SCCA Solo Nationals are a wrap for the cam crew

It was a rough couple days for the rookie driver and the big blue tank. Car scaled at 4430lbs with 3/4 tank of gas and got the big pig honor for the event.

Day 1 brought us to the east course which was tight and technical with lots of cones to navigate. Ended up 18th out of 22 for the day after popping a cone at the finish of my best run. All the extra cones and boxes once again messed with my head and i struggled on this course pretty bad. Wasn't dfl and had fun, so i call it a good day.

Day 2 was a very wide open course with a few tricky sections to keep you on your toes. Dabbled into fuel cut a couple times on course which puts speed around 64ish mph. Car had great rear grip but was pushy in the front. Driver was having issues looking far enough ahead to keep up with how fast the gates were coming up. Overall a decent day with an overall of 17th.

Had a nice chat with Tomswheels who was co-driving a mustang at the event. They had some excitement on day 1 but some stellar results on day 2. I'll let him tell his own story.

Talking with Tom did make me think about building the challenger any further for cam. I was contemplating selling the valiant to build the challenger but after weighing the pros and cons i'm going to do a few things to the challenger to run stp next year and start collecting parts to get the valiant ready for cam racing.

Day 1 vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDhvw-v8hJg

Day 2 vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIbCk9AwELA

Damn that Tom, I was hoping to talk you out of that Valiant one day! I think the field was filled with some pretty heavy hitters that do this ALOT. Your tires have quite a few laps on them I bet too. And I know what dfl is since that it what I got checked off the list in Hastings lol.

Yeah, Tom's "excitement" is a bit of an understatement. Lol.

Chris it was a pleasure to meet you and see you wheel the Blue Beast around some great courses this weekend. I know how much more I'm enjoying autocrossing my 3200 lb Valiant over my old (2013) 3900 lb Mustang. After seeing pictures of your Valiant I think you are sitting on a (red) pile of gold, that thing needs to be built and enjoyed! My weekend was almost cut short Saturday when my buddies 69 Mustang broke a spindle on his second lap. Thank goodness it happened when he was driving, I'm still trying to live down blowing his motor two years ago at an Autocross. Luckily we found a guy who had a right spindle (he only had a right, no left, what are the odds) 30 miles away, then we thrashed to get it on in time to run day 2.

Day two was much better, got a little more used to the car, ran a lap within .7 seconds of Robbie Unsers best lap in his Speedway sponsored/built Nova, and beat Al Unser JRs co-driver in the Speedway Camaro to finish fourth. Oh and got photo-bombed during my fast lap by a EC-135...

That was you, Tom?!

I saw that photo posted on Facebook this morning by Hotchkis and thought that was a really cool picture for whoever was driving.

Good job on popping your Solo Nats Cherry!

did I read that corrrect? is that the Al Unser Jr????

Yep, Al, Robbie and the whole speedway crew were an awesome group of people. They even thrashed on Mary Pozzi's camaro after it broke tuesday during the event. An outstanding week of racing. The cam people are some of the friendliest people i have met in a race environment. No big egos, just a bunch of people bombing around in their cars having fun. Hope i can the valiant semi ready by next year.

Both Robbie and Little Al run cars for Speedway Motors. Al Jr. worked a corner at CAM East. Imagine being able to say "I shagged cones with Al Unser Jr. He extremely approachable, both of them are. Al Jr. has fallen in love with autocrossing I'm told.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX5IrwrQh9M