2023 SCCA Solo National Championships
Now that the dust has settled…
I look at this picture and it’s definitely the happiest I’ve ever been at nationals. I was so excited to finally show up at nationals and meet a goal I set out for. It took 15 years to get there but the stars finally aligned for me.
The finale- I walked course and I realized it was going to be me and Christine Grice. The course favored power heavily and our cars were the two in the class that had that. So I just needed to drive well.
Day one I had some decent morning times and Christine broke. I was sitting in the lead. That’s never happened before in the finale however I took the asterisk as it is what it is. I knew Christine was coming though. Which lead to me way over driving the afternoon session. Which kinda sucked but it’s hard not to giggle when you’ve got a roaring V8 and you’re going sideways really fast.
I went into say 2 with a .1 deficit. I wasn’t worried about a tenth. I could do that. Easily. If I did the left well. I was sitting on a bad left. So I went to bed feeling pretty confident and the next morning I had a great drive. Christine dropped time, I dropped time. It came down to final runs, where I dropped 4 tenths but Christine dropped more. She ended up taking the win by .3 and I couldn’t be happier with how I drove. Easily best I’ve ever driven at the finale. AND I got all my runs in the car. Well. Until I didn’t.
Either a giant bump on the right course or getting dropped off the scales lead to some drama with the oil cooler spilling oil everywhere. Bypassed it for Justin’s runs then when he went across the scales the throttle body failed. Go figure.
So with a few minutes left to make the decision if I was going to run the challenge or not. I looked down and Justin’s hands with him holding a throttle body in each hand and I made the call. I will be skipping the challenge. This sting a little as I had points but attrition is all part of it. With this call Kelsey Karanges was able to get in the challenge. Which kept us both from watching if the car didn’t fix. For the record I do not regret this decision. Justin was able to get the stock throttle body to work and made his challenge runs. However the car was at risk of over heating so he pulled out.
I ended up 5th for the year. Would have been cool to see where I would have finished if I hadn’t broke at NJ but such is life.
Monday was the WOT brunch which I believe I’ve already posted about so I’ll keep the redundancy to a minimum. Im really proud of our group and what it is doing.
Tuesday morning. It was cooler than the weather said it would be thank goodness! However I didn’t take advantage of it. For lack of a better term. I drove like shit. Probably the worst driving I’ve done all year. Missed my shift on the first run and it got in my head. I drove like a lunatic so the final run the goal was to just get something on the board. No drama. Just slow, smooth, and on line. Meh. Better luck next time I thought to myself.
Wednesday I felt good. I walked Sam Strano’s course my normal 3x and had it down. I’ve driven a lot of Sammy courses. I know his tricks, I know his gotchas I know he wants us to attack patiently. I listened to him give some insight and I was ready to rumble.
First run. Boom. On the board sitting in 5th. That felt fucking epic. I put something together. Second run was a little more aggressive and found a tenth. However at this point I had dropped to 7th. Final run I decided to not attack but to tidy it up and maybe I went too far the other way but I ended up a tenth slower.
I weighed and couldn’t jump out of the car fast enough to watch the drivers come in behind me. I was admittedly crying at this point I was so happy with how I drove. Then the final cars had crossed. I had done it. I earned my first trophy in open at Solo Nationals.
I’ll skip the roller coaster I went on after as that sucked. However. This photo. This moment is what I want to hold on to. I drove well. I can do it again.
Thank you so much Justin Peachey for letting me drive with you, the car is a riot and I couldn’t ask for a better machine. I will take her to the dance any and every time.
Eric Peachey my driving has improved leaps and bounds because of you. I think I have you screaming at me in my head most of my runs any more.
Let’s talk about what changed the most this year from other years. My mental game. I have been focusing more about how I feel around my competitors, building those relationships, and just having a good time. Also I have learned to accept losing more. Which is hard when you have a competitive mindset. But at the end of the day win or lose it’s about who was there along the way.
When I think back on 2023 nats I want to think about how I felt here, not how I felt after and how long it took me to accept the asterisk.
