2025 Modified Rear Wheel Drive National Champion Vaughn Micciche
Nearly 100 RallyCrossers took to the Alabama dirt October 17-19, including 4 drivers from the New England Region. The weekend was a hard fought battle for who would win the coveted title of SCCA® National Champion – and one of those 12 crowned included long-time RXer Vaughn Micciche on his 5th attempt at a championship title.
Leon Drake designed two courses with competitors running each one in both directions. Friday began with drivers running the “outer” course clockwise. Saturday’s weather was cooler than predicted, with a nice breeze that kept dust clearing throughout the day – stagnant air was an issue the day before, causing some delays due to dust clouds. The breeze allowed for a total of six runs on two different courses. In the morning, everyone ran the “inner” course clockwise, then in the afternoon, the group returned to the “outer” course for a counterclockwise go at Drake’s design. On Sunday, as cool temperatures and mud welcomed everyone to the site, the Chief Stewards established a two-hour time limit for each run group, with a guarantee of at least two runs per driver. The rain largely abated after first runs and the sun even peeked out. In the end, Stock, RallyCross Truck, and Prepared all logged two runs, while Modified and UTV scored three runs.
Numerous battles came down to less than a three second margin after three days and in some cases 12 total runs, although the narrowest margin was sub two seconds.
In addition to Vaughn’s Championship performance, NER had 3 other drivers in attendance at the Hollytree Off Road site in Hollytree, AL. Warren Elliott and Hal Denham both attended, bringing their 2006 Mini Cooper S. This was Warren’s 18th running of the RX Nationals. Andrew Benagh also competed in a 1992 Mazda MX-5/Miata.
Vaughn’s Personal Recap
It took 5 attempts over 9 years but we have done it, and it feels amazing! YAA HOOO!!! Like last year the Championship was held in Hollytree Alabama outside Huntsville on an old cotton field that is > 20 acres. The surface at this venue is unlike anything I have raced and so it has dealt me some big lessons in the last two years. Before I dive in further, let me just acknowledge that a life goal of mine has been reached that I have been seeking for about 30 years at this point: To be a National Champion. I have been 2nd at the national level 6 times between Observed Trials and Rallycross across various classes of each… though to be honest I did not choose a simple Rallycross class to compete in as Modified requires great driving, great setup, great tires, and enough horse power.
Modified Rear Wheel Drive: Vaugn Micciche, New England Region
1987 Porsche 924; Winning time: 702.072
At the national level it also tends to attract serious competitors with good technical ability and enough money to make competitive cars. There was a time when I looked at these types of events and the folks that won and imagined that it was ‘all them’ and over the years. I have learned and experienced that what IS ‘all them’ is talent, desire, motivation, and whatever else is in their ‘the will to win’ or that willingness to place yourself in a position where it may be all or nothing.
But beyond that, with few exceptions… there is absolutely NO WAY IN HELL you can do it alone .. and if you did, it would take SO MUCH LONGER to achieve that you might never get there. I never realized that the journey to achieving a goal like this would include getting my life sort of ‘in order’ with infrastructure to travel and live with dependable interpersonal relationships and business relations. I used to say that I thought Observed Trials was a great life-sport but I think it is a young-man’s sport now that I am middle-aged. Motorsport is now the great life-sport 🙂 and I see folks in their 70s still out there being competitive — it is inspirational.
Anyway, MASSIVE I love you and THANK YOU to my life partner Amy Alton – – she made the trip this year along with my life-long (well 30 years of it) best friend Gary Lessner to crew and support, camping out in the hills of Alabama covered in dirt and grease and enjoying it is rare to find 🙂 and it means so much to me.
Anyway, enough mushy stuff, on to the story. Lucky for me Stephen Foster (another long time friend at this point!) bought another beautiful truck and had taken delivery days before the event so for the 2nd year in a row I could haul his truck home to defray diesel costs! Leading up to the event this year I had a list of known issues, not all of which I could fix. But the top of the list was to get the engine running correctly which needed a dyno tune. This ended up costing quite a bit more than I had anticipated, but the result was stellar. We are turning great numbers for a VW 5 cylinder engine as a result of some serious reductions in rotating mass (removing gears from the transmission and an aluminum flywheel among other things — Thanks James Geroux and Rodney Brooks!)
Tires were another area to focus on and we got a rare set of Super Soft compound ALPHA Racing Tyres Eurocross tires from New England Racing Tires – NE Racing Tires. Heading in to the weekend I had HIGH confidence that I would be trading times or beating the 6 time National Champion Leon Drake on his home track. Boy was I so wrong… homeboy beat me by 3 seconds per lap on Friday’s power course! I felt like I was letting everyone down and had created a sort of false hope in so many people and at the time I had no idea why I was off the pace! The car felt amazing, and the only issue I could identify was myself (the ‘nut’ behind the wheel)! Picking up Amy and dropping off Steven in Huntsville Friday evening I was distinctly feeling nearly every emotion separately at the same time. The car felt better than ever… but I was squarely in 2nd to last place! We were the 3rd run group, so by the time we were on course it was hard-packed with rubber mixed in the dirt, so hard that your tires would squeal as you slid through the corners! Saturday I tried to drive like I was on train tracks keeping my tires exactly on the line that everyone else had worn in. This helped, but I still was not on the pace of the class leader and at the end of the day was still sitting in 5th place.
BUT… rain was coming, and I knew this would change things up, I always do well in the rain… having taken FTD of the entire event at the last New England Region SCCA event in the rain. I had confidence again. I didn’t have the most aggressive tires running Alpha Radials rather than their Boxer mud tires (I have not found narrow enough rims to mount them yet!) But looking at my closest competitors I figured that 3rd place was possible and so I was racing for that final podium spot Sunday. Heading out to work the course Sunday morning I watched MANY cars get stuck in both their race laps and sighting laps. I decided then that I would skip my sighting lap come race time and keep my tires and car clean for the first run. When we showed up to race I lost a little confidence as some of the competitors did get ahold of some aggressive BR mud terrain tires and the leader was running 14″ tractor tires on the front of his car and BR muds on the rear! I stuck to the plan and skipped the parade/sighting lap. Making my way to the start line (mud pit) I found lots of clean grass to drive in keeping my tires clear, and when the light turned green I found grip like I had not expected! The car got up on top of the mud due to the wide tires and with the extra knobs of the grass tires I was getting traction in the turns where others were sliding! I catapulted from 5th to 2nd in that one run besting the class leader by nearly 20 seconds!
I had no idea what his time was though and when I came in, a friend came up and said “You’re 2 seconds off the leader” and I was pretty stoked because I figured that meant my plan worked and I would be able to salvage a 3rd place finish by the end of the day… and then he looked at me and said, NO in total time you are only 2 seconds from winning!!! —- I am not sure what happened next but I came too in his arms humping his leg… so we’re not going to talk about that again… THE RACE WAS ON !!!!
Immediately Amy and I went to work cleaning the mud out of the wheel wells and the tires themselves as now every fraction of a second would count. We gathered over 50 pounds of mud and grass in a huge pile. The wind was up and the sun was shining and the course was drying out. The class leader took a 5 minute timeout to add oil and I followed suit taking a timeout to ensure that we both had the same course conditions. His 5 minutes were up and I still had about 2 minutes left but decided it was best to follow him directly and my car wouldn’t start! The starter was not engaging!! Amy gave me a quick shove and the ring-gear aligned and we were back in action. As I was being scanned before the run I watched the class leader sink in and stop forward momentum after the start. His clutch smoked and those tractor tires sunk in and he was beached on the mud with such a low slung suspension setup! With the tractor pulling him out, we had a nice sign-language conversation expressing frustration, condolences, and excitement… and then it was my turn to prove that the first run wasn’t a fluke.
Again, I took time out of the field, turning the fastest lap of the run group! The stress REALLY set in now, as the championship was mine as long as my car would finish the event! That meant it had to start, and finish the next lap, on time because I had already used my timeout! I aired up my tires to ensure no lost beads, and got the mud away from my crank pulley and steering mechanism. I did not drive with max attack on the final run but still that run was fast and put me below 40 seconds – which was only breached by one car in each class in our run group!
A roller-coaster for sure… the result was solidified… and the celebrations could commence! Modified Rear Wheel drive had a new cast of characters this year and boy did we have fun — nearly every car had a mechanical issue at some point during the weekend RallyFife included! We had an oil leak develop on the final run of Saturday, narrowed it down to a crush-washer bolt that was so loose it may not have survived another run!! A lot of luck, a lot of learning, and the cultivation of desire and motivation having the love of my life by my side made it even sweater, and the two day trip home was twice as nice! — Cheers!!!
Bonus— Towing through Rutland, VT Tuesday night I came up on a school bus full of a highschool football team. They were stoked to see a race car on the trailer giving thumbs up etc… I slowed down, got the award out and held it up as I drove past the bus a second time and they went crazy hooting and hollering like a pack of wild animals!! It was awesome! 🙂
