After just missing out on C Street class victory, Dave Ogburn III took his Miata to his first Super Challenge victory
In the week leading up to the Aug. 31-Sept. 2, 2018, Tire Rack SCCA ProSolo Finale, the tentative weather forecasts stole the show. Even as competition runs started on Saturday, competitors knew every run would be vitally important because rain was in the immediate forecast. Saturday competition was completed without a weather interruption, and most drivers set their fast times on Saturday afternoon; but competitors arrived at Lincoln Airpark Sunday morning to find a very damp surface. While it dried through the morning, another shower struck as the sixth group of cars left the grid. The rest of competition, including the challenges, would be in wet or drying conditions.
But when everything settled, Dave Ogburn III reigned supreme in the Super Challenge, surviving five rounds of elimination competition to take his first Super Challenge win in his C Street Miata. “It feels great,” Ogburn said after having some time to digest his accomplishment. “I don’t know how many challenges I’ve made, 15 or more, and it felt like a block. For a while I could never get out of the first round. Once I got to the final pairing, I was like, ‘I have to seal the deal’. To do it in the Finale was amazing. Such a nice boost before Nationals.”
ProSolo is conducted on mirrored courses, with the best time on each course added up to determine total time and the winner. Some of the classes are indexed, meaning cars from several different classes are grouped together and a correction factor applied to adjust for differences in performance. After the class competition is concluded, the challenges begin in a bracket racing-style competition featuring winners from the classes and others who finished close enough to the leader. Each car is started based on the index, so that a car from a slower class will start before a car from a faster class. As in drag racing, the cars are started with a light tree, and in the challenge rounds the starts are important – it’s the difference between finishing times that count, and the clock starts as soon as the light is green.
“It was one of the trickiest challenges I’ve seen, because the rain that came through left the left course substantially wet, and the right course was dry,” said Ogburn. “You could almost run your regular pace on the right course, and the left course was about a second-and-a-half slower. I stopped worrying about the margins and focused on driving to the conditions and maximized the grip I had. Once I got into the third round I just got into a rhythm and focused on my driving and not who I was running against – how many championships they have, how fast they are – and just focused on what I needed to do.”
Ogburn just missed out on the C Street class win and championship, with Charles Krampert taking that honor in his 2016 Miata. “It was a super-close battle between Charles and I, and in the class standings I was only three points behind. For the event I was 76 thousandths out. Charles and I were going back and forth,” Ogburn said. But he was close enough to make the Super Challenge and win it all.
The top four in C Street – Krampert, Ogburn, Scott Phillips and Dennis Barrett – qualified for the Super Challenge, but only Ogburn made it past the second round of competition. From there, he faced a pair of Mazda MX-5s. First, he defeated Ken Motonishi from Street Touring Roadster. He was then able to advance into the Top Eliminator round as Bartek Borowski from E Street ran out of gas on the start of his second run. In the final round, Ogburn defeated Mike King from H Street to take the ProSolo Finale Super Challenge win. Borowski took the runoff for third place.
Motonishi made it to the Challenge based on winning Street Touring Roadster in a 2017 MX-5. He was the fastest on both courses to take a 0.173-second victory over Brian Karwan, with Brian Garfield in third. Every trophy position in STR was taken by a driver in a fourth-generation MX-5.
David Whitener took an impressive 2.317-second margin of victory in Street Touring Sport to earn his place in the Challenge. He made it to the second round before being eliminated by Motonishi. Motonishi was then eliminated in the Challenge by Borowski.
Kim Whitener and her STS Miata were going up against STX and STU cars in the indexed Ladies Class 3 and came out on top once the PAX numbers were applied. Billy Davis, a strong contender in C Street Prepared in a ’99 Miata, was in the Street 2 indexed class, and managed to edge out Ron Bauer and his BSP 2016 Miata.
Attention in Lincoln is now on The Tire Rack Solo National Championships, taking place over four days. Look for reports here as results become available.
SCCA Tire Rack ProSolo Finale
Lincoln Airpark
Lincoln, Neb., Sept. 1-2, 2018
Mazda Class Winners
Class: Driver; Hometown; Car
C Street: Charles Krampert; Huntsville, Ala.; 2016 Miata
Street Touring Roadster: Ken Motonishi; Trabuco Canyon, Calif.; 2017 Miata
Street Touring Sport: David Whitener; Fort Worth, Texas; 1992 Miata
Ladies Class 3: Kim Whitener; Fort Worth, Texas; 1992 Miata
Street 2: Billy Davis; New Haven, Conn.; 1999 Miata