Page 1 of 1

July 30 Event Recap

Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 11:33 am
by Lauren Kane Porta
Summer Fun at Autocross #8

Irvine, CA—For the second time in the same month, Cal Club Autocross returned to the runways at El Toro Marine Base in Irvine for the eighth event of the 2017 season. Over 120 participants competed on the course—which included a crossover in the beginning—with many testing for the upcoming Solo National Championships in September.

One of the smallest margins of victory came in the first group of the day, as Leonard Cachola stood on his first run to defeat Thomas Frecentese in C Street by .042. It was a different story in Street Touring Sport, as Stephen Yeoh utilized a fast second run to cruise to a one second victory over Gary Cameron.

Jeff Wong was the leader in Street Touring eXtreme until the final run, when Adrian Cardenas found over eight tenths from his best clean run to take the win by .355. Adam Tarnoff finished in third place almost nine-tenths back, while Derek Punch placed fourth in the 11-driver class.

Will Flores rebounded from a first-run DNF to lay down a quick second run, and that was all he needed to hold off Randy Gonzalez in A Street, whose best fourth run fell short by almost nine-tenths. Max Hayter continued to knock off time in each of his four runs, ultimately taking the D Street victory by .735 over Jason Isley. Tom Kenna finished third with Mitch Metling in fourth.

Despite coning his fastest run, course designer Brandon Porambo in his Honda S2000 won California Street Touring by three-tenths against Michael Bradley in the Mini. Jonathan Hartendorp was third by just .094, while Tetsu Fukui took fourth place.

Julian Manolov emerged victorious in Street Mod Combined (made up of SSM, SM, and SMF cars), besting Marco Cruz by over half a second, while Myles Wakayama won F Street by almost a second over Sidney Chang.

San Francisco Region member Tony Rodriguez overpowered the eight-person E Street class, winning by 2.6 seconds while also earning top overall PAX on the day. Dennis Hubbard finished second with Kai Hur a tenth back in third.

Ken Motonishi put together four clean runs, winning the nine-driver Street Touring Roadster class by sixth-tenths over Michael Yanase, with Matt Ales finishing third and Reed Gibson in fourth only .053 back.

After the lunch break, two juniors competed in JA, with Tomo Wakayama defeating Robert Ekstrand by four-tenths.

Three of the four competitors in PAX class were driving backup cars on Sunday, but that didn’t stop Tom Berry in the BMW from claiming a 1.5-second victory over Jeff Stuart in the Nissan 350Z. Tom Tanquary laid down a fast second run to best Mihail MIlkov by .653 in B Street, while Brian Howlett continued his dominance in Historic 1 with a six second win over Brian Jackson.

George White improved by almost half a second between his second and fourth runs to increase his lead over Cathy Strovers for the .791 win in Super Stock R. Similarly, Neelu Yeoh found eight-tenths between her third and fourth runs to push her lead out to almost three seconds in PAX Ladies over Jessica Pao (who coned her three fastest runs).

After being dirty in his first three runs, Scott Mullens cleaned up his act to take the .117 win over Greg Nelson in Classic American Muscle Contemporary. Nelson had the raw time on two of his runs to win the class, but hit cones on both. Chad Ryker won Classic American Muscle Traditional by eight-tenths over Michael Cuthbertson, while Eric Clements earned a nine-tenths win over Jason Swindle in C Modified.

Cal Club Autocross returns to El Toro for the ninth event of the season on Sunday, August 20.