Nation’s Best Soloists to be Crowned at 35th Solo National Championships
The culmination of the Solo season unfolds this week when close to 1,200 drivers take part in the 35th Tire Rack® SCCA Solo National Championships.
For the second year in-a-row, the Solo National Championships will polish the paddock at Heartland Park Topeka and crown 67 Champions in the world’s largest motorsports competition.
Super Stock boasts the largest number of entries with 69, but reigning class Champion Matthew Braun has moved to B Stock with a Mazda RX-8, leaving the category wide-open for a win from the likes of eight-time Champion Gary Thomason, three-time Champions Tom Kotzian and Pat Salerno.
A Stock welcomes an equally impressive 64 competitors, with defending class Champion Jeff Cashmore, of New Berlin, Wis., going for his fifth Solo Title. It could be another husband-wife sweep if Denise Cashmore can retain her A Stock Ladies title as well.
Darrel and Desiree Padberg will also attempt a second spousal sweep of C Prepared and C Prepared Ladies in their Ford Mustang.
Beverlee Larsson, of Anaheim Hills, Calif., goes for her third-straight D Street Prepared Ladies Championship this week. She’ll continue to pilot her trusty BMW 325is in the largest of the ladies’ classes.
Carrying momentum into the competition is defending A Street Prepared Champion Mike “Junior” Johnson, who recently captured his first-ever SCCA ProSolo win on the very same Heartland Park asphalt less than a week ago. Johnson will be searching for his third Solo Championship trophy this week.
Classes are separated into Tuesday/Wednesday run groups and Thursday/Friday run groups with awards banquets scheduled for Wednesday and Friday evening. With the exception of a rain chance on Tuesday, Mother Nature is expected to cooperate with the event, providing sunny skies and temperatures around 80.
The Tire Rack SCCA Solo National Championships began in 1973 to crown North America’s best autocross drivers. Solo, SCCA’s version of autocross, is a competition of drivers against the clock on a course laid out with pylons. There are two courses, and a driver’s best aggregate time from both courses determines the winner. Drivers who move or knock over a pylon receive a two second penalty to their time for that run.
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