Good Luck Bryan

[racinric95]

Good luck Bryan,
Prelim results from the Pro Solo show Mr. Heitkotter with a .5 lead in "B"
Stock.:D

Ric

[SmokeyBear]

Huzzah! Bryan! I finally got around to reading SportsCar last night. I see Bryan is picked to win BS. We're rootin' for ya, Mr. H!

[racinric95]

CONGRATS Bryan!
I hope your class win at the Pro Solo are a preview of
the rest of your week at Lincoln.

Ric

[Justin]

Go Bryan! We're all cheering for ya!

[2159ClassicRed]

Would be much more exciting if Jason ran, and sweeter :D

[Mstang-50]

CONGRATS Bryan
B Stock Drivers: 22 Trophies: 7
T 1 194 Bryan Heitkotter 2005 Mazda RX-8 Slv Hoosier 59.989 62.117(1) 59.535 59.535 Fresno, CA

[2159ClassicRed]

Still got one more day :)

Live updates: http://sololive.scca.com/

[miatacrosser]

Congratulations Bryan,

Thank you for winning another National Championship for yourself and our Chapter.

You did a great Job in winning your second title, even with bad handling and poor driving:confused:

Next year I'm going for sure and we should start making plans as a Chapter to get as many people from here to attend next years Nationals. They are more fun than you can imagine. It's autocross heaven for a whole week.

[racinric95]

Great job Bryan, congrats on your second title. I know you've had a
rough year but this win really makes it all worthwhile. Have a safe
trip home and we'll see you at the next event.

Ric

[JFine]

Congratulations Mr. H on another win and this time your not a classified as a rookie. :p

Hey Steve put me down as a tentative 2010 national competitor. I plan to hit the tour and divisional minimum and possibly a drive to the Midwest if I am not placing dead last at the regional and divisional events. Ok, now everybody can laugh as I have to say my car is still not back together. How many more weeks till the next event? :eek:

[2159ClassicRed]

Hmmmmmmmm............non-working car and driver means complete SUCCESS!!! :D

[fastFijian]

Josh u planning to trailer it there? well if i am setup by than, maybe we can use my trailer to put 2 cars side by side sideways and hoof off in a cheaper fashion. my car will need lot of work to get setup. my compressions been less than 100 psi for a couple years now. i think i had 110 in one.

[Mister2]

All right, way to represent Bryan!! And here I thought the RX8s were more show than go. But have you forsaken the mighty MR2 turbo? (if so, I have dibs on the hardtop).

I can already hear the chatter on the MR2OC forums...

[BryanH]

Thanks for the well wishes guys. :) It was a good week. The car was perfect for the Pro Finale and I had a lot of fun on those courses, winning B-Stock by 1.2 seconds. Almost beat A-Stock, too! It was funny - I lined up beside Scott McHugh (A-Stock '89 Corvette, who would become the 2009 AS Champ later in the week) for my first Super Challenge match-up, and I only got to start 0.1 ahead of him. His Vette was a car length ahead of me going into the first turn! No way I could make that up. Oh well, I guess it's not a terrible problem to have, going so fast in competition runs that my Challenge dial-in is near impossible. :)

Somehow for the Solo Nationals courses (which were on the same area as the Pro courses) the RX-8 suddenly had major understeer and I was really on the back foot for day one. After a slow and then slower (and dirty) run I needed something just to keep me in the game, so I managed the understeer as best I could and left a bit more space from the cones to make sure I was clean. I was lucky to finish the day somehow in the lead, by only 6 hundredths. As awesome as the car was at the Pro I was expecting to have it a bit easier at Nationals. But I overcame that obstacle by the skin of my teeth and had a better time on the next day when the car was handling better. We swapped tires front-to-rear just to see what would happen, and then made a slight tire pressure adjustment midway through our runs. The car has been so good all season we haven't had to mess with it, but I guess the Nationals surface/courses finally required us to change things.

With the handling issues on Thursday and not wanting to throw it away, I had been driving cautiously and a bit out of my element, even through Friday's 2nd run. That run was pretty quick and clean, so I finally went for it on my 3rd run. It was going great, I was feeling at one with the car again, but I braked a smidge too late after a high speed section and found some sand with the outside rear wheel. I was backing the car into the turn sideways but with the sand the rear end kept going all the way to the outside cone wall and I launched a cone into the air. I didn't lose a lot of time though so I kept going to see what I could get out of the run. I finished with a time a full half second faster than my second run, despite that mistake, which tells me if I had had a good run without running wide into that cone I would have had an even faster time. But - coulda woulda shoulda. I'm happy I was able to salvage enough out of the car to win a championship not driving up to my standards. It really helps to have the confidence of knowing I have the car for the class instead of trying to make up the difference in a somewhat slower car, as fun and rewarding as that can be in its own right.

It's been a great year, between the phenomenal surprise of the San Diego Tour and my Pro Finale performance culminating in a hard-won National Championship. Maybe I really have made progress as a driver since I started doing National events in 2006. That year I won my first Championship I drove my @$$ off, one of my best 2-day events ever, and won by less than a tenth. Now in 2009 I consider a .234 win to be insufficient, so I guess my standards have changed!

Kudos to my co-driver (car owner) Zach H as well. In his first Nationals he placed 3rd (almost nabbed 2nd!) in a stacked BS field. In fact he had the fastest scratch time on day 1 - but for a cone he might have won the whole thing.

I've got a lot of media to sort through. I'll have pics and video up... sometime. :)

[fastFijian]

Wow! great going Bryan. I always wonder why you dont try to be like the Stig from topgear. it would be a smashing job and you would be great at it!

[BryanH]

If you know of anyone who needs a Stig, I am totally available. :D

[cap49]

if you know of anyone who needs a stig, i am totally available. :d

'road & track'.........'car and driver'.............'motor trend'.....'motor week'.

[MR2Xiong]

Congrats Bryan!

[black_em2]

very nice man :D

[BryanH]

If you've got some insomnia to cure or a lot of time on your hands, here's some media...

Pro Finale Courses:
http://www.vimeo.com/6582429
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBkDNuPBNag

Nationals East Course:
http://www.vimeo.com/6583186
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HirlZ2CVYac

Nationals West Course:
http://www.vimeo.com/6583310
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL88sW-sMpw


I took way too many pictures in Lincoln (over 5,000). Therefore, they'll be going up gradually over the next few days. :)

Today's installment is from Tuesday, September 8. Gallery here: http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/nats09

A few samples:

http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/117334717/original.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/117335240/original.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/117334977/original.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/117334769/original.jpg
How often do you see a Miata lift a rear tire?

http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/117334617/original.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/117334397/original.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/117334699/original.jpg

Be sure to view in "original" size for best quality.

More to come...

[JFine]

Hey Bryan,
What speed were you at in the "2009 Solo Nationals West Course RX-8" at 34 seconds into the video? It seems as though you might have been exceeding the 55mph in a stock car, but maybe it is an optical illusion.
Your video brings back memories of the Winton Ramp:( all that concrete and open space:(.

[BryanH]

The Winton Ramp is a speck compared to this place. :)

I was on the 2nd gear rev limiter for a couple seconds there. I think that's around 62mph for an RX-8 on 285 Hoosiers.

[BryanH]

Wednesday's photos are now up: http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/nats09

Samples:

http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/117441422/original.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/117441503/original.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/117441722/original.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/117442026/original.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/117441947/original.jpg

Still have Thursday/Friday to go!

[JFine]

I was looking through Bryan's photos tonight and this one brought back memories.:eek::D
PHOTO (http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/117335165)

[solo2_z06]

There might be video that still exsists of the original episode...