November 2005
By George Modlin

The 2005 FLR autocross season is now in the books. By most accounts, it was a very good year. There were eleven competitive events on our schedule, eight local, two out of region in Buffalo with WNY, and one in Syracuse with CNY. The season started in late April at RIT again this year as is our tradition. For the rest of the schedule we had two events in May, one in June, two in July, three in August, one in September, and ending the season with a return to RIT in October. Valeo was the host site for the majority of our events with three, but we also did one at MCC and two at SeAD (Seneca Army Depot). This was our first year to use this abandoned runway facility which shows great promise for hosting future events.

In addition to our competitive events, we also held a Novice school, an advanced driver test and tune event, and also hosted the Evolution School that brings in national caliber drivers who share their driving secrets in a hands on performance driving curriculum. We also wrapped up the parking lot excitement again this year with a Mirrorkana competition which pits drivers against each other rather than the clock in a double elimination tournament. The Mirrorkana was won by Alan Smith in cool and damp conditions.

There was some rain to contend with at a couple of events, but for the most part weather was not a factor for much of the season – a dry summer in Rochester, imagine that! The continued maturity of our registration and scoring systems allowed us to process data efficiently. There were 462 drivers that attended at least one of our events with an average of 2.5 events attended per driver. There were 38 drivers that did eight or more events. There was a total of over 5600 runs processed averaging just over 500 runs processed per event with most events including around a hundred drivers each getting five runs. Taking all drivers into account, the average run took 64 seconds, and a maximum possible of 52 runs for the season netting just under an hour of potential seat time for the year per driver.

The class competitions saw a lot of variety. There were some classes with limited competition, and others with deep solid competition. There were ten classes that had at least four different winners (AS, CP, DS, DSP, EM, ES, ESP, HS, N, STS, STX), with six different drivers taking event wins in DStock. There were four classes with three or more drivers netting over 100 points (in descending points order), AStock (Alan Schoonmaker, Mark Seelbinder, Jeff Guerdat), EModified (Paul Shaver, Steve Hayward, Jason Riesbeck), StreetTireSedan (Jason Gassman, Cory Kuhns, Jacob Massey), StreetTireXtreme (Brett Jones, Bruce Jones, Brad Johnson).

There were also several classes with two drivers fighting for the overall win with more than 125 points including CPrepared (Mike Stutzman, Jim Hoelscher), Formula Junior1 (Dan Thiel, Jacob Bucknam), FStreetPrepared (Todd Miller, Mike Toombs), GStock (Alan Smith, Brian Buchman), HStock (Chris Liedtke, Jen Guerdat), Road Tire (George Modlin, Tim Rizzo), StreetTireSedan (Jason Gassman, Cory Kuhns, Jacob Massey), StreetTireXtreme (Brett Jones, Bruce Jones, Brad Johnson).

Other class winners were BStock (Doug Hall), CStreetPrepared (Leo Kellett), DPrepared (Brian Reeves), DStreetPrepared (Andy Blake), CStock (Bret Wallace), EStreetPrepared (George Little - father), FormulaJunior2 (Myra Liedtka), FormulaJunior4 (Greg Shaver), FModified (Dan Coughlin), Ladies (Sheryl Spagg), StreetModified (George Little – son), StreetModified2 (John Crowley), SuperStock (Chris Morton), StreetTireSedan2 (Ron Finke)

Other drivers with more than 100 points not previously mentioned were AStock (Adam Schoonmaker), DStock (John Cass), CStreetPrepared (Paul Hawkins), DStreetPrepared (Mike Knauf), EStreetPrepared (Eric Hobron).

There is an indexing system called “pax” that allows for comparison of competitors of cars with different speed potential (Corvette = SuperStock, Chevette=HStock). There were five drivers whose average finish on pax was in the top 10, and also attended at least half of our events. These included (Alan Smith, Chris Morton, Brian Buchman, Alan Schoonmaker, and Jeff Guerdat). Alan Smith and Brian Buchman were in the same class – Gstock, and had a terrific battle all year, with the margin of victory less than two tenths of a second at six different events. Chris Morton was impressive in that his overall index times were posted in the fastest stock class cars, and in two different cars (Z06/Elise). At the last event of the year, Chris not only had the best pax time, but also the fastest raw time – a rare feat. Alan Schoonmaker also did the double best raw/pax at the first event.
The depth in AStock was amazing. Mark Seelbinder was just as fast as Alan and Jeff posting three event wins, although perhaps not as consistent averaging 14th in overall pax.

All of the drivers that averaged in the top 10 in pax placed first or second in pax at one or more events. Other drivers that posted top pax performances that did more than half of our events (best / #in top 5) were Tim Ferris (1/3), George Modlin (1/2), Dan Thiel (1/2), Jacob Buckman (1/1), Mark Seelbinder (2/1), Jen Guerdat (3/1), Myra Liedtka (4/1), Scott Moller (4/1), Jason Gassman (5/1), Sean Caron (5/1),

Overall it was a great season – hundreds of drivers enjoyed the thrill of motorsports competition, and dozens attended consistently while chasing season trophies. See ya next year!

George M (RESP 8)