AZ Region SCCA
Fall Series - 2007
by Dave Lahey
The Fall Series is always interesting each year. With Nationals in September, and some of the "hot shoes" M.I.A. for the local event, PAX scores can really be skewed. With Mark Huffman off winning yet another Championship jacket, and some of the other "PAX killers" away in Topeka, the "September advantage" set the tone in some classes. There were certainly some surprises, and some the same-ole-same-ole results, but the Fall Series 2007 was another good one!
Here are the Winners:
In Super Stock, Dan Dan Hawrylkiw scored 2850 points in his Elise to win over Darrell's Lil Blue. FS was Jim Barks in his Mustang (pictured), and HS won by Mike Rogers in his RSX. These classes were not so affected by ...
... the September phenomenon.
However, look at CSP, and the effect is a bit more showing. But not only that, Dawn Maxwell just plain kicked asphalt on "the boys" and scored a walloping 987 PAX with Mark J close at 984 that first event. That start, along with her superb string of First Place finishes put her over the top and racking up 2939 points! Mark was 20 behind, and Kevin Gleaton third, but other than "the Black Demon," any other car and driver combo was left 100+ points behind in the end.
Nice, NICE job done, Dawn. Now DON'T Do it again! ;^)
Sean Powers took DP in the Toyota Mr2. E Mod went to relative newcomer Clifton Ragland (pictured) in his nice Datsun 240Z over the Brunton Stalker of Bill Bradley and the Goodman V8-powered Rx-7. In STS, Manfred "yeah, it's an automatic" Reysser put a whoopin' on another relative newcomer, Clinton Campbell in his Mini, and Aric Trust's BMW. In STS2, Kevin Venisnik picked up some competition and a co'driver this Series, but managed to remain King of the ST Miatas, but just barely over Jim Rohn, who proved he CAN fit in a Miata, IF the top's down. Britt Dollmeyer once again racked up some big numbers to take the ST1 win, with George Sklyarevsky and Greg Rubenstein giving chase. The saga and trash-talking continues, and there are new parts and tires on the way, rumor has it. In the similarly disputed and much-discussed ST2 class, Klayton Albers rose to the top over Scott Meyers (in 3 different cars!?), Todd Houser, and Josh Dellinger. This was a ONE POINT Victory for the BMW, the closest in any class!
Another "closest in class" victory went to Deb Eymann in the family 'Vette, who took the win over Diane Deanovic BY ONE POINT! This is good stuff here! As Diane gets more used to the XP Beast, though, you might see this flip-flop soon, as her increasing scores almost made up the difference near the end. Speaking of fast women (DRIVERS!), Suzanne Lipke was too quick in her Mini Cooper S for Mitzi Burrow in her BMW. Suzanne takes the trophy in STL with consistently good scores while Mitzi is getting quicker all the time! Another Mini took the Novice Ladies class, with Lisa Folb driving away from Sharon Graves as she learns the Lotus Elise.
With a 990 PAX in the September event, Ted Lewis (pictured in new livery!) took a whopping lead in ASP, but couldn't hold on to it once Huffman returned from Nationals. That dang car is just SO fast, and Mark does such a fine job of it, Pro means GO, and go FAST!!! Street Mod was again the Dave Young Show, though Frank Miller gave it his best shot, and is improving, and Tim Bergstrom brought out similar BMW M3 power and handling, but Dave took the win.
In the Sportsman class, outgoing Director Brian Peters drove Jay Balducci's WRX Sti (not his new pocket-rocket toy pictured above) in STU class to the Series win, followed by "Fast Freddie" FrankenZust, Tage Evanson, Steve Eymann, Elliot Speidell in the now-departed Rx8, then Jay, and Doug Rowse. With 17 qualifying competitors, this was the largest group, and the most "veteran" of the crowd. Brian had one 1000 point event, and Tage had two, but the other lower scores were too much to overcome the consistent and consistently fast Mr. Peters, even with him missing the last event. (That has to be a first in many many years!) Ya just can't beat 993+1000+992. Nice job, Brian!
Corey Ehrler was the NV1 winner in his'98 Camaro Z/28.. Jon Rodhouse was second in his Rx8. In NV2, Kevin O'Neill (pictured) drove his Audi TT well enough to outd0 JEff Hancock in his Miata. While most velt that Jeff could run away with this, Kevin came out of the drivers' school with guns a-blazin' and put the hurt on at the last event. Brad Lundahl drove his '95 Miata to the NV3 win over James Tobias in an '05 Impreza. Corey was pretty much a runaway winner, but the other two novice classes were pretty close.
So maybe you needed to be there in September to win this Series, but then again, perhaps not. While a few folks took a BIG lead at the first event, others came on strong later on, and some simply did it with consistency. Perhaps this September phenomenon really doesn't exist? Time and History would have to tell, but we may certainly see more in 2008, as the Spring Series kicks off in January, and new faces, new cars, new tires, new parts, and new attitudes hit the pavement for some cone-killin' tire-squealin' and smokin' good times to come! See you all out there, and hey, Happy Holidays!