On Sunday, August 2nd, 2015, MoHud SCCA held its fifth Solo event of the 2015 season at McCarty Ave lot.  58 entrants came out to enjoy a rare dry day of sunshine and autocross, and also to see if they could solidify a spot in their respective class championships.  Jeff Grossbard, a former course designer for MoHud, came back and did a course design for us.  The course was tight in a few spots, but flowed well and proved challenging to squeeze everything out of it for both the corner carvers and the horsepower holders.  The results showed that the normal pecking order was disrupted somewhat and that the course brought some strengths and weaknesses out of both drivers and cars that aren’t normally highlighted.  Ian Morse set the benchmark in his kart, putting down a time of 31.295 seconds.  Andy Furlong, EJ Smith, and Jon Staude had the fastest raw times of the street cars, with times of 34.616, 34.761, and 35.728 seconds respectively.

However, the real measurement becomes the PAX times, and those revealed some interesting results.  Jeff Grossbard held the top PAX spot, earning him some well-deserved kidding about his insider status as course designer.  Barb Seeger, a new face to MoHud events, used the magic formula of driving a Focus ST to earn a 4th place finish at the sharp end of the PAX report.  Filling out the rest of the top 5 was Jon Staude in 2nd, Ian Morse in 3rd, and Russ Burckhard in 5th.

There are some real competitions occurring in the season championship class contests, but some are all but locked up. As we stand today:

• In Street, Ian Wallace has a commanding 20 point lead, but 2nd-3rd-4th are still being hotly contested, with Joe Lagdao, Miguel Teixeira, and Clifton Cearley all within 10 points of each other.
• In Street Prepared, Dave Peters holds a 6 point lead over Dan Whaley by way of Dave’s 5 bonus points for Devens Championship Tour participation, but if Dan shows up for the last event of the season, that advantage will disappear as Dan earns 5 bonus points for attending all events.  1 point separating 1st and 2nd? Bring on the next event!
• Stephen Zavos currently holds a 17 point lead for 1st in Street Touring/Modified, but Stephen missed Event 5.  Will he show for Event 6 to maintain his lead?  Tim Frink and Scot Carpenter are ready to pounce, and a mere 4 points separate them so 2nd and 3rd will likely also be decided by the next event’s outcomes.
• The debut season for Pro class – a collection of long-time MoHud Solo participants who have had success in their respective classes – has all but been sewn up by Jon Staude.  Jon has put in a solid performance at every event and leads the class by 33 points.  Russ Burckhard holds 2nd by a 1o point margin, which also puts him in good for retaining that spot.  The real battle will be for 3rd, where Carmine Russo and Andy Furlong are separated by 1 slim point.  Again, the next event will hold the key to their fortunes.
• In Novice class, newcomer Adam Wright has done well, scoring no lower than 3rd at an event for his class. His pair of wins and two 2nds are locking him into 1st.  2nd place is solidly in Saul Morse’s possession, and Jose Martinez just needs to show up and take a lap to claim 3rd.  If not, Aaron Bailey is ready to step up from 4th and claim it for himself.
• For the Kart class, Johnathan Burckhard has locked up 1st place by virtue of attending all events and racking up points, despite some mechanical challenges that could have taken those points off the table, so kudos to his determination. Ian Morse has not been at all events, but when he has been, he’s reeled in a 1st place finish, good for 2nd place.

Next and final event is Sunday, September 13th.  I’ll be there to compete, but even if I wasn’t I’d still show up just to see how these duels play out.  Don’t miss it.