2001 VCA CHAMPION AUTOCROSS TEAM

[Tony Estes]

I would like to thank everyone at Viper Headquarters for planning a great weekend event. Many of the VCA team arrived on Friday morning and took advantage of a tour of CAAP. We all enjoyed the dinner Friday night and the spirited conversation on who would kick who’s ASP.

The VCA team was decked out in our new team polo shirts, which caused quite a bit of controversy. I don't understand why. They were embroidered with 2001 VCA CHAMPION AUTOCROSS TEAM. While I was sure we were the VCA Champion Autocross team, team PVO (Viper) thought we were proclaiming ourselves the overall winners before the event. My good friend Herb Helbig informed me he expected our team to turn over our shirts to team PVO if we didn't win on Saturday.

Our team came out with their game faces on Saturday morning .I was glad that the Zone Rendezvous gave us a very competitive team. We proceeded with our practice runs to familiarize ourselves with the course then it was time for the competition.
Our first five drivers gave Team VCA a 2.5 second lead. We regrouped and sent our final five drivers to the line. The competition was tough and there were times that the winner was in doubt but the VCA prevailed and won by a margin of 2 seconds.

We took a lunch break then it was time for the individual competition. Once again the competition was tough but VCA driver Ron Adee prevailed.

Thanks to John Fernandez and team PVO for the great competition. John also let me drive the new competition coupe WHAT A CAR !!!
I was happy to leave with the team trophy in hand as well as a shirt on my back.

I have had many requests for the results. Here they are.


Team Results - VCA vs PVO

VCA Team Time - 1160.716 seconds
PVO Team Time - 1162.727 seconds


Zone Team Results

1. Midwest - Ron Adee and Mitch Wehrly
2. West - Dave Dunlap and Don Campbell
3. Southeast - Sean Roe and Peter Mansolillo
4. Southwest - John Nicholas and Bob Cain
5. Northeast - Dale Hawkins and Paul Suloff


Shoot-out Results - Top Six Drivers

1. Ron Adee - VCA - Midwest
2. Steve Telehowski - PVO
3. Chris Winkler - PVO
4. Dave Dunlap - VCA - West
5. Sean Roe - VCA - Southeast
6. Matt Bejnarowicz - PVO

 

[Joseph Houss]

Congrats to all! What a great day!

PVO has the most incredible bunch of guys!

 

[Fred(DrivingSchool)Kinder]

This would be a great activity for a VOI.

 

[Sean Roe]

What a great event. From Fernandez encouraging the VCA team to take advantage of the open bar Friday night (we were wise to his motives

)to the opportunity to get in the competition coupe on Saturday.

I don't know if you could find a more competitive group of people. The individuals on both teams worked hard for their team. Each of us on the VCA team working with each other to improve lines, shift points, riding as passengers, giving rides to team members to help reinforce the lines of the course. I know that at lunch after the official competition, I was spent, but very happy for our team.

Hey Tony, do you have the individual times from the team competition in the morning? I'd like to see how each of us VCA'ers stacked up against the PVO Viper team members we were paired against in the seeded order. I don't know if you were trying to motivate me or if you were serious that we were down some when my turn came up. Either way, I did my best to hunker down and get the job done. I'm a road racer, not an autocrosser, and autocrossing isn't easy.

We had some tough competition in the PVO Viper team, even though Fernandez said their names were randomly drawn out of a bag

 

[John N]

Add my name to the list of people saying THANKS for a great time. The atmosphere and camaraderie were great. Team PVO and Team VCA were quite the sight, gave the term friendly competition new meaning. Again, many thanks to Tony, Joe, and the VCA folks, with special thanks to DC, John Fernandez and his great PVO team.