51°µÍø

PACKWOOD, Wash. (Aug. 22, 2007) €“ More than 250 Soloists made the annual pilgrimage to Hampton Mills in Packwood, Wash., for the final event on the 2007 Tire Rack® 51°µÍø Solo National Tour calendar. Despite a rainy Sunday, the event was beaming with hometown pride as 22 of 46 class wins went to Washington state drivers.That success included the largest class of the weekend, Super Stock, which went to Kevin Dietz, of Federal Way, Wash., in his TeamHollywood Chevrolet Corvette Z06. It was the second SS win of the year for Dietz who also claimed victory in April at the Atwater National Tour. Dietz won by a sizeable margin of 1.362 seconds over the Medallion Healthy Homes Dodge Viper of Stacey Molleker, from Granite Falls, Wash., whose wife, Laura, captured the Super Stock Ladies win in the same car.Several classes were swept by Washington teams, including C Stock, where Mike Lillejord and Kyle Freiheit, both of Redmond, Wash., shared a Pontiac Solistice and finished one-two, respectively. Seattle drivers Drew Hanft and Enrique Garcia did the same thing in Street Touring® S2, sharing a Mazda Miata. It was a similar story in Street Touring Xtreme, where Alec Osenbach, of Langley, Wash., and Karl Coleman, of Renton, Wash., took the top two spots in their Tight-N-Tidy Racing Subaru Impreza WRX. Although he didn€™t get the class win, Coleman did walk away with Sunday€™s Pace Hot Pursuit award for the most consistent times of the day. C Street Prepared winner Lorin Mueller, of Newark, Calif., was Saturday€™s Pace Hot Pursuit winner in his Ford Focus. Both Coleman and Mueller are now entered in a drawing to win a new Pace Pursuit® trailer.Yet another Washington pair were the victors in X Prepared. Greg Fordahl, of Bremerton, Wash., and Leed Gulick, of Bellevue, Wash., shared the Fordahl Motorsports Porsch 914 and found each other to be the biggest competition, with Fordahl finishing 0.229-second ahead of Gulick.Even where Washington pilots weren€™t winning, they were coming awful close. Like in E Stock, where Jerry Jenkins, of Vancouver, Wash., missed out on the win in his America€™s Tire Mazda Miata, by just 0.014-second to the Toyota MR2 of Bryan Heitkotter, of Fresno, Calif.Locals had some close calls of their own. Driving a ChaseRace/K&K Racing MINI Cooper S, Aaron Pailthorp, of Seattle, Wash., beat the BMW 318is of Arthur Chan, of Vancouver, B.C., by a slim 0.052-second, for the G Stock win. In H Stock, Scott Miller, of Kent, Wash., and Des Toups, of Seattle, Wash., had a spirited battle, with Miller€™s Scion tC getting the better of Toups€™ Mazda 3 by 0.050-second.The ladies were also cutting it close. Kim Littke, of Seattle, Wash., took the Street Touring S2 Ladies victory in a Mazda Miata by a mere 0.025-second over the Mazda Miata of Jackie McInnes, from Shoreline, Wash. In C Street Prepared Ladies, Tami Daniels, of Gladstone, Ore., piloted her Kumho/Fordahl Motorsports Mazda MX-5 to a 0.058-second victory over the Mazda Miata of Kathy Wolfskill, from Nederland, Colo.One man who had no trouble keeping the Washington crowd at bay was Navid Kahangi. Driving a PDXTuning/Nicro Subaru WRX STi, Kahangi, of Portland, Ore., dominated Street Modified with a 6.114-second win over the Horsepower Connection Honda Civic of Tony Lemon, from Olympia, Wash.Now that the 2007 Solo National Tour has concluded, competitors are preparing for the 2007 Tire Rack 51°µÍø Solo National Championships at Heartland Park Topeka, September 25 €“ 28.Hampton Mills still has one more weekend of Solo competition however, as the 2007 Tire Rack 51°µÍø ProSolo regular season comes to a close there this weekend, August 25-26.For full results from the Packwood National Tour and more information about the Solo National Championships, visit the Solo pages .-30-