Sports Car - November 2011

OF
THEYEAR
MODIFIEDS
The 39th Tire Rack Solo National
Championships | Lincoln, Neb. |
Aug. 30-Sept. 2, 2011

This year’s Tire Rack Solo National Championships was the year of the David and Goliath story of the little Formula SAE car with the four-high stacked wing out of the University of Maryland, driven by Michael Stanley, posting the fastest overall time of the event. It was faster than the A and B Mods, the F125 karts – everybody. And it happened in Modified.

This was the year the glass pylon was shattered for only the third time with Brianne Corn winning an Open class in dominant fashion. And it happened in Modified.

This was the year a driver, whose first championship came 29 years ago, proved he still had the right stuff – Gary Milligan set the absolute record for the longest span between his first and his most recent National championship title (not to mention claiming seven others in between). And it happened in Modified.

This was the year an irrepressible young kid who hasn’t even graduated out of Formula Junior yet, Julian Garfield, extended his undefeated streak to four, matching the longest run by any undefeated driver. In fact, only two male drivers went farther before their first loss, and young Garfield hasn’t lost yet. By the way, his momma won, too, this year – in Modified.

This was the year the Northeast Division outdid itself by taking home a division-record 15 championships – the most by any division this year. And five of those titles were in Modified.

This was the year Jodi Fordahl came to
Nationals by herself, leaving husband Greg
home, and left her mark all over the record
book – an 11th championship (tie for sixth
among women), a 16th championship for the
Fordahl family (Jodi and Greg, tie for fifth), a
tie for eighth among women for the most
years ( 22) between a first and last
championship, her 20th trophy finish (tying
for fourth among women) and she became
only the sixth driver to win in four different
categories. OK, she won in ASPL this year,
but her string began where? In Modified (a
CML victory in 1989).

Next year’s Nationals also will be back on its preferred dates of Labor Day week – Sept. 3-7, 2012. Often in the past someone has suggested the Solo Nationals should be in August, before school starts. Well this year they finally got an August Nationals (at least for the first two days of competition). And in Lincoln, geographically more northerly and statistically cooler than prior locales in Topeka and Salina, Kan., the August weather brought a string of 90-degree days. Weathermen will tell you that’s fairly normal in this part of the country. Weathermen will also remind you that is the temperature in the shade, and the slab of airport doesn’t provide much shade.

The only drivers not complaining much about the heat were the early drivers Tuesday morning, when the event was delayed by the tail end of a rainstorm, which washed across Lincoln overnight leaving 2.62in. of water behind – a record rainfall for the date. Heat 1 drivers and some in Heat 2 were doing the rain-tire dance, but after that it was dry and hot the rest of the week.

The barometer of the quality of the event, however, is often the action in the protest shed. If drivers are happy and enjoying themselves, the protest committee usually has little to do. For a second year in a row, the protest committee only had to deal with two protests and one of them was merely a competitor disputing a pylon penalty (he won his case). The other was a car issue in GP late the fourth day that remained unresolved as of the Friday banquet.

More use was made of the massive Lincoln Airpark event site, with the surrounding snow fence pushed farther north. Many Nebraska Region members wore red T-shirts proclaiming how some think they put up a mile of snow fence just so they can drive their cars around some cones.