2016 San Diego SCCA CAM-T Race for the season updates

[Tomswheels]

Two things we are lucky to have here in San Diego are year--round Autocrossing and a great group of Muscle Car guys who get their cars out and run them hard. I'm hoping by posting a quick report of our races, our cars, our drivers, and year-long championship battle, more Pro-Touring.com users will come and join us. We race on Sunday's at the Qualcomm parking lot in San Diego, and the CAM-T guys are easy to find because the grill always has lunch on it, surrounded by V8 American thunder and dudes talking cars.

Our first race was last Sunday, we had 11 Different Drivers in 9 Muscle Cars. The track at Qualcomm this time was tight (but not Goodguys tight), 3/4 of a mile long with lots of elevation changes. It really tests the car and driver with off camber down hill turns and a surface that is deteriorating. There are 5 Clubs that rotate course design so sometimes it's more wide open and like today, sometimes it's tight. This video from a CAM-C Mustang shows the track, and some of the CAM-T cars as he pulls back in the pits:

https://youtu.be/Jv0rApVgUZk

Ill pick one car a race (usually the winner) to go in more depth on, but here is a quick rundown on some of the cars, I'll update tires as they change, because sometimes you'll see a big difference in the standings as this years newer sticky tires get added.

2nd Place: Alcino's 1976 Mustang Cobra II seen here in the BFGoodrich Video: https://youtu.be/YvhF_C6EBMA
This was his first race since he has since lengthened his wheelbase 4 inches (I'm not kidding) and added 200 lbs of Ballast so he can race with us in CAM-T this year. He daily drives this car, and is still on last years 12K mile, 12 Autocross events and one USCA event 255/40/17 Dunlop Z2 tires.

3rd and 4th place: Tom and Richard co-drove a 1967 Valiant that is Hotchkis equipped on last years 275/35/18 Bridgestone RE-71R tires that have 16 Autocross events and a USCA event on them and are dying quickly...

5th Place: Bry ran his newly CAM-T legal 1971 Maverick on 255F 275R Falken RT615Ks. These tires have a ton of laps since Bry used them all last year on Sat practice and Sun Raceday's.

6th Place: Charles drove his 1973 LS powered DSE equipped Camaro with 255F 275R RE-71R tires with 8 Autocrosses and a USCA event on them as well.

7th Place: Mike Young was there in the iconic 1965 Green Hotchkis Mustang test car. If you Autocross on the West Coast, you've raced with Mike. He was on last years 215F 245R Falken RT615Ks.

8th and 9th Place: George and Jeff were in a 1967 Chevelle in its first Autocross with a new setup, and the toughest job wheeling the big Chevelle around a very tight course. In addition it was their first time on a set of used 19" Michelin Super Sports (300 TW).

10th and 11th Place: Pauls 1969 Mustang and Kraigs 1971 Camaro are still early in their Autocross builds, and they are still learning the SCCA Autocross courses. They both made huge improvements in lap times each lap, and those times will improve alot more when they move to 200 TW Autocross tires.

But the big winner was Ian Sakurai, with an incredible come-from-1.5 seconds-behind last lap effort that edged out Alcino. Ian has cart-racing experience and used it (and more aggressive left-foot braking) on the winning lap, beating us and all the CAM-C late model Mustang and Camaros as well. He takes the first win and the points lead in the 1966 Hotchkis Mustang with a mild 302, T-5 trans, and 1/2 year old 245F 255R Bridgestone RE-71R tires.