was underpowered compared to the S and E models of the same car, not to mention the Lotus Elans which also helped populate the class. But he studied what made a car fast, or more to the point, what made a driver fast in any car.

Dickinson’s parents were dancing instructors, and E. Paul spent his time on the studio floor helping teach the fumble-footed. He brought many of those teaching techniques with him when he opened a driving school in West Virginia. I went out to do his school in 1976, and wrote a story about it for SportsCar Magazine. Although I’d been autocrossing more than 10 years then, it was really the first time I’d been formally introduced to such concepts as late apexes and looking ahead, taught that these were speed secrets superior to cubic dollars thrown at the car.

Dickinson, a member of the Ohio Valley Region, ran and won those first four Nationals and then laid off for a while. He returned in 1980, now in a race-prepped Lotus 7 Series IV in A Prepared, to win a fifth title.

Gene Hanchett of San Francisco Region didn’t go to the first Nationals in Wentzville, Mo., but made the second one in Lake Geneva, WI. He won C Prepared in a Camaro Z28 beginning a six-year streak becoming the first to win five (also the first to do five in a row) in 1978. He also won in 1979, got podium finishes the next two years, and took his seventh victory in1982 at the 10th anniversary Nationals in Chicago. That was Hanchett’s last appearance, but his record would stand until 1990.

Over on the distaff side, the ladies lagged behind until Charlotte King came on the scene. But first there was Saundra Lee “Sam: Kline, the only driver to win in all three versions of the Ladies classes. Driving a Porsche 914-6 set up for A Prepared, out of Washington DC Region, Kline won the 1974 Ladies Class when all 19 female competitors were grouped into one class with their times based on an index calculated against the men’s times. Yeah, we didn’t call it “open� then as the idea of the gals running heads-up against the guys was still a little radical then.

But after just two years it had become apparent that the index was a poor way to determine a National Champion, and so instead four Ladies classes were created — essentially top and bottom Stock, and top and bottom Prepared. Street Prepared didn’t exist then, and the powers that be really didn’t think the delicate little ladies would be showing up in Modified. Ho ho, wrong-O!

Four Mod gals came to the ’75 Nationals, Fran Sinclair won an unofficial Ladies Modified (officially they ran in the open class), and the next year there were five ladies classes.

Meanwhile Sam Kline won B Ladies (top Prepared) in 1976, ’77 and ’78 and by then it was finally determined that even the top/bottom concept really didn’t work. If we will have Ladies classes, there must be parallel classes, and in 1979 Kline won her fifth championship, now properly in A Prepared Ladies.

That was the same year Hanchett won his sixth. He would stop at seven, where the men’s record would stay for the next eight years. But the women’s didn’t.

Charlotte King of San Francisco Region made her first appearance in 1978 winning A Ladies in a Tui Super Vee prepped by her husband Bob. That began an 11-year streak for Charlotte (Bob would win four), driving the Tui for three years and then the “Sprite RX-Z� – a Sprite body on a Datsun suspension with a Mazda rotary motor – in E Mod. That car was a zinger that later would also win championships for Bryan and Jean Kinser.

Charlotte passed Gene Hanchett in 1985 and her 11 in a row still stands as the second-longest winning streak.

On the men’s side, Hanchett’s mark was finally eclipsed by Ron Flier of St. Louis Region, who got his eighth in 1990 in a B Mod Lola. Flier’s earlier seven had all been in Lotus door slammers.

Chris O’Donnell of Cal Club ran off a series of D Mod wins in a pristine Lotus Elan and became the first at nine, 10 and 11 championships, his last coming 10 years ago.

Meanwhile, Joyce Looman of South Bend Region had run off 10 championships in a Solo Vee before changing to a Dulon Formula Ford for four more. She got her 15th in a Royale in 1995.

Karen Babb of Northwest Region is the current top mark in the Ladies classes, with a total of 20 championships – eight in ASPL, five in APL and seven in DML, all with a Lotus Elan and the last coming in 2005. For the past three years she’s taken on the open DM class.

John Thomas of Mississippi Region tied Looman’s 15 just last year. He was the first to reach 12, in 2003 when he won the last of an 11-year win streak in E Prepared aboard Tom Lombardo’s Honda Civic wagon. Going back to his FP Datsun 240Z, Thomas needed a couple of years to get it back in shape before beginning a new winning streak in 2006. His closest challengers are John Ames, who hasn’t been seen at Nationals since 2006, and Tommy Saunders, who won BM last year, both at 12 wins.

No active female is within seven wins of Babb’s tally.

Headed to Lincoln for Nationals? Show your competition they shouldn’t mess with you because you’re a friend of the rogues…

Rogues-racing.com is doing a 2009 Nationals T-Shirt and would like to offer everyone an opportunity to purchase one.

The shirt is a 90% cotton/10% synthetic blend and is high quality. The shirt is white as depicted, and the graphics will be a high quality screen print. That means they’ll last longer and look sharper than the newer digital printing technology.

The graphic represents Nationals 2009 – Lincoln, Nebraska. Mark the first year at the new venue right. And support some good guys in the process.

Cost is $13.50 / shirt, and they will personally delivered to Lincoln, NE by the Rogues!

If you have an interest please contact scott@rogues-racing.com with a shirt size. Your order needs to be placed by 08/18/09 and shirts must be paid for at that time, so we can place the final order and get them to you in Lincoln. Upon receiving your email request, Scott will let you know how to send payment via PayPal.

Please feel free to pass this link along to anyone else that  might be interested.

Thank you,

The Rogues

Moving along on our series on Solo stats we now come to the most championships won by SCCA Division. It is clear that two Divisions have yeilded the most Championships: Northern Pacific and Central. The Central Division comes out on top in this match up with 169 Championships won to Northern Pacific Division’s 150. The balance are spread among just three Divisions: Southern Pacific, Midwest and Southwest Divisions. These statistics courtesy of Rocky Entriken.

Shawn Marie Kiesel is a relative newcomer on the national Solo scene but in the short time she has been in the sport she has notched two National Championships in two different but related cars. Both have been powered by turbocharged Mazda rotary engines with her latest victory coming behind the wheel of the family 2008 KFR Turbo Sprite on Goodyear tires. Shawn Marie resides in southern California and is a member of the San Diego Region SCCA.
RR: Is this your first attendance at Nationals?
SMK: No, 2008 was my third trip to Nationals. My first year was in 2006 with only doing a couple of events before Nationals.

RR: Is this your first National Championship? 
SMK: No, I have one other in B Prepared Ladies in 2006.

RR: What was your favorite memory of the competition?
SMK: Looking over and seeing my husband and kids screaming and jumping up and down with joy when they found out that I won.

RR: What do you think was your key to success?
SMK: Walking the course many times and listening to Jeff when he is giving me advice.

RR: Who has most influenced you?
SMK: My husband Jeff. He kept telling me I should start autocrossing and at first I didn’t want to. He knows that I am a competitive person and thought I’d be good at it. He finally talked me into it and I’m glad he did. It is such a fun sport.

RR: Who inspires you?
SMK: Jeff and my father-in-law, Mark. Watching the two of them working as a team has really inspired me. They really enjoy this sport and are fun to watch.

RR: Do you have any special pre-race routine, or any superstitions you follow?
SMK: No.

RR: Do you have any driving aids or tools you use to help you?
SMK: A seat insert so that I can reach the pedals.

RR: What do you think you do differently than your competition?
SMK: Not sure.

RR: Have you attended any driving school?
SMK: No

RR: Describe your driving style.
SMK:  I only started in 2006, so I’m still learning!

RR: What was your first –and favorite autocross car?
SMK: A 1997 BMW M3 was the first; this car is my favorite…

RR: If you could change one Solo rule – either for your specific class or in general — what would it be?
SMK: Not sure.

RR: Who would you like to thank for your success?
SMK: Jeff. He built a car that is fast and fun to drive. He has the car working really well. So I trust the car the more I drive it.

Photos courtesy of GotCone.com & Shawn Marie Kiesel

For copies of photos email david @ evorticity.com

Salina was about to lose its record as the “Host with the Most� – the most times as the locale for the SCCA Solo Nationals. But last year the club decided to move the event from Topeka to Lincoln, Neb., so – barring a return to Topeka, which seems unlikely – Salina’s record is safe until at least 2025.

Wonder if I can hold out and still be a 100 Percenter by then? I’ll only be 84 years old. And my Spitfire will only be 61!

I’ll take credit for bringing the Nationals to Kansas, and to Salina, in 1975. I was chair of that third running as, then, a member of Kansas Region. That means that although the Nationals were in Salina 15 times and in Topeka 14 times, Kansas Region was host 15 times and thus holds that record — also safe until at least 2025.

In fact, no other region is even close. Salina Region and Wichita Region each were host five times, Kansas City four times, Texas and Chicago Regions twice each, and five other regions (St. Louis, Ohio Valley, Houston, San Francisco and Saginaw Valley) once each.

No, the Nationals were never held in California or Michigan. San Francisco co-hosted with Kansas City in 1983 while Saginaw Valley was only a nominal host as a device to permit a 1985 experiment in drawing specialty chiefs from all over the nation. It worked.

Previously the host region was in charge of the event, including providing event workers. Part of the 1985 experiment included using all competitors as event workers, which today is SOP wherever you go. Since 1986 the host region has been truly a host and no longer the organizer.

Salina Region was not chartered until 1990, so although the 1988 and 1989 events mostly fell to the then-Salina Chapter of Wichita Region, from 1986 to 1989 the official region host was Wichita — that’s how they are credited with five events although the only one Wichita truly was responsible for was the 1978 Nationals at Sunflower Aerodrome south of Hutchinson.

Six Nationals were held at the East Crawford Recreation Area, then called Airport Park; today the site of local Salina Region events. When the organizational concept formally changed in 1986 that was also the year the Nationals moved across town to what today is the Salina Municipal Airport – it was Schilling AFB, a Strategic Air Command bomber base until the Air Force closed it in 1964. Nine Nationals were run there until we outgrew it and moved to Forbes Field in Topeka.

Forbes held 11 Nationals, the record for a specific venue until at least 2020 if we stay in Lincoln. Salina Municipal Airport stands second at nine, then Salina ECRA at six, Heartland Park Topeka had three, Greater Southwest in Fort Worth did two, then five other sites were visited one time each.

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It appears there’s a theme of change amongst the editors of rogues-racing.com. We have all collectively changed what classes we are competing in this year. As Scott is covering in his own series, he has taken the CRX that he and Mike co-drive from CSP to GP.  I have chosen a slightly different route. For the past few years, I had been competing with a 1999 Fast Forward supercharged Miata in SM2 (now renamed SSM).

In the months leading into Nationals last year, I had a laundry list of tweaks and upgrades I had hoped to perform to try to keep me at least within respectable distance to the RX7s and other class monsters of SM2. Time eroded, and it became clear in the weeks before Topeka that I wasn’t going to be able to attack much of my list. As if karmically guided, my phone rang. Jeff Blumenthal had a dilemma. He hoped to participate in both the Solo Nationals and a road race at Watkins Glen one week later. In two different cars. Jeff only has a one-car trailer. Mine could probably carry the other car. The more we hammered through the details, the clearer it became what we should do. I left the Miata at home and drove F Modified as the first-driver for Jeff in his car.

That left us with two weeks and two local events to teach me the nuances of Jeff’s car. Things I’d never had to deal with before, like the cold-starting procedure, or how to adjust the seating position from driver to driver in a metal-lined cockpit. Or other little details, like how to drive a car that is nothing like any other car I have ever autocrossed.

It was horrible. You have to sacrifice a chicken to get it to start first thing in the morning. You sit directly on a sheet metal floor in a car with no springs or true dampers. The nearly 500cc two-stroke engine sounds as un-sexy as any internal-combustion engine possibly can. It pours more smoke out of the tailpipe than a Texas barbecue.  It has a battleship-grade turning radius. Your eyes are at cone-level. Its certificate of origin is listed as ‘Home Depot’.

Our first conjoined FMod practice was with NWOR in Toledo. I think it took about 3 runs on the Toledo Express concrete before there was no turning back. I found myself asking questions that were more in line with car ownership than with co-driving for a few events. How much do tires cost for this thing? What’s the typical annual maintenance like on one of these? Know anybody that’s selling one? Jeff knew what he was doing. He was essentially peddling a legal narcotic.

The Miata engine block and rear diff I bought to build up for SM2 were waiting for me when I got home from Topeka, taunting me under a layer of plastic wrap. There are few sounds I love more than hearing that supercharger at full whine on that Miata. But the numbers in my head didn’t lie. Neither did my heart.

Fast forward to February of this year.  There I was, on the phone with Stuart Phipps. He was moving from FMod into another class, and was selling his car. If you’ve never had the pleasure to meet Stuart, I recommend you make time. He’s a great guy.

One week later, I found myself standing in Stuart’s garage in Southwest Ohio, poring over the car. He had taken meticulous care of it. Even though it isn’t the newest car out there, you wouldn’t know looking at the quality of care it had received. So as I listened to Stuart, I was there; at The Point of No Return. He described the way he had set it up, explaining his rationales and the learning process that took him there. Much of it made perfect sense. A lot of it didn’t. Stuart is very much an engineer. I am very much not. There may have been mentions of Johnson rods, Spritzer valves, angles of incidence. It was all a blur. What the hell had I gotten myself into? I asked Stuart, ’In simple terms, does it work?’ He answered ‘Yes’. With that, suddenly I became the proud owner of a Kawasaki Green 1989 KBS Mark 4.

Since I largely blame Jeff Blumenthal for my introduction into this insanity, I let him know in no uncertain terms that his role in the process that is my ‘conversion’ hadn’t ended. It just started. Jeff, being the great guy that he is, was happy to help.

The next week, I took the car up to Jeff’s. We disassembled all the body work and gave it a thorough going-over. As we suspected, coming from the capable hands of Stuart, there were no real surprises.  The only items that we agreed should be addressed in the near term were replacing the clutch and adjusting the car’s driving position to better suit me. Oh, and being an Industrial Designer by trade, it was going to need some sort of quick and dirty aesthetic mod.

For those less familiar with FMod, they are essentially a cross between an oversized kart and a snowmobile. As I am becoming more immersed, I am learning that the F440 / 500 was originated for the purpose of getting people into road racing for a very low cost of entry and maintenance. It worked. And then of course a Solo class followed once there were enough of them to justify it.

I always told myself I would never own a car that was used for nothing BUT autocross. It just didn’t seem wise at my income level to have such a dedicated-purpose car. Even my Miata sees very regular street use when the weather permits. But FMod is different, really. Hell, I know people in Stock classes that have more in shocks than I have wrapped up in my entire FMod experience, money-wise.

Plus, if you’re the type that likes to wrench a little, but you don’t like all the accessibility issues that come with most fendered cars, these little things are great  (I still shudder at the thought of accessing the lower manifold bolts when I was installing the cold side supercharger on the Miata)!

I’ve now got two local events, a test-and-tune, and a 2-day Divisional under my belt with my ‘new’ FMod, and am about to enter into a gauntlet of even more large events. This past weekend was the Great Lakes Divisional at Peru. It was a pretty good weekend. I had the opportunity to gauge myself and the car against Scott Nardin , a 2-time FMod National Champion. Scott runs in a Formula Vee that is very well-prepared. That aside, Scott is a phenomenal driver and a great guy to learn from. On Saturday, he showed my why he is a 2-time National Champion. Sunday was my day, though, with a course that allowed my car to stretch it’s legs a little more. I was able to edge out Scott on Sunday, but couldn’t overcome the gap he had created over me on Saturday. I got the better end of the deal, though, because after my drubbing on Saturday, Scott shared some great stories with me over dinner.

The next tests for the angry FMod are the Finger Lakes National Tour, then the Toledo Divisional, Back to Peru for a National Tour, then a small rest before the Toledo ProSolo.  This will be a true litmus test of the relationship with this new car and class, I’m sure!

In upcoming posts from me, I’ll share some of my experiences with the FMod, including what it’s like driving it, working on it, and the processes and learning curves. So far, I have performed three noteworthy changes to the FMod since buying it; I had two of the chassis bars cut and replaced with a different profile, I stripped and repainted the body work, and replaced the clutch. Oh, and had to perform one emergency surgery to the right-front upright and steering arm. But, more on that in my next post.

Hope to see some of you out there. If you see the 95/195 FMod, stop by and say hello!

To see images of the entire process, visit http://mageep.smugmug.com/Autocross%20and%20race%20stuff/744824

As an individual who is adept at thinking outside the box Jeff Kiesel has one again shown with a little imagination and a lot of hard work in a class that doesn’t have a lot of restrictions he can rise above the rest. He put the smack down again on E Modified in 2008 to claim his second jacket in an exceedingly well turned out 1958 Austin Healy Bugeye Spite using turbocharged Mazda rotary power on Goodyear tires. Jeff is a member of the San Diego Region SCCA.

RR: Is this your first attendance at Nationals?
JK: No, I have attended Nationals since 2004.

RR: Is this your first National Championship?
JK: No. I have won two previous Solo Championships in 2006 driving my Mazda RX-7 in B Prepared and in 2007 I won E Modified driving the same Sprite I won with in 2008. I also have won two consecutive Pro Solo Championships in the Sprite.

RR: What was your favorite memory of the competition?
JK: In 2006 my wife won her first jacket, two run groups before me.

RR: What do you think was your key to success?
JK: Picking the right car, good set up, great family support and great talent in Solo to push me hard.

RR: Who has most influenced you?
JK: My Dad, he autocrossed when I was a kid and dominated in our San Diego region through 1985.  He got me interested in the sport and races with me now.

RR: Who inspires you?
JK: My Dad and my Wife and Kids; Gary Thomason and Andy McKee.

RR: Do you have any special pre-race routine, or any superstitions you follow?
JK: No.

RR: Do you have any driving aids or tools you use to help you?
JK: No.

RR: What do you think you do differently than your competition?
JK: Not sure.

RR: Have you attended any driving school?
JK: No.

RR: Describe your driving style.
JK: Aggressive but smooth.

RR: What was your first –and favorite autocross car?
JK: 1993 Mazda RX-7.

RR: If you could change one Solo rule – either for your specific class or in general — what would it be?
JK: I would go back to the 2005 rules for EM, 1500 pounds without driver and no weight penalty for larger motors.  At the old rule with me in the car I would weigh 1655 min.  At nationals this year and last I had to weigh in at 1855 with me in the car.

RR: Who would you like to thank for your success?
JK: My Dad for getting me interested in this great sport and passing down some of his abilities to me, also for his advise help and co driving the past two years.  My wife for putting up with the busy race schedule, many hours in the garage and racing the car with me.  Goodyear Racing Tire, Bogart Racing Wheels, Ankeny Racing Enterprises, Maier Racing, Danzio Performance, Racing Beat, 7parts.com and Carvin.com

Photos courtesy of GotCone.com

For copies of photos email david @ evorticity.com

In a class that has inarguably been the providence of the Toyota MR2 for that past few years Meredith Brown has once again proved that she has the measure of her competitors by adding another jacket to her closet. As a member of the Sports Car Club del Valley Rio Grande (a chapter of the Rio Grande Region SCCA) the 2008 E Stock Ladies Champion drove a 1993 Toyota MR2 on Hoosier tires to her third National Championship.

RR: Is this your first attendance at Nationals?
MB: Although I began racing in the early 1990s, I did not go to Nationals until 2002. I have competed every year since.

RR: Is this your first National Championship?
MB: I was picked to win in 2002 but did not live up to the billing until the next year. I won again in 2004 and then went through a dry spell until 2008. All my championships are in ESL.

RR: What was your favorite memory of the competition?
MB: The first year I was at Nationals it was to watch Paul, and I decided spectating was for the birds. Driving was where it was at and I have been having a great time behind the wheel ever since.

RR: What do you think was your key to success? Who has most influenced you? Who inspires you?
MB: My husband introduced me to the sport and has patiently and generously shared his knowledge with me over the years. It took quite a while for me to absorb and translate that knowledge into success on course, and I still rely on him to set me straight after I walk the entire course thinking I don’t really need to use the brakes. I also had the good fortune to become friends with many experienced racers such as the Fletchers, Baileys, Tunnels, Tom Berry and many others who exhibit great sportsmanship along with tremendous driving skill.

RR: Do you have any special pre-race routine, or any superstitions you follow?
MB: I don’t do anything special right before driving but I do like to be strapped in and ready to go with plenty of time to spare so I do not feel rushed and I can go through the course a few times in my head.

RR: Do you have any driving aids or tools you use to help you?
MB: We do not run any data collection systems or cameras on the car but I do find it very helpful to get feedback from Paul when he can watch my runs.

RR: What do you think you do differently than your competition?
MB: It often seems to come down to who can get clean runs, and at Nationals the weather conditions are frequently a significant factor.

RR: Have you attended any driving school?
MB: I have not attended any formal schools.

RR: Describe your driving style.
MB: I would have to describe my style as aggressively methodical. I have never really developed the skill of on the fly driving. I need to have a plan before I attack the course, but once I am out there I try to drive the tires off the car.

RR: What was your first –and favorite autocross car?
MB: The first car I race in was a Chrysler Conquest. My favorite car is the ES MR2 – hard to argue with success!

RR: If you could change one Solo rule – either for your specific class or in general — what would it be?
MB: If we could add more runs to the Solo format I certainly would not complain.

RR: Who would you like to thank for your success?
MB: My wonderful husband and the great SCCA family of racing enthusiasts who always make racing so much fun.

Photos courtesy of GotCone.com and Merideth Brown

For copies of photos email david @ evorticity.com