Mike Stanley driving the TR11 car at the Solo Nationals. Photo courtesy of gotcone.com
By Pat Griffith
Mike Stanley won the Solo Nationals FTD Trophy presented by Small Fortune Racing at his year’s TireRack Solo Nationals in Lincoln, Neb. Stanley drove the University of Maryland car to the Formula SAE win and bested time from A Modified, B Modified and Formula 125 for the fastest overall time at the week-long even held Aug. 30 to Sept. 2.
Mike’s combined time over both courses was 107.883 while Gary Milligan, a three-time recipient of the award, logged a 108.795 driving a 2008 Vancouver Special to win A-Mod.
While this is Mike’s second year in a row winning FSAE, the car is actually a bit different than the one from last year. Under FSAE rules, university’s have to build cars that are a “significantly new design” for national FSAE competition (not necessarily SCCA).
“There are some persisting features year to year, but this year’s car is a new car,” Mike said. “In keeping with good engineering principles, we’d like to keep what is good, fix what is bad, and improve on anything and everything we can.”
The FTD Trophy has been presented since 1998, but this was the first year a driver in an FSAE car has won it. Mike’s time was also good enough for top PAX for the event, as compiled by Chicago Region’s Rick Ruth.
FSAE ran Tuesday-Wednesday (Aug. 30 and 31), the same days as A Modified, but Mike benefited from having dry courses both days while AM ran in an earlier heat after rain – albeit a drying course — on the East Course on Tuesday. But the slalom-intensive West Course on Wednesday was ideal for the Terps Racing 2011 (TR11) car.
“This was where the car could shine,” Mike said. “We love transitions and high-G corners. I typically like technical/element-heavy courses. Fortunately the car can make up a lot of time in these areas due to the high cornering forces. The car was extremely predictable, and horribly underpowered.”
The FSAE rules have opened up over the years to allow teams to more liberal use of aerodynamics, and the TR11 as well as other cars have begun morphing into more of a typical Nationals A-Mod grid.
“We made some specific requests of the FSAE rules committee prior to 2011 pertaining to locations of aerodynamic elements, which they accepted,” Mike said. “This allowed us to make some subtle improvements to the wing package over the previous year.”
There’s a quote floating around from Bob Tunnell about autocrossers shouldn’t make any changes to their cars after July if they’re preparing for the Solo Nationals. Well the Maryland car didn’t even have an engine until less than two weeks before heading to Lincoln. Mike and two other team members bought an engine from 2001 Honda CBR F4i and tuning was done in the days leading up to the Solo Nationals. The team has access to parking lots at certain hours where they were able to do some testing, and Mike and co-driver David Eng, who ended up in third place in FSAE, hit the practice course for some runs. So bottom line, not a lot of seat time.
Mike said he didn’t have much input on the design of the TR11 car, so he owes a great deal of gratitude to the students who put time in on the car. He couldn’t even fathom calculating the total number of man hours.
“The FSAE program is run a little like a business and lot like an educational course,” he said. “Things are done and re-done, some things are done at 4 a.m., some are done minutes before a fina l… it’s a real challenge for those guys. Moving back and forth between class work and car work is really tough.
“The testing done at Maryland includes some static testing in the lab, and we have use of the parking lots at certain hours. We have a dyno, but it’s pretty pathetic. Much of our engine tuning is done out in the lots.”
The best of the rest
The FTD Trophy presented at the Friday banquet capped a solid showing for WDCR and Autocross, Inc., members. Three drivers had to claw back from trailing after their first day of competition on Tuesday to come back to win championships, two of them doing it for the first time.
Lisa Garfield won her first national championship with her victory in Formula 125 Ladies. She was trailing Suzanne Segal after the first day by 0.053 after the first day but came through with the fastest time in class on the second day to win by almost a second.
Courtney Cormier also came from behind to win his first national championship driving the McGeorge Toyota 2006 Chevy Corvette Z06 in A Street Prepared. After the first day on the East Course, Courtney was back in third trailing overall leader and co-driver Mike Johnson by almost a second. On his first run on the West Course on the second day, Courtney ripped off a 64.728, which would stand as fastest time in class. Mike’s final run of 65.5 wasn’t enough, and he missed out on repeating as ASP champ by 0.056 seconds.
In Formula Junior A, Julian Garfield found himself in an unfamiliar position – second place after the first day of competition and trailing the Atlanta Region’s Jesse Sealey by more than a tenth of a second. FJA drivers found themselves in wet conditions on the East Course on Tuesday. The next day on the West Course saw no rain, and Julian took over the lead on his first run. He and Jesse went faster on their second runs and faster again on their third runs, but Julian held on to win his second straight FJA championship and fourth overall.
While he only seems to autocross once or twice a year and not usually within the WDCR, Tim Aro is still a region member. And he also overcame a deficit on the first day – another driver dealing with wet conditions – to win in C Street Prepared. Behind the wheel of his brother Harry’s 1995 Mazda Miata, Tim splashed to third place and 0.7 out of the lead in the first heat on the West Course on Tuesday. On a dry East Course on Wednesday, his 61.033 on his second run leap-frogged him to the lead, and that stood to give him the overall win by more than seven tenths. It was his second Solo National Championship – he won CSP in 2004.
Still a supplemental class but fiercely competitive, Street Modified F (SMF) saw Brian Karwan win for the second year in a row. He stood on a 66.9 on his first run on the first day on the cone-intensive West Course to lead switching over to the more open East Course for Wednesday competition. Brian ended up winning by more than seven tenths but said he was sweating it out watching Dave Hardy and Jim Reyenga co-driving Dave’s 1989 Honda Civic and getting faster and faster on the second day. Dave actually pulled within two tenths on his final run, but Brian came through just after him with a 63.4 to seal the win.
Other WDCR/A.I. members taking home hardware:
- Sam Strano, 2nd place, Super Stock, 2010 Chevy Corvette Grand Sport
- David Eng, 3rd place, FSAE, 2011 TR11 downforce car
- Brian Garfield, 3rd place, AM, 2011 TR11 downforce car
- Lee Piccione, 4th place, F Stock, 2008 Ford Mustang Shelby GT-C
- Ian Baker, 4th place, Street Touring Sport, 1989 Honda CRX Si
- Ryan Lower, 5th place, F125, 2008 CRG Road Rebel
- Kenny Sorensen, 6th place, B Stock, 2008 Porsche Boxster
- Jason Burns, 6th place, SS, 2010 Chevy Corvette Grand Sport
- Josh Luster, 6th place, Street Touring Ultra, 2006 Subaru WRX STi
- “Little” Mike Snyder, 6th place, SMF, 1989 Honda CRX Si
- Norm Beaver, 7th place, D Modified, 1979 Caterham 7
- Justin Neal, 7th place, F125, 2008 Shockwave
- Karen Kraus, 7th place, E Street Prepared, 2006 Subaru WRX
- Terry Baker, 9th place, D Stock, 2011 Ford Mustang
- Shane Chinnon Rhoden, 10th place, Street Touring Ultra, 2006 Subaru Cone Hitting Machine (20 cones hit and only one clean run all week … but still trophied!)
See final results. Also, gotcone.com has more pictures of Mike Stanley and just about everyone here.
