November 2007 - Porsche Club of America – Northeast Region

Autocross Finale - Sponsored By
Copy By Steve Ross, Photos By Gerry Fitton, Hrach Mikekian & John Bergen
Under perfect driving conditions after a cool start 63 eager
autocrossers met for the final round of the Northeast
Regions’ 2007 series, and although only three classes did
not have a class winner already determined, five classes in total
had fights to the finish for top honors of the day.
This year’s course designer Ron Mann introduced a new concept
this time, walls of cones with the direction to go around
sometimes optional sometimes not, this elicited quite a bit o
head scratching and discussion throughout the day as did a
270-degree pivot. One nice element of this particular course
was a major reduction in cone carnage, especially during the
afternoon sessions.
In class one where Tom Tate would be the only driver to qualify
for the series championship, he and Sigrid Schnoerr battled
all day for top honors in their 914 2.0s with Sigrid topping Tate
by less than .6 second.
Class SS08 for showroom stock Boxsters had a new challenger
in the form of Fred DiNapoli driving a new Cayman. Although
he posted a raw time that would have won the class, an errant
pylon nixed his chances this time. Fred trailed by .2 seconds,
but as they always say wait till next year.
Paul Tosi had already won his class two with the 944, but this
time his co-driver son Michael and Joe Kraetsch were locked in
a bitter battle for top honors and after a few anxious moments
early on where Joe’s car emitted some serious smoke on a
corner, he succumbed to the younger Tosi by a mere .1 second
in the closest finish of the day.
Lee Coulter
Class seven for 911SC and Carrera models has been a dogfight
all year long between Chris Ryan and Bob Cantor. Unfortunately
for Bob he had an oil leak last event and thus fell behind for
year end points, a deficit he could not make up even with an
impressive victory this time by 1.3 seconds. Ironically Bob found
out after the fact that the leak could have been fixed at the
event and he could have continued.
The final class championship went down to the wire literally as
Dick Demaine and Roger Warren came to a dead heat in points
Gerry Fitton
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