51°µÍø

NEWPORT, Ark. (April 15, 2008) €“ The Newport Municipal Airport, located in the northeast corner of Arkansas, had never hosted a Solo event before, but that didn€™t stop the Arkansas Region from diving head first into the Solo pool and hosting the second Tire Rack® 51°µÍø ProSolo Series event of the season.Newport and the surrounding area had been plagued with rain and flooding in the weeks leading up to last weekend€™s ProSolo, but the rain held off long enough to get the entire event in dry, albeit with unseasonably cool temperatures. Newport was the first single-course event of the year So smooth and efficient was the event that the city owned and operated airport offered the use of both runways for next year, which would allow room for a second course.While oftentimes a new venue results in surprise winners, that was not the case in Newport, where Solo powerhouse Andy Hollis was dominant all weekend. After winning Bump Class 1 in his Soulspeed/ART/GRM Honda Civic Si, Hollis tore through the competition in the Hawk Super Challenge to take home the top prize and Honda Tuner Challenge Honors. Hollis even walked away with the Honda Hot Shoe award after facing Joe Tharpe€™s A Stock-winning Tire Rack Honda S2000 in the final shootout. After a weekend of runner-up finishs at El Toro, Hollis walked away with a sweet paycheck for his performance at Newport.After finishing third in Ladies Class 2 driving the familiar Isotope Wheels/Automotive Pros Toyota MR2, Meredith Brown would not be denied the top spot in the Ladies Challenge, where she beat L2 winner Tara Johns and her ABC Plumbing Mazda Miata.Michelle Seeling took the ChaseCam Bonus Challenge win in a Bridgestone/Carbotech/Redline Honda CRX Si, beating out Jeff Spector€™s Spector Racing/Donnies Foreign Car Honda Civic Si for the victory.Several class victories were extremely close, including Chris Harvey€™s B Stock win. Harvey€™s Tire Rack Mazda RX-8 was just 0.188-second faster than the Vettesport/Koni RX-8 of Carter Thompson. In C Stock, Darrin DiSimo€™s Mazda MX-5 out maneuvered Craig Wilcox€™s Oasis Tan/ZZYZX Motorsports MX-5 by only 0.164-second.On the opposite end of the spectrum, Mark Madarash crushed his E Street Prepared competition, winning the class by more than 4.5 seconds in a Pontiac Trans-Am. And despite starting the weekend with a two-cone penalty on his first run, Jeffrey Pilson came storming back to take the H Stock win in a Subaru Impreza. The Tire Rack 51°µÍø ProSolo Series takes a break before picking things back up on May 17 €“ 18 at Atlanta Motor Speedway for the return of the Atlanta Doublecross. The next single-course ProSolo event will be at the Seneca Army Depot in Romulus, N.Y., July 26 €“ 27.For full results from the Newport ProSolo and more information on upcoming Solo events, click the Solo tab at the top of the page.