Edik Stepanyan of Edo Motorsports defends his H4 champoinship title for the second year in a row and wins his third Championship in three years.

Videos: right click, Save As

Saturday:
320x240 35MB http://edomoto.com/racing/vide...l.wmv
640x480 130MB http://edomoto.com/racing/vide...l.wmv

Sunday:
320x240 75MB http://edomoto.com/racing/vide...l.wmv
640x480 280MB http://edomoto.com/racing/vide...e.wmv


Race Report:
With only 10 points separating first place Edik Stepanyan in the #78 Integra and Jeremy Croiset in the #25 CRX, the Championship was still up for grabs.

Saturday:
The first practice session did not go well for Edik as he slid off at Magic Mountain due to dirt and gravel on the track. This caused the bottom part of the splitter to rip off and was left on the track. After the first practice session, rain droplets appeared which made the track wet. The second practice session went well with no wing as Edik was passing many cars. Qualifying came around and a dry line appeared on the track. But we had already changed the shaved tires to the rain tires and disconnected the rear sway bar and qualified in 2nd place with Sam Rothschild in the # CRX and Jeremy in 3rd. We changed the rain tires back to the shaved tires but left the wing off and left the rear sway bar disconnected while Jeremy changed back to the dry setup. The green flag dropped and Edik and Jeremy were able to get by Sam. Jeremy attempted to pass Edik several times but was unsuccessful. After the first lap, it started to rain. Edik was able to keep the lead. The race was under double yellow after several laps due to people going off track. After the yellow flags didn’t stop the spins, the race was red flagged and given the checkered. Edik pulled another 10 points on Jeremy in the standings by finishing 1st with Jeremy second and Sam 3rd. This meant that Edik had to finish only 20 points behind Jeremy in the last race of the year to win the championship.

Sunday:
The weather cleared up and it was sunny all day long. Therefore we reconnected the rear sway bar. Edik went out for the practice to make sure everything was fine. He went out to the qualifying session and took pole position with Sam and Jeremy behind him. The pole position was bitter sweet as the field was inverted and Edik had to start dead last out of 12 cars. The green flag was waved as the last few cars were still coming out of the last turn onto the straightaway. Jeremy was able to jump into 2nd place after the first turn while Edik was blocked out and had nowhere to go except stay behind and wait. Edik followed Sam in passing all of the cars one by one. Jeremy passed Stan for 1st place and held the lead to win the race. Edik was able to get close to Sam and pass him to go into 2nd place. Sam stayed right behind Edik while going through a lot of traffic. Edik held his position and finished in 2nd place to win the 2006 WCHC Socal H4 Championship.

Edo Motorsports would like to thank all the sponsors and everybody who helped and supported us in winning 3 consecutive championships. Also a big thanks to our Crew.

Sav-On Driving & Traffic School
Glendale, CA

Mirage Auto Body and Paint
Canoga Park, CA

SpeedVision Motorsports
Glendale, CA

Generation 2 Integra Club
http://www.G2IC.com

IStoreParts
http://www.istoreparts.com

Innovative Mounts
http://www.innovativemounts.com

ASR Swaybars
http://www.asrparts.com

HONDATA
http://www.hondata.com

Pictures: Thanks to Thomas Kusunoki for Sunday's pictures

http://edomoto.com/racing/phot...1.htm




















http://edomoto.com/racing/phot...1.htm

 

I want to Thank My Sponsors and My Crew.
And all the Racers that raced with us this year.

Edo

 

Congrats guys!

Wish that Sat race would have given us the battle we deserved! I could-a had ya if that race had been longer!

It was still a fun season and I'm glad I had someone to race with all year.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by prkiller &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Congrats guys!

Wish that Sat race would have given us the battle we deserved! I could-a had ya if that race had been longer!

It was still a fun season and I'm glad I had someone to race with all year. </TD></TR></TABLE>

you did great.
you kept us on our toes all year long.
I think this year was the toughest out of the 3.

 

Edo got a fancy new suit..

 

Fancy new suit!!! So, what's next? Jumping to H1 so you can play and get some good airtime at Nationals?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by prkiller &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> I could-a had ya if that race had been longer!
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Its hard to say what would have happened if it kept raining.
I had a great time all year.

Edo

 

it was a cool race to watch on saturday, one hell of a slip n slide!

congrats too!

 

 

Congrats Edo! I know you worked really hard all year to bring this home, so I hope you enjoy it. Nice job on the 2nd place finish Jeremy!

I'm glad Sam was able to salvage the car after the hit at WS and it sounds like it's running as well as ever ... if not better. The new paint scheme looks nice, but I do kind of miss the old paint job. I thought it was one of the best I'd ever seen on an amature level. Still, I'm really glad to see you back out there so quickly Sam!

If I can work out the logistics of it, I'm seriously considering doing less AZ events next year and coming out to run with you guys more often. I had a great time at Cal Speedway this year (despite the weather). It was amazing getting to run at a fun track against 16 other H4 cars. That's an experience that we, unfortunately, just cannot get here in AZ.

- Scott

 

FYI, if you guys stop hitting each other and keep your **** on the track, NASA might let you finish a race with one of those checkered type flags.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by mikeski38 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">FYI, if you guys stop hitting each other and keep your **** on the track, NASA might let you finish a race with one of those checkered type flags.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Wow, that was kinda cold Mike.

Just FYI for ya, NASA didn't stop the race because of any contact! If was because of the multiple offs in the very short time period.
It was actually a pretty clean race! No damage of any sort...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by prkiller &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Wow, that was kinda cold Mike.

Just FYI for ya, NASA didn't stop the race because of any contact! If was because of the multiple offs in the very short time period.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Hey, I just call 'em how I see 'em. Kinda reminded of the crossover, I was hoping that was an isolated incident.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by mikeski38 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Hey, I just call 'em how I see 'em. Kinda reminded of the crossover, I was hoping that was an isolated incident. </TD></TR></TABLE>

How so? How did it remind you of the Xover event? Seriously, I'm just curious...

Are you refering to Edik's and my Sat race or just in general about the weekend?

 

It was a clean racing to me. All weekend.
Except me bumping Thomas Sideris on sundays start.


Edo

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by EdoMoto &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">It was a clean racing to me. All weekend.
Except me bumping Thomas Sideris on sundays start.
Edo</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yea, that was no big deal. Everybody got bunched up in the braking zone
leading into the spoon. Very clean racing three wide into turn 1 on Sunday.

I didn't hear about any contact in Saturday's race, either. But it was damn
slippery.

Congrats to Edik on his championship!

 

Don't take my comments as anything other then my opinion, and I have been critisized in the past for my overly conseravitve approach to driving in a club level series.

Personally, I race my car on a very limited budget and cannot afford to take the risks and damage my car when there is nothing on the line.

With that said, I am aware that everyone in socal believes there is nothing wrong with the agression level of the drivers in H4, and as long as the people involved are all on the same page, then more power to ya. It is quite entertaining, and the skill and car control exhibited is excellent. You guys are all great drivers down there and fierce competitors and it shows.

 

I still don't get why you made this comment though: <TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by mikeski38 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">FYI, if you guys stop hitting each other and keep your **** on the track, NASA might let you finish a race with one of those checkered type flags.</TD></TR></TABLE>


Edik, Jeremy and Thomas said both days were clean racing except for offs due to the rain.


Racing is Racing no matter what level and racing always is going to involve contact when you have very close racing.

Jeremy can back me up on this, but there hasn't been any major contact since the crossover when you guys came down.

 

People were flying off the track on Saturday even during the full course caution because no one could see. I was the first car on pit road because of bad visibility. I had no wipers and couldnt see anything. The rain in the Star Mazda turn wasn't enough to rinse anyone's windshield. It would be the same deal at Willow probably. When it's raining on one portion of the track and it's not enough to rinse your windshield you cant drive through dust storms at every corner from people flying into the dirt, and expect to then see with any visibility. If you wanna know what its like put a brown paper bag over your head and try and do a hot lap. Let's not kid ourselves. That race needed to be stopped. The dirt in the spoon was so ridiculous that there was no racing line. I felt like a western settler trying to follow a wagon rut.

 

sunday was fun i missed saterday ! congrats edo !! on more then 1 thing

 

Jeremy you got yourself a nice team mate for the 25hr !
Nice monday morning quaterback comments from him.
I should bring you guys a couple boxes of Kleenex.
Benny

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by mikeski38 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Don't take my comments as anything other then my opinion, and I have been critisized in the past for my overly conseravitve approach to driving in a club level series.

Personally, I race my car on a very limited budget and cannot afford to take the risks and damage my car when there is nothing on the line.

With that said, I am aware that everyone in socal believes there is nothing wrong with the agression level of the drivers in H4, and as long as the people involved are all on the same page, then more power to ya. It is quite entertaining, and the skill and car control exhibited is excellent. You guys are all great drivers down there and fierce competitors and it shows. </TD></TR></TABLE>

It isn't prudent to ever say "everyone" espouses some sort of behavior. And to suggest that this behavior only occurs in SoCal is ridiculous. Yes, a few drivers in SoCal are very aggressive as are a few in NorCal. These drivers have had their share of contact and have both suffered and been rewarded for their style of driving. I do not condone body contact as an acceptable means to advance a position or to indiscriminately punish someone for making a driving mistake. I as well as many of my fellow drivers make all attempts not to hit anyone. A clean race that is fought tooth and nail is a prouder achievement than a victory or top placing gotten from hitting other cars out of the way is a shallow victory. Sure, contact will occur in fast clean racing just due to the fact that we are going so fast and in such tight quarters with cars sliding around and with traffic ect. We should always use reasonable judgment to make passes and get through slower traffic. A clean victory is a cherished victory.

 

Congrats Edo and Jeremy for a closely fought points race, and Edo for the win! I'm downloading video(s) now..

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Cochise &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">People were flying off the track on Saturday even during the full course caution because no one could see. I was the first car on pit road because of bad visibility. I had no wipers and couldnt see anything. The rain in the Star Mazda turn wasn't enough to rinse anyone's windshield. It would be the same deal at Willow probably. When it's raining on one portion of the track and it's not enough to rinse your windshield you cant drive through dust storms at every corner from people flying into the dirt, and expect to then see with any visibility. If you wanna know what its like put a brown paper bag over your head and try and do a hot lap. Let's not kid ourselves. That race needed to be stopped. The dirt in the spoon was so ridiculous that there was no racing line. I felt like a western settler trying to follow a wagon rut.
</TD></TR></TABLE>

I guess that IT washer-bottle rule isn't so ridiculous...

&lt;runs and hides&gt;

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Johnny Mac &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

It isn't prudent to ever say "everyone" espouses some sort of behavior. And to suggest that this behavior only occurs in SoCal is ridiculous. Yes, a few drivers in SoCal are very aggressive as are a few in NorCal.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I agree, what I ment was that if the poeple involved in the more frequent contact are of the opinion that rubbin' in racin' and are not upset by that style of driving, then there is no issue.

My comments were not ment as a personal attack on anyone, simply my editorial of the posted videos.

Benny, aren't you driving in Ron's car at the 25? Bring your own tissues...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by realride &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Jeremy you got yourself a nice team mate for the 25hr !
Nice monday morning quaterback comments from him.
I should bring you guys a couple boxes of Kleenex.
Benny</TD></TR></TABLE>

Hehe! Mike has always been very adamant about "no contact", I mean NONE. He has a right to his opinion just like everyone else!

I'm glad that he does when it comes to the 25 Hour event. We are going to need it!
We will all be running that event with his attitude toward contact!

Oh, and Mike is right on one thing Benny! You should bring that kleenex, but not for us. You guys are gonna be needing it when all you see is our tail lights while we lap you!