Southern California Region of NASA

It is our pleasure to announce that Karen Salvaggio has agreed to take on the position of FFR West Coast Director. Karen will be filling the shoes of Rick Anderson who did a fantastic job over the past few years. "It was time for a change and Karen was a wise choice. She is  always up to a challenge and extremely motivated", said Mr. Anderson. We expect great things out of this class and look forward to seeing big fields of Factory Five Cobras.

Some factoids on Karen Salvaggio:
 

• NASA member since 2002
• 5th year in the Challenge Series
• Endurance and Sprint racer
• 2009 Pony Cup Champion (FFR)
• 2009 Southern CA Champion (FFR)
• 2009 NASA So Cal Instructor Driver of the Year
• 25 Hours of Thunderhill: Type 65-R Coupe
• 20 years racing experience
• Doctorate in Education

Lets all show Karen a warm NASA welcome and tell her to get to work :)

Thanks to everyone that participated in our first event on the season. We where greeted with sporadic rain showers on Saturday with some dry sessions to make it a neat day. It is not often racers get to experience the wet and the dry on the same day. Sunday was beautiful with pure track record type conditions.  Points have been updated at the "results" link

Reports from SM and HC:

SoCal Spec Miata racing from Willow Springs
The SoCal SM field was back out in great form for the season opener at Willow Springs.  Saturday's rainy qualifying session saw Tyler Vance earning his first well-deserved pole by over half a second.  By the start of the race, the clouds had broken, bringing great track conditions for an eventful T1.  A fast start ended with a shuffle at the end of the straight, leaving Vance back several spots, and knocking Grant Westmorland and Clement Lee to the back of the field.  While William Christian built up a significant lead, Chuck Mathews and Tyler Vance engaged in a close battle, and Westmorland and Lee put their heads down and drove back up through the field.  At the line, Westmorland edged Christian out by just nine hundreths of a second, with Lee coming in third, followed by Mathews and Vance.
 
William Christian took the pole in Sunday's dry conditions and also the lead at the start, which was a great example of the close but clean racing SM is known for.  Christian took the lead, chased closely by Lee and Mathews.  Westmorland remained the man to beat, pulling off his second win of the weekend, followed by Christian, Mathews, Lee, and Vance.  Spec Miata will be back March 13-14 at Auto Club Speedway with a great turnout anticipated and some exciting racing guaranteed.  See you there.

HC at Willow Springs
The Socal Honda Challenge season started off well with competitors challenging for wins in the H2 and H4 classes. In H2, the class saw two first time winners over the weekend with Greg Neuwirth taking the victory on Saturday in a rain soaked race over new comer to the series Kirk Miller and Manny Coats. Sunday turned out to be a beautiful dry race day which provided the added grip needed for some much faster laps times. In practice and qualifying, it looked like Manny Coats would have the speed to take the win, but a mechanical issue in the 3rd lap made it impossible for him to finish the race. Stephan Papadakis and Greg Neuwirth put on a great spectacle battling throughout the race passing, and then re-passing each other multiple times. In the end, Papadakis was able to pull off his first victory in H2 followed closely by Neuwirth in second with Junior Miller making up the podium spots. In the H4 class, Loren Fancy was able to pull off the win in the Saturday and Sunday races followed in second by series new comer Mark Homer whole also secured second place in the Saturday and Sunday races. John McNulty was able to bring it home in 3rd on Saturday, but another series new comer Michel Stern was able to snag the 3rd podium spot for the Sunday race.
With the February races in the books, everyone in the Socal Honda Challenge series is looking forward to Cal Speedway next month. See you there.

Thanks to all who attended our banquet aboard the Queen Mary. It was a very fun evening and here are some of the pictures  http://nasasocal.smugmug.com/

Regards,

Ryan

We are hosting our end of year awards banquet at the Queen Mary on Saturday Jan 16^th. We will have a theme this year, which will be Casino Night so expect to try your luck at a few Las Vegas table games! Many of you asked for a change in venue we replied in kind. This should be a top shelf event but we can only accommodate 175 guests so please register ASAP if you plan on attending. If you don't know the Queen Mary is a hotel should you desire to stay. You may register for this evening at this link https://www.nasaproracing.com/event/1007

Hello SoCal racers,

 

I hope this note finds you well and I want to thank everyone for making the 2009 racing session a success.  I am happy to report steady growth in more than a few classes such as Spec Miata, GTS, Super Touring and Performance Touring. Admittedly, the overall car count was down when compared to 2007 but growth indicates a very positive sign for next year.

 

SoCal lead the regional entries for our National Championship at Miller Motorsports with more than 85 individuals making the trip to compete. Many of the top SoCal drivers experienced major failures (more than 5 blown engines) but the bench was deep enough to capture 38 podium positions! In fact, the following 14 SoCal drivers are your 2009 National Champions. They are:

Ross Murray (AI), Renan Bayar (H2), Bart Carter (SU), Charlie Buzzetti (Spec-944), Greg Greenbaum (TTB), Derek Selman (TTD), James Foxx (GTS1), Vali Predescu (GTS3), Brett Strom (GTS4), Bart Carter (TTR), James Holloway (PTB), Dan Gardner (PTC), Robert Davis (PTD), Kevin Madsen (PTF)

 

Of course, you know that SoCal is the place for close competitive racing and this year was no different than years past. In fact, a few class champions were determined at the final race of the season and I would like to congratulate everyone who took part in the action. Final season standings for all classes can be found at this link http://socal.drivenasa.com/points/

 

The Southern California chapter of the National Auto Sport Association (NASA) is pleased to announce that Angela Swan will be stepping in as Class Leader for the Spec Miata and Showroom Spec Miata classes. She will be taking the reigns from John Muller who served in the position this year and did a tremendous job.
 
Angela works in financial services and is entering her third year of racing Spec Miata.  Swan said "I am excited to carry forward the support and growth of our SoCal SM and SSM community.  Providing a fun, quality racing environment will continue to be paramount.  In 2010 I look forward to building on the fantastic growth we are experiencing as NASA and the SM and SSM classes consistently showcase some of the best examples of road racing."
 
The Spec Miata class consistently fields the largest number of class entries on any given weekend and they welcome anyone who hasn't experienced the group to get into a SM and see what it is like. Please email socalinfo@drivenasa.com if you have any questions or would like to get connected with the SM leader.

Corona, CA - NASA's SoCal Region is pleased to announce a terrific schedule for 2010. The club will visit all the prime tracks at least twice, and the schedule is well balanced to leave adequate time between events to gear up for the following round. The SoCal region reported tremendous growth in the GTS and SM classes and hopes to see that trend continue across more classes in 2010.

February 6&7- Willow Springs + Competition License School
March 12-14- AAA Speedway
April 17&18- Buttonwillow + WERC
May 22&23- Willow Springs + Competition License School
June 26&27- Buttonwillow + WERC
July 30-Aug 1- AAA Speedway
September 15-19- Miller Motorsports *National Championship Event*
October 9&10- Buttonwillow + WERC
Nov 6&7- Buttonwillow + Competition License School

Please note that all events will award season points unless noted otherwise by class rules. All race groups will be able to drop the 4 lowest scores (including "0's"), which allows a competitior to skip a weekend without penalty. Individual race series such as AI, CMC, HC, etc my have class rules that supercede this format.
 
*Note- National Championship does not award SoCal Regional Points.
* Competition License School hosted by http://www.drivingconcepts.com

Western Endurance Regional Championship
April 17th- Buttonwillow 3hr
May 22- Thunderhill- 2hr
June 26- Buttonwillow- 3hr
Aug 21- Thunderhill- 2hr
Oct 9- Buttonwillow-3hr
Dec 5- Thunderhill- 6hr

SoCalPointsOct2009.htm

Please email socalinfo@ drivenasa.com if you notice any errors.

Regards

CMCaug2009.pdf

As I put pen to paper or Keys to Computer, we have just come off another great weekend of racing. With one more event before Nationals at Miller Motorsports, the GTS Series, here in Sunny and sometimes down right Hot, Southern California, continues to increase in popularity.  Why shouldn't it?

A series dedicated to German marquee's, where one can, build a car to a specific class, modify an existing car to fall within a class, or simply crossover from another organization, and drop into a class.  This and SoCal NASA's administrative cooperation have made my job as SoCal GTS Director a simpler task than previously anticipated. Having served as Motorsports director for other single marquee organizations and having had the opportunity to listen to many car owners and drivers, I feel that the future of the GTS Series here in Southern California is very bright.