LAS VEGAS REGION ROUNDS 1 & 2

By Rick Kostelaz

Las Vegas Region SCCA staged their first two autocrosses of the 2002 season this weekend at the
Bragg-Smith High Performance Driving School facility in Pahrump, Nevada. It was, by any measure, an
event to remember. It isn’t very often that the Bragg-Smith track is available for SOLO II events and when it
is LVR takes advantage of the opportunity. This weekend seventy-nine drivers grappled for top honors on
the nearly one mile course which was set out on the Bragg-Smith lower road course.

Once again the high desert county of Nye county Nevada provided excellent weather for the two day event.
Temperatures hovered in the mid sixty degree range while the sky’s were partly sunny.

The course was somewhat faster than our normal bill-of-fare however, still within the requirements set down
by the SOLO II rules. Because of the limited possibilities on a road course the speeds were kept
acceptable by the basic course design and where straights would have been too long slaloms were
utilized. Never the less the course offered drivers a different experience from the normal parking lot venue
with relatively high average speeds and few really slow corners. The drivers were unanimous in their
opinions... they loved it !

We were pleased to host four National Champions this weekend, Ray Miller BSP and the F125
powerhouse from LVR, Tom Harrington, Suzanne Segal and David Hironaka. We were also pleased to have
a large contingent of drivers from the Sacramento, California area as well as drivers from Arizona and
southern California visiting this weekend.

Saturday Competition:

Competition was keen in the B Street Prepared category with Harold Olsen taking top honors on
Saturday in his Corvette with a very fast 58.953. This edged out his co-driver, Bill Fleig who had to settle for
second place at 59.453 while Las Vegas’ own Jim Tilley driving his BMW placed third with a 60.704.

Over in the F Stock category Glenn Duensing of California out drove the other competitors with a nice
68.061 to place first in class followed by Tom Silbaugh who took second with a 71.379.

In D Modified Ken Howatt slugged it out with Kam Urquhart and Toby Robinson. Ken took the class by
driving his Westfield to the first place position with a nice 61.648 while Kam took second place with a
64.509 and Toby third with a 69.459.

The fastest times of the day on Saturday were put down by the F125 Kart contingent. Paul Durr in a
great showing beat them all with a 55.196 while Tom Harrington (our F125 National Champion) drove his
Kart to a 55.401 for second place while Marc Segal placed third with a 56.690.

Top Time of Day (excluding Karts) was the realm of the Corvette driven by Darol Burgess. Darol drove
Rick Rubalcaba’s B Prepared Corvette to a 58.900 to edge out Harold Olsen’s 58.953 and Rick Kostelaz’s
58.984.