Someone seems to think I need to put results on the nets. Whoo hoo! Not so
easy, kemo sabe. All those who ran will get mailed results, as will newsletters
of regions who had drivers here. I think we had 92 drivers in the brackets
from seven states -- Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Texas and
Arizona. The day was not as hot as it promised, the wind died down enough to
become welcome instead of oppressive, and we had a pretty darn good time.
Broke more cars than the average autocross (mine included!), but somehow
people seem to run harder at Mirror Khana. Maybe it's having a live human
over in that other lane to beat. No clocks, don'tcha know, so none of this
esoteric time trial stuff. You gotta beat HIM! (or her, and a couple gals
trophied in open classes). I told people we would feed and clothe you for
$30 per and throw in an autocross too. The silver-on-black Tees and Polos
were well-received (and the day not so hot they could not be worn by many). \
Brookville Hotel brought their famed Chicken Dinner to our host Best Webern
Mid-America Inn, who supplied the beer and Pepsi and veggie plate. They have
been the title sponsor for 17 years now and always do us a great job.
Thank yous to my specialty chiefs, Dave & Jo Richards for safety, John Fisk
for tech, Jean Entriken for grid, Abner Perney and Mark Walker for
journalistic efforts (watch for the SportsCar feature), Bengtson Tire for
the tire stacks we needed, and to everyone who came from the Nebraska, Wichita,
Kansas, Kansas City, NeOkla and Texas Regions. It was one of the best Mirror
Khanas I can remember. I guess any thought I may have had to take a year off
were put to rest Saturday night. You won't let me, will you? :-) Probably
next time the entry fee will drop back to $25, we'll feed you Brookville
Chicken again but the shirts are not an every-year thing.
F Stock started the day with a 14-car class won by Don Knop (Neb) who walked
his Camaro undefeated through four preliminary pairings and the final. Don met
Jean Alft in the 3rd round, put her on the loser bracket, and Jean then won
three more pairs to get back to Don for the final. To get there, Jean had to
beat husband Mark in the semi final ... not hard when Mark threw a big spin
into his run. Ryan Pemberton and Cal Ralrick took the other two trophies.
G Stock was won by Gary Gaither, who picked on my darling daughter Jean as
his final-round victim. Mean old Gary! He beat Jean first round too, then
knocked off both Abner and Adam Perney to reach the finals. Jean, now on the
loser side of the bracket, ran a dead heat with Danny Thomas (Pontiac Sunfire)
before coming back with her Mitsubishi Eclipse Turbo to win the rerun. Then
she, too, put both of the Perneys on the trailer with their Dodge Shadow
before bumping up against Gaither's Subaru Impreza again.
Street Tire was Loren Williams' suggestion, and after bumping lone entries in
HS and HSL to ST we had a 6-car class. Williams won it in his Saturn, going
unbeaten past Brad Boyer's RX7, Ty Martin's MGB, Bob Lambert's Plymouth Volare
Road Runner (!), and finally Gary Meek's Ford Contour SVT in the final. Meek
lost to Lambert first round -- I think he was intimidated by the monstrous
visage of the Volare -- but by the time he got to the Semis he realized the
Plymouth could be beat and he did. Sportsmanship award to Ty Martin, who was
called the winner of a 3rd round match with Meek after Meek DNFd, but Martin
came up to say he also missed a piece of the course. So they were sent out for
a rematch (same level of DNF = rerun) and Meek won that to be able to continue
on for his runner-up finish.
I'm getting a little remiss in attributions here ... Jean and Mark Alft are
from Wichita Region, Pemberton and Ralrick from Nebraska. Gaither is from
Wichita, Thomas a Kansas Region member from Chanute, the Perneys from Salina,
and Daughter Jean now lives in Wichita. Williams is Wichita and Meek is
Nebraska. Lambert is a Salina member and Martin a non-member from nearby
Abilene.
ASP was won by Tim Owen of Topeka, Kansas Region, after coming through the
loser bracket to put two wins on Dave Spalding of Wichita. Spalding's
Acura NSX had beaten Owen's 914-6 in a 3rd-round prelim. Then Owen had to
knock off Don Lillig's 911 (KC) in the semis to wreak his revenge on Spalding.
CSP featured the Lightspeed CRX of Dan and Melanie costello (Neb). Dan won over
Brian Meyer's CRX (Wich). the two of them had dead-heated in a first-round
match, Costello winning the rerun to send Meyer through the loser bracket.
DSP was won by Steve Snyder, who was the first RE of Salina Region before m
moving away to, now, Plano Texas. His Spitfire 1500 would go through the day
undefeated, and that meant more than the three runs it took him to knock off
the Volkswagen Jetta shared by Walter Day and Rosalind Cazel of Wichita. Stay
tuned.
ESP fell to Mark Jorgensen of Sioux City, Iowa (Neb) in a Mustang Cobra. It was
an all-Mark final as Mark Walker had gone unbeaten through the prelims to make
the finals. Walker's last prelim victim was Jorgensen, who went to the semis
and topok out the Eagle Talon of David Green (Wich). Then Mark-J beat Mark-W
two-up to take it all. Green was third and Ed Vega, who lives in Wichita but is
a Salina Region member, took 4th in the 11-car class.
ESPL had three gals when Debbie Stokley moved out of Bob Fester's CP car (It
was having problems) into Ed Vega's Camaro. She met Julie Edgerly, sharing
Jorgensen's Cobra, in the prelims and lost. that meant Debbie had to beat Liz
Zikas (Neb) in a Contour to get back at Edgerly, winning the final and forcing
a runoff since neither had yet lost twice. Edgerly put the Mustang into a
spinout that ate four cones on that last run. The rule is three pylons for
free, the fourth is a DNF, and Stokley was the winner.
CP was another 14-car class, but the pressure had them falling by the wayside.
Fester's had frame problems Saturday that sent him to Dave Richard's Salina
shop for repairs that night. They missed out on the chicken. Then Richards
and Fester were paired in the first rouond, which Dave won. Fester finally
went out in the third round, but his car was not done yet. Bill Pemberton, Neb,
co-driving the Richards Mustang, went unbeaten past a first-round bye, Jo
Richards, Robert Clapp and Dave Richards to make the finals. Dave on that last
run threw in a 3-times-around spin to excite the crowd. In the quarterfinals
the 'stang became stuck in first gear and Richards had to quit, leaving Steve
Glaab (Neb) to make a single. On the other side of the quafterfinal bracket,
Marco Rossetti (Neb) took out Scott Peterson (KC). In the semi, Rossetti took
out 5 cones sending Glaab to the final to meet Pemberton. With the Richards
car dead, Pemberton accepted an offer from Fester and won a close match after
Glaab threw in a couple of half-spins -- one masterfully guided around a
corner but the other definitely taking enough time it probably cost him the
contest.
Prepared Combined was a class created by gathering together 1 AP, 1 DP, 1 FM,
1 FML and 2 DM Volkswagen Beetles. I was in the DP, which was really Steve
Snyder's DSP Spitfire after daughter Jean broke my car during a Saturday
practice run (Okay, so she finished off something I probably started at an
earlier event). With that, Jean went back to her own car (see above) and I
took a ride in Steve's. First run, which was only a single, on the first
upshift to 2nd I blew the tailpipe off the Spit, which finally separateed
itself from the car after I bumped it against a crack in the pavement. Didn't
slow things down much, but the moment of "whazzat?" probably is why Gary
Whipple's AP Acura (Wich) finished in a virtuall dead heat with me. Fortunately
that was the bye that we were taking together. Matched next round, I got him
by a car length or so, easily my closest match of the day. Whipple later
went out on a DNF and in the final I found myself against the Darth Beetle
of Vernon Maxey (KC). It was nice to be able to win my 25th anniversary
event. Thanks, Steve!
Super Stock was one Firebird WS6 against two bumped-up A Stockers. Allen \
DeVeuve (Wich) won in his Mitsubishi 3000GT VR4 after putting wins on the
'Bird of local driver Alan Reed in both the prelims and the finals.
BS was all Miatas, with the final being even less distinctive as both were
silver '99s from Wichita -- Chad Sutton taking the win over Carol Anderson.
CS was won by Mike Ashbaugh's RX7 from Council Bluffs, Iowa, but only after
losing the final-round pairing to the Porsche 924S of Frank Friendman (KC).
Ashbaugh had beaten both Eric Linnhoff's bumped-from-DS Neon and Friedman
in the prelims. Linnhoff got a win over Bryan Jones' RX7 to make the semis
but lost there to Friedman. Friedman gained his revenge on Ashbaugh to force
the runoff, but then hit 5 cones to hand the win to the Nebraska Region driver.
ESL fell to Candy Gerber (Neb) in a Neon after taking a second win from Shelly
Gamble of Skiatook, Okla. (NeOk).
ES was the last class of the day, and was finally won by Jim Abel (Wich) in a
Saturn SC2, but not until a scare from Jan Gerber (Neb) in a Neon. Both
Gerber and his co-driver Scott Smed, Mason City, Iowa, met in the semi which
then had to be run on stopwatches. A one-second victory sent Gerber to the
final against the Saturn, which had beaten him in the prelims. Gerber, with
the Nebraska anthem of "Whoomah!" ringing in his ears, won that final and
forced the runoff. But then at the far south end of the course, the green
Neon could be seen retracing its tracks after an off-course while the white
Saturn pounded through the final box turn at the north end to end the day.
--Rocky Entriken
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