Photo by Shawn Pan

It was a cloudy morning but the rain held off while everyone was setting up. Just as we gathered for the driver’s meeting the rain came in. It continued to come down at a steady clip for both morning run groups, making conditions quite slick for competitors. Drivers were raring to go after the first non-points event back on April 4th, which saw dry conditions in combination with a fast course. Unfortunately, the rain, along with a course that had some tricky slowdowns, made it quite difficult to push the limits.

Photo by Jacob Ronald

Non-Pros Take Pax

As lunch came to an end the rain began to ease. The drying conditions tempted many drivers to push their limits resulting in both fast times and epic spins. The challenging conditions made for some interesting results according to Alex Jackson, NER Autocross Chairman, “Pro class is pax’d and it typically consists of the fastest drivers in the region competing against each other rather than in their base classes. It occasionally happens that someone outside of pro gets top pax at the event like they did (for this event), but it’s pretty rare, only occurring less than once a year. Usually the top 5 pax spots are the top 5 spots in pro.”  Not only was top pax claimed by a non-pro driver, but Sunday’s event only had three pro drivers in the top ten pax results.

Top Winners

GS had 8 drivers pushing hard, which drove #123 Brent Vander Werf, in the 2017 Volkswagen GTI to lay down a 57.577, claiming the top spot for GS. When this run was converted to a PAX time, that gave Brent the overall fastest PAX of the day with a time of 45.716.  Not too far behind Brett was his co-driver, #23 John Rappa, in second place with a 58.425.

Pro class had 10 drivers. Brian Kuehl in the STS #42 1988 Honda CRX took first place in PRO with his PAX time of 46.080.  Not far behind him was his co-driver, Derek White, in second with a 46.213 and in third, Rachel Baker, in the AS #35 2015 Porsche Cayman S with a 46.628.

STS was another competitive class with 8 drivers all working to put down a fast lap.  In first place was #67 Brian Levesque, in the 1991 Honda Civic with a 57.005. Close behind, in second place was #194 Brandon Dryer in the1991 Honda Civic Si with a 57.540.

Novices Came Out

By far our largest class today was our novices, with 13 drivers in attendance.  You have to give a lot of credit to the NER staff for the support they provide novice drivers.  Each driver saw improvements in their time throughout the day despite the rain.  Click the link at the bottom for all the results. Last but not least, on behalf of all drivers I’d like to say thank you to the NER staff for a well-run event despite the adverse conditions.  All our #funwithcars would not be possible with all your hard work and dedication.