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the pylon points to: Richard Rippy

by Mike Driscoll

ARIZONA REGION – Richard "Rip" Rippy was born in Whittier, CA a few months after the United States entered World War II. He lived there until 1998, when he and Susie (his wife of thirty-plus years) moved to Phoenix. Rip had worked for a small manufacturing company in Whittier, starting out as a machinist in 1958 and retiring as vice president & general manager in 1997. He says that one of the reasons for the move to Phoenix was to help keep his good friend Steve Steele out of trouble.

Rip admits to having "messed around with motor sports all my life," and even cites loud cars and loud guns as reasons for his limited hearing. (An avid hunter till about age 40, he's continued with shooting competitions, regularly placing in the top ten percent at handgun combat and black-powder long gun competitions.)

His dad let Rip buy his first car when he was 14, and helped him build a flat-head hot rod. For years to come his dad said that, had he had known how much time and money Rip would spend on going fast, he would never have helped him get started.

Rip spent a great deal of time with motorcycles, beginning with a new 1958 BSA 500cc Gold Star that he rode and raced in the dirt. Most recently, he rode and raced a 1996 ATK 600cc. In 1960, he and a cousin bought a new Austin Healy to race. They took it Riverside Raceway, where his cousin had an easy rollover during one of the very first laps, but got out of the car and walked away, laughing. Then the car caught fire and burned to ground, after which Rip and his cousin "made payments on the ashes" for three years.

For variety, Rip raced go-karts in the early 1960's & again in the early 1980' s and 1/8-scale RC cars in the 1970's & again in the early 1990's. And he was involved in off-road activities during most of those years, showing up now and then in the "hard-core off-road magazines." And he's been into water skiing and fast boats. He was "kind of successful" in these efforts (as in most of the things he's tried) and "had a lot fun and met some of the best people in the world."

Rip has no explanation for the fact SCCA Solo 2 stayed under his radar until the spring of 2001. He quickly acknowledges the help he had as a senior newbie, notably from Dave Young and Steve Ryan, as he learned to autocross his pitch black 1998 Camaro Z28. He says he feels lucky that he usually finishes well in ESP. Like first place in our Fall 2002 series, first in Spring 2003, second in Fall 2003, and first in Spring 2004, along with good postings in assorted Tucson events.

For about a year now, Rip has been helping our club by assisting with tech inspections. You probably picked up on the fact that he's retired. And enjoying it.

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No, Drive This Way
The Summer Series, Event 2

by Adam Stern

18 July 2004, CENTRAL ARIZONA COLLEGE (Signal Peak Campus, Coolidge) – The Arizona Region SCCA Solo 2 Summer Series is in full swing after an exciting second event on July 18. By using a rotation opposite that of the first event around the Central Arizona College Law Enforcement Training Area track (that is, counter-clockwise rather than clockwise), the course was kept fresh and challenging, despite the limiting nature of a road course.

As may be seen from the results, Tage Evanson in Sportsman class clocked in the fastest raw time of the day, for the second event in a row, with a 53.826 and 995 PAX score in his S Modified Integra. Tage now leads Sportsman in the series with 1982 PAX points. But right behind him are Steve Eymann, 1964, and Larry Petrucci, 1962, who ran 54.53/985 and 55.655/979 respectively. Right up there in the class was Dave McCombs with a 54.919/987 for this event. In PRO, Jim Harnish, in his first event of the series, set the PAX score for the day in his F Street Prepared Civic with a 55.225, enough to edge out Joshua Sortor and his WRX’s 57.103/989.

There was a bit more competition in the open stock classes this event, with Super Stock, C Stock, D Stock and G Stock all sporting some intense rivalries. In Super Stock, Darrell Covert’s 57.496/934 was just enough to place him above Kim Kemper’s 57.891/928, giving Darrell a 14-point edge going into the final event. Tom Dukerich took C Stock with a 58.193/951, just six-tenths faster than Dawn Maxwell. D Stock was won by Tom Tkacik with a 60.231/939, who again barely turned in faster times than Mike Esker, 61.353/922. Ben Clement took G Stock with a 60.463/951, just ahead of Larry Dues and his 61.598/933.

Only four cars competed in street prepared classes, with Bob Francis, 58.045/912, taking A Street Prepared, and Chad Sherman winning D Street Prepared with 67.23/815. In E Street Prepared, Richard Rippy’s 56.411/966 was enough to defeat Travis Berry’s 59.341/918. Jon Schwab edged out on top of classmate Ryan Kanto in A Modified with a 58.274/770. D Modified was taken by Don Sattler’s 56.261/901, just quicker than David Lahey’s 57.995/874. In S Modified, Steve Steele, 57.346/934, in his 1965 Mustang was able end up just 2 PAX points above Ron Mercer, 57.513/932.

Another group of classes with just a few competitors was the street touring category. Clint Child in his 1988 Honda Civic Wagovan turned a 61.741/919, just fast enough to make him first in Street Touring S, over Kris Castner’s 62.029/915. Street Touring Extreme belonged to Kevin Gleaton, 60.652/931, who narrowly defeated Ryan Sotak, 61.673/916.

This event had an even better turnout of female drivers, with seven women competing in ladies’ classes. Mindi Cross dominated PAX Ladies with a 56.085/944, but coming up in the class is Teresa Clement, who ran a 62.319/922. Novice Ladies belonged to Chelsea McConnell, 66.515/849, in her Street Touring Extreme Mustang, but Meghan Dorsey was hot on her heels with a 67.585/836, showing significant improvement in just one event.

Again, the largest class of the day was Street Tire 1, which was all Dave Young’s. With a 56.52/948, Dave’s S Modified M3 was in 35 PAX points above second place, Brady Dohrmann 59.509/913 in his B Stock 350Z. Right behind him was Greg Rubenstein, who’s E Street Prepared Impreza with a 59.936/909. Separated by only 8 points, Steve Mott, Roger Brendecke, Chris Bunch and Jon Roesch came in fourth, fifth and sixth respectively. Competition was also fierce in Street Tire 2 with a narrow range of 9 point separating first through fourth places. Ryan Yantzer came in first with a 61.72/931 in his G Stock 240SX, just ahead of Will Esker’s 60.912/928. Not far back were Mark Johnson with a 61.262/923, and Brad Owen with a 62.325/922.

Other groups with plenty of competition were the remaining novice classes. Novice 1 was taken by Chris Lampe with a 61.466/882, in his A Stock 2005 STi. Dave Maxfield was in second with a 59.505/852, followed closely by Eric Trujillo, 63.482/844. In Novice 2, Gene Brannigan, 63.531/890, was barely able to overtake Khay Wai Leong, 62.502/886. Despite an extremely diverse group of cars, Bejoe Mathew won Novice 3 with a 63.623/892, moving up many places since last event and showing a great improvement of 21 PAX points. A single point behind Bejoe was Jason Pierce with a 63.401/891, and in third place was Kevin Cote, 63.841/885. Charlie Allen was right behind Kevin with a 63.898/884. Kevin does still hold a 15 point lead over Bejoe in the series, and it’ll be interesting to see how things turn out at the final event.

This second Summer Series event intensified the competition that was started in the first event and, with only one of three events being dropped for the series standing, drivers were forced to make every run count to keep up with their rivals. As it is, no class has a definitive winner, and everyone out on August 8 event will be pushing their cars and themselves to the absolute limit in an effort to seal a series win.

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