East Tennessee Region SCCA

Today is the day. The Tire Rack SCCA Solo National Championships are underway. You can keep up with the action in several ways.

1 - Make sure to like and follow SoloMatters on facebook for lots of great pictoral coverage.

2 - Live streaming (East Course) - http://www.ustream.tv/channel/solo-nationals-east

3 - Live timing (West Course) - http://www.ustream.tv/channel/solo-nationals-west

4 - Live timing and results - http://sololive.scca.com/

5 - Get familiar: Check out the course maps -

http://scca.cdn.racersites.com/prod/ass ... %20Map.pdf

http://www.scca.com/assets/East%20Course%20Map.pdf

I just saw JY's second run!!

Well crap... 1st group is over. Now to try n catch the 3rd run group.

How they doing ?

Robert just took second in ES!

jb in with a trophy, beating out Darrin as well!

Just happened to login to watch JB's run 59.839 once again congrats to all the ETR & CR competitors. Also glad to see the 2014 Camaro SS with top spot in F Street.

Good job John. Dug yourself outta mid-pack on day 2!

well done John

Just got home a little while ago and got most stuff unloaded. What a great time at nats, the car did well most of the time with a little brake problem that I have to get worked out. The courses were great and flowed really well and were also fast. I didn't get the finish I wanted but had a blast. The only good thing that I can take away from nats is that I paxed 212 out of 1159 drivers and we had a good time after racing while sitting under the tent eating some great food. Thanks to all that helped with the trip. Looking forward to next year nats already...

After resting up from the week at the Nationals... I think back on all my drives home after the event.. Some have a total blur from the excitement of a great win or finishing position. Some have been the longest trip of my life.. this was a good trip back! I wish I had ran better on my first day..but it wasn't a total wash out,but my runs on the east course were prolly at the talent limits for this old man in a sea of young hot shoes.. I finished in a flurry of STS greats.. for that, Im happy. My first STS nationals left me in 16th or 17th spot.. my second trip netted me a trophy spot of 10th out of 11 trophies. I guess Im going in the right direction with a 7th this year.
Im gonna try to improve the car this week and the next.. some issues were discovered out there.. Im sure they will help.
It was great to see folks I only get to see out there.. I hope next year brings a bigger and closer ETR paddock. Its gonna be interesting at the numbers next year with STC and STS combining.. 80???

my West course run that pulled me out of the hole.( I forgot to turn off the GoPro,so lots of gibberGabber at the end)

http://youtu.be/RhxuIJ3RJOA

It was probably one of my favorites trips....

The ride out was good. Jed and I hit the road early Tuesday, so the 14 hour trip gave us some time to walk the courses. We said several hellos, got a couple of course walks, grabbed dinner, came back to the site and socialized a bit.

Wednesday, we did the tech/registration thing, watched some action, and then did T&T. I bought 3 sessions to try to give us a better chance to leave feeling good about things. Practice course was good. Fast slalom and a series of sweepers. Lots of limiter for us. Car was pushy and my pace was way off what I could see of some STS/STC cars and what James Yom told us we should run , but I got a lot of runs and felt like I knew what to expect. We then went to the banquet to watch a few friends get their championship.

Thursday was West course. I hit a couple of cones on my first run and came in with a 61.9 scratch. I was stupid late in the slaloms and the fast guys were in the 60's, so I felt pretty encouraged. Jed ran a 61.5, which had him near the top after 1st runs. I had a "half spin" in the finish slalom on my 2nd run, and then coned early and got stupid on my last run. Jed never got faster, so he was 6th after day 1 and I was pretty much at the bottom with my 2 cones. I was super bummed.

Friday, we had rain and changing conditions. It was super tough. It drizzled and was damp the first 2 runs and we had a full fledge rain for my last run. We kinda thought things we done, but it actually started to dry up. We both sat on our 1st runs again. Trophies were 8 deep and I think Jed was 6th coming off course. 2nd drivers kept getting faster and faster. He ended up getting bumped out of the trophies on the very last run of the day.

Jed's car was good and he gave me the opportunity to get a lot of runs in it, so I really had a good opportunity to do well in it. That is really all I can hope for at nats. I wasn't able to take advantage of that opportunity, but that is part of it. I learned a ton this trip, including that I really do care how I do at these things and I need to put myself in a better position to do well at events. That probably isn't the CRX in any trim.

Anyway, one of the things I hate about nats is that so much goes on that you can't possibly see everyone/everything. Hopefully, I can coordinate better with the rest of ETR next time. I know that Scott D talked about getting more of a SEDiv tent/area.

yeah... that would be a good idea. Figure we had 7 people total from ETR there if I count right. Getting a tent for 10 people would be pricey I'm thinking.

The comment you have above about not being able to see everything... that's why when I go, I get there while the pro is still going on and I have tons of time to de-compress from the previous work week and to take everything in and not have to cram everything in over 2-3 days. Yes, sometimes that's just not possible with some people, but that's what I do.

whoever goes next year.... I think will all have to get togheter and coordinate to decide who brings what. JY and Linn brought a shit ton of stuff and that was a huge endeavor for them. I hope that everyone helps out next year and evens the load out.
Getting a region/divisional tent is a great idea since you arrive and it's ready. Just need extra stuff for working on the car when it's hot or rainy.

My trip to Nationals was good and bad all in the same day:

I want to thank JY for the eats. I am sorry we didn't hang out as much as we normaly would have but Kellye's back was killing her after the ride out and sitting in the folding chairs hurt it even more.

Day 1: I didn't drive that well that day as the rust on not having much drive time in the car showed and ended up third but way off the pace set my Eric. The west course was a lot of fun and hard to see the line. Did anybody notice all the bad cones that were split on the West course? These were the worst cones I have ever seen at a National Championship! I took several pics showing the cone and cone number so I could send a letter to the SCCA so they can see how bad they were this year.

Day 2: Right before I am too put on my helmet and take on the east course Pilson came up to me to let me know that Sara had broken her leg at school and was going to the Hospital. As any father would do I was worried about her and really didn't know if I was going to take any runs or not, but thinking about it we were 14 hours a way and there is nothing I can do I ran my runs and drove a lot better comming in 2nd over all. I can't tell you enough how hard it is to concentrate on driving with all the stuff going through my mind at that point in time. I appreciate Pilson telling me but I am not sure if the tables were turned if I would have not waited until he ran his runs because there is nothing you can do being that far from home. I am sure he felt bad having to tell me too

I loaded the car up as fast as I could went back to the hotel to get some sleep for the long trip back and left out about 4:30am to get back to see Sara. Sara has a broken tibula and its bad! I went to her mom's house to see her once I got back to Knoxville and she looked to be happy to see Kellye and I. She is going to the doctor today to see if they are going to do surgery or not so please say a little prayer for her tonight!

I had a great trip and wow comming in 2nd is great when the guy that beats you is a great guy like Eric and Ron the guy that came in 3rd was so close to my times he is a great driver and a good set-up guy. It was great too see everybody in E-street so nice and understanding if I had to leave my car in grid like I did to go get the trailer. Thank you E-street and I look forward to next year!

Robert Carpenter
99-ES

PS: A big thanks goes out to Scott Dobler for getting my numbers, class and Mazda stickers done with little to no notice and thank you for putting them on! Thank you John for getting the car ready before the trip out and if you need your car aligned I would always recommend John's shops because he is going to make sure its all good before you leave out.

Hoping the best for Sara. She's young so I'm sure she'll bounce back!