By Danny Kao
Pre-event Chatter
Coming into this event, I have received numerous complaints (numerous complaints from one person) about not covering Mr. Bob Hausmann’s dominating win in XP’s six-cylinder class. I decided to give Bob special coverage for this event, but he was a no- show. I am wondering with just one eye, Bob might have had trouble finding the way to Fedex Field in the rainy day.
What about Bob?
Early Morning News
Ms. Karen Kraus woke up early in the morning and announced on Facebook that she “will not be flaking out of autocross today.” That is almost like Babe Ruth calling the homerun before the pitch.
The new course configuration threw everybody into a loop. But folks didn’t realize mother nature was about to put everybody into many loops. The registration at the timing trailer was located right next to the stadium, and the competitors could park all the way up next to the course, but had to walk a half mile to registration. You should see the joy faces of Rob Kiernan and Franklin Dam when I told them they could park right next to the course; but they quickly turned sour faced when they had to walk to registration. Franklin needs some exercise anyway – he needs to lose weight for karting.
All day, the novice competitors were treated and taught by the best novice coordinator ever. The tips given by the novice coordinator were so good, that every novice ran the faster than the coordinator. That’s some serious novice coordinating.
Morning Competition
First heat started out a little damp, but quickly dried up. By the third run the course was completely dry and people were putting down their fastest times of the day. Pat “Nice Tan” Griffith set the tone in the morning with the fastest run of the morning at 60.907, just edging out Eric Kriemelmeyer with Eric’s car. It’s still kind of premature, but I think we are approach caution territory of calling the black Solstice “Nice Tan’s car.”
Steve Mitchell and Rob Kiernan both drove their lights out to edge fast young Tommy Radford in D-Stock. It’s nice to see Steve representing us old dudes. Stu “Paula Abdul” Fain finally got revenge on Jim Harris’s in ASP action. I think Jim already held too many trophies this past weekend and decided to be charitable. Jason Zapol, my hero and my best buddy, won in dominating fashion in CSP. (Oh Jason, I still have your trailer tire, I can just keep it? Buddy?) Mr. Thomas Bleh walked away with the DSP win. I think Mr. Bleh is so fast, he scared Kevin Henry to beat up on a couple old dudes in D-Mod instead. (The other two old dudes crushed Kevin in D-Mod, but that’s a later story.)
Well, Pat’s FTM (Fastest Time of the Morning) was short lived when Ms. Karen “Babe Ruth” Kraus swung for the fences (or slap shot a puck into the net for you hockey freaks). Karen destroyed Brian “Big Enos” Burdette with the FTM of 60.555 and took the ESP win. In STR action, Brian Hair edged crazy fast Eric Simmons for the win. You STR guys should be ecstatic because you just did something I haven’t done before – out run reigning F-Mod National Champ Sal DiPompo at an autocross, but I am sure that’s a freak occurrence so enjoy it while you can.
The "Babe" is FTM.
The rain came before the end of the first heat, and paused for about 20 minutes at the beginning of the second heat. Mr. John Nicolaysen took the E-Stock win while Justin Neal watched nervously at his MR2 spun piloted by DJ Sneeringer and Laura Buch. Mark Liller once again won the F-Stock/Other-Than-Mustang class. The normal F-Stock class was again taken by Mr. Sam Strano. I think Sam was missing a couple of hood stripes though.
In STS, two of the top STS drivers in the country were duking it out in the rain; but none of us care — we were all wondering how to steal John Vitamvas’ nine-pound rims. I wonder how many shirtless autographed pictures John had to sell to afford those puppies.
Dave Edsinger mastered the rain with a big win in CP. I think it must have been all that off-season indoor karting that Dave was doing. In Street Touring, AJ Aviles, made famous by Lady Gaga, refused the help graciously offered by the novice coordinator and still took the win somehow. Steven Brown just edged Patrick Olsen in Street Mod, while Scott Blair blamed his third-place finish on the paint job of his front bumper. In Street Mod Female, Brian Karwan easily won the class because David Rittenhouse could not decide whether to look through the windshield, or look through the sunroof during his runs.
Over or under?
The rain really came during the later half of the second heat, and the condition got really sloppy. Everybody was getting a soaking. Mr. Larry Olsen, our master safety steward, was constantly monitoring the weather station for thunderstorm warnings; and here is a conversation between Mr. Olsen and your’s truly:
LO: Danny, any beeping on the weather monitor?
ME: Yes, and it says “Warning, Asian approaching!”
LO: * Speechless *
Beautiful Yenko whachumacallit getting a car wash
Lunch
Lunch was Italian sausage with pepper and onions, plus a Diet Pepsi.
I also discovered during lunch it was impossible to have a normal conversation with David Sann. It was only possible if we are both on walkie-talkie channel 1.
FJ Heat
The FJ heat went by so fast, I didn’t even know what happened. I heard it was a Klosky sweep; and I overheard Josh Luster say: “Man, this is the easiest work assignment ever! I am going to celebrate it by drifting the entire top section and sideways across the finish line.”
Afternoon Competition
The rain really separated “Real Men” from Wusses. Since no one in the ladies class changed classes, the ladies are considered Real Men today. The battle of the Real Men class showed Holly Schwedler out-duel Katie Orgler. Learic Cramer, who is really a man and not a “Real Men,” took C-Stock by over a half second.
Bunch of F125 wusses wimped out of the class at the last moment. Some went to the Geritol class, some decided to work only, some decided to bail, and some decided to run later. After the smoke settled, Vic Buenconsejo Madrid dominated the field with a 2.437-second win, with Josh “the Hurricane” West finishing second, his career best.
Buenconsejo two wheeling
In D-Mod (Geritol class), young Scott Lentz showed absolutely no respect to his elders (If my mom found out about this, she would spank Scott until he apologized; a good Chinese boy will never do that) and won even with a cone penalty. In FSP, after trying out tire combinations 16 times, Darren Mass won by three seconds in “Darren’s” Civic. In XP, Larry Casey, after beating up on some poor dude in Friday’s Cumberland shootout, continued his domination on Sunday. Poor Fast Freddy Kelly once again finished second again this weekend. In SM2, my other Chinese brother Jason Becker won, but what else is new?
Geritol class participants
The sun came out in the beginning of the last heat, which made everybody that ran earlier very upset. Since I am one of the people that ran earlier, I decided not to give the last heat any press. All I can say is Ayodeji Oshinnaiye won Super Stock, James Sheridan won A-Stock, Ron Shurie won G-Stock, Justin Neal won STX — so now the entire STX class wants to shoot Justin now — GREAT!
There are a couple of exception that I would like to report: Peter Appell was so fast in H-Stock, my camera couldn’t even pick up the car under daylight. There is no way Marshall Cone can beat Peter; but since Marshall works as the timing chief, I can understand.
Was that a car just went by?
For you fifth heaters who are complaining about being called off course erroneously, here are a few pieces of hard evidence:
Not Sam's car
Rubber ducky, you're the one
Days after the competition, Josh Luster was petitioning to have the autocross scoring system to include “artistic impression” as a part of total scoring. Last news I heard: Shane Chinnon-Rhoden still won STU, and Josh is starring in the new movie “Blades of Glory II” with Will Ferrell.
Final Tally
Top PAX of the event was Mr. Pat Griffith. Unfortunately by winning top PAX, Pat will be punished by sleeping on the sofa for the rest of the seven weeks until the next event.
Pat "Nice Tan" Griffith, driving Eric's car by night, sleep on the sofa by night
Our BD Craig Garfield is the best course safety steward in the business. He personally tried to make the biggest spin so he could to see how close to get to the poles. No one else will do that in his own car.
And this:
Tells you that 118 of the of us have done all we can accomplished in our autocross career. It’s our best autocross showing ever! Enjoy and see you after the Nationals.
