Kansas Region Duel Solo / Test & Tune - October 9/10, 2004

The Kansas Region SCCA, based in Topeka, put on a special 50th Anniversary event held at none other than Forbes Field on Nationals concrete. To say that this was a rare opportunity to get seat time in on Nationals conrete does not do the event justice. It was a two day event and Saturday was dedicated to Test & Tune using the 2004 Solo II Nationals South Course. It's not often you get to run a Nationals course, let alone one setup using the same painted boxes for the cones as the original. This was followed by a one-day ProSolo style event on Sunday. So, for $35 each competitor got to run the South Course about 15-20 times on Saturday, followed by a minimum of 12 runs on Sunday for the ProSolo "Duel" event. And if you got into the Challenge more runs were to be had.

Saturday turned out to be a Solo Swap Meet. Lot's of people sharing / riding in each others cars. What a blast. This was followed by free dinner and beer at SCCA Headquarters with vintage 70s videos of autocrosses. To our collective shock, it appears Rock Entriken's sprite it painted the same colors today as it was nearly 30 years ago. Nevermind it's actually the same car.

Sunday, on a course designed by Howard Duncan, a lot of local drivers got to see and experience the fast and furious pace of a ProSolo. I believe cone Queen honors goes to Julie Avard. Thanks for keeping us busy, Julie! David (her husband) mumbled something about 13 cones in an apologetic tone to me. Sixteen drivers went into the Challenge round, including myself and co-driver Branden Burkhart. When all the dust settled, three stood upon the podium: Julie Avard (1st), Jim French (2nd) and Joe Silva (3rd). Yep, you read that right - Julie Avard. She apparently made peace with the Cone Gods and took the overall win. Congrats to Julie, Jim and Joe! They took to the podium with three bottles of champaign and had at it Formula 1 style. Joe easily won that race, spraying Julie and Jim before they cold get the corks off!

How did I do? Well, I was out in the first round, and my co-driver was out in the second round. Did I also mention he beat me in my own car and took the class win? Isn't there a rule against that?

Duel solo results are posted here