[scottgib]

Congratulations. Evidently the S can compete in GS considering that Carpenter and Cone were there in their Toyotas. Brian give us a report.

I also noted that HS was faster than GS and Chiles won. Were the conditions the same?

[Paul]

Cool.

[jasonve]

Event conditions were wet all weekend... very wet!!! Chiles, Jacobs,(both in a MC) and Chang (Civic SI) in HS were on Hoosier Dirt Stockers (excelent rain tire) Brian in GS was on fresh Hoosier ASO3s .... I myself was on bald Kumho V700s and had major traction issues.... Others in GS had rain tires but Brian and Ian drove the wheels off the MINI S to take the GS win!!!
I am sure Brian can give a better account of the GS battle..... in hind sight I should of tried my stock continental all seasons... they probably would have been faster!!! I ended up finishing 5th in HS .... not what I was hoping for but I had a blast anyways....

[NearlyNN]

Very nice. Congrats. Brian steps up with the S and keeps winning. Super.

[Garfield]

First of all, I'd like to clarify that Jeff Jacobs won a Pro last year in an "S", so I don't want people to forget about that.

Competitors:
G Stock was one of the toughest fields I've run for awhile, but unfortunately, Rob Foley's Celica broke and that took he and G.H. Sharp out of the mix. They were on A3S04's.
Rick Cone and Larry Pulliam's car was on Dirt Stockers. Chuck Frank was also on Dirt Stockers.

Run Down:
My co-driver, Ian Baker, ran before me on Saturday morning and was able to show what the Cooper S was capable of in the rain by posting two of the fastest times of the class. I managed to post a faster times on both the left and right and finished the Saturday morning session with a two tenths lead over Rob Carpenter’s Celica GT. Although the afternoon session weather was not any better, some times improved, including my left side by three tenths. While Carpenter did improve, it was only by one tenth leaving me with a four tenths lead to end the Saturday runs. As predicted, Sunday’s weather was much worse with sporadic downpours keeping the left side very wet and the right side streams became rivers. These conditions solidified the win for me with almost nobody in the class able to improve their runs.

Tire Selection:
The Left course was at the top of the "hill", and the water didn't create a river anywhere on that course EXCEPT the launch (about 5 feet from staging). The Right course had a river through the launch, at the turn around, and had a strong flow coming at you through the uphill slalom. Ian and I actually tested a cone in the river on Sunday to see if it would get dragged away

So, given these conditions, MOST of the course was just wet...
Now, we decided to run the Hoosiers on Saturday morning expecting the weekend to only get worse, so if there was ever a time to run slicks, that would be it. Here's a secret: We were running WAY below normal pressures...WAY below.
We did extreme burnouts EVERY time and it did help. After the morning I was in first and Ian was in second, so it seemed we chose OUR options correctly. For the PM session, it was the same conditions, with a clearer course and probably slightly warmer pavement, so we didn't see a reason to change what we had. Mr. Strano was pushing me to switch to my Toyo T1-S but I just couldn't justify it, and take the chance at being slower. I picked up .3 on the left, but blew my chance to bring my bad right side down with a red light.

For Sunday, the conditions were worse, but we weren't sure what the call was, and knew it was going to stop raining, so we didn't want to have to be on the Toyo's for the Challenge, nor did we want to give up Hoosier contingency.

Challenge Rounds:
So you know, Ian blew everyone away (relatively) in the Bonus Challenge, and I was winning by large margins in the Challenge (with the exception of Larry Fine in the STi). I'm confident that had I not redlit against Grainger, the MINI could have had three titles that day. I ended up third after beating Corey Ridgick in his 2.5RS.
We tried the "Radio" idea for the first time, which I'm sure is how I was able to beat Junior in the first round (he coned, so I drove carefully).

As some have experienced before, the MINI is an incredible rain car. I found that out running the WRX's on the North course last year in the rain. It just transitions as if it's not even wet.

Brian

[dukesantos]

Great results everyone, thanks for the nice report.