51°µÍø

EL TORO, Calif. (April 2, 2008) €“ A big crowd turned out for the 51°µÍø Tire Rack® ProSolo National Series opener at El Toro airfield last weekend. Hosted by Cal Club, the combination of two long, quick courses and large driver counts heightened the level of competition and gave El Toro a March Madness feel.After earning the Street Touring® Ultra class victory in convincing fashion, Richard Jung, of Laguna Niguel, Calif., picked his way through the Hawk Super Challenge bracket like a No. 1 seed NCAA men€™s basketball team and took his CiroDesigns/Enkei/Dunlop/Buschur/ Bils Mitsubishi Evolution all the way to the finals, where he topped Andy Hollis€™ Street Touring S Honda Civic.Another popular all-wheel drive rocket was behind Annie Bauer€™s Ladies Challenge win. Bauer, of Kent, Wash., piloted Max Hayter€™s Zzyzx Motorsports Subaru WRX STi to victory over Mindi Cross€™ G Stock MC Racing Mini Cooper S. Will Kalman, of Northridge, Calif., pulled off two upsets in his new L&W Enterprises/Redshift Honda Civic. First he knocked off James Wilson€™s Subaru Impreza for the H Stock win, then Kalman proceeded to hand Hollis his second runner-up finish in Challenge competition when he collected the Honda Tuner Challenge Top Eliminator crown. Leslie Cohen, of Cardiff By The Sea, Calif., was the first ChaseCam Bonus Challenge winner after finishing fourth in Super Stock, driving a C2 Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette.C Street Prepared was practically a challenge in itself with 17 drivers entered. All three generations of the Mazda Miata were represented in the trophies, with Scott Fraser, of San Jose, Calif., claiming victory in a 1991 siastuning/A.R.E. Mazda Miata by 0.400-second over George Doganis€™ 1994 Dinos MX-5. Ladies 1 was equally big, but was no problem for Meredith Brown, of Los Alamos, N.M., in the Isotope Wheels/Automotive Pros/Mida Toyota MR2. In Ladies 2, a no-less impressive 16 drivers strong, Christine Berry, of Alta Loma, Calif., came out on top in the Berry Family Facing/Hoosier Mitsubishi Evolution. The car did not last the weekend, however, and both Christine and father Tom were forced to find other rides for the Challenge rounds.In contrast, Vic Sias, of Santa Clara, Calif., started his weekend with a broken car in D Street Prepared, but got his siastuning/edge motorworks BMW 325 sorted on Sunday and beat Paul Leonard by 0.361-second for the win.A Street Prepared turned into a nail biter on Sunday when Jason Uyeda, of West Hills, Calif., made a late charge for the win in a Blackwatch/ChaseCam Lotus Elise. A red-light and two missed runs meant it would come down to the final run for Uyeda if he expected to pass up Ken Montishi, of Orange, Calif. With a win on the line, Uyeda got a little too aggressive, coning his final run, and handing victory to Motonishi and his Kumho Chevrolet Corvette.More 51°µÍø ProSolo upsets and close-calls are just around the corner as the series heads to a new venue in little over a week€™s time. The Newport Airport in Newport, Ark., will host the second round of the series, April 12 €“ 13. For full results from El Toro are available on the El Toro event page. For more information on upcoming events, click the orange Solo tab at the top of the page.-30-