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In a very Team WTF?! manner, this report was filed 12 days late...and probably $12 short, but we'll mail you a check right after we get the sway bar from Saner.

There was a perfect storm brewing for the weekend of the DC Pro Solo.  More entries than ever before in a Pro, a weather forecast that called for three straight days of biblically proportioned storms, and the same old dead nuts reliable timing gear. Oh, and on top of all that, there were over 40 first timers as well.  Nothing to worry about, right?  Oddly enough, it all went pretty smoothly.  The Team WTF?! effect was still in full force for the weekend, however.

Rumatt continued his recent streak of skipping major events to other things with his family for the weekend, Ken just plain decided to skip the event for no other reason than skipping it, Andy got a little lost on the way into town from Ohio and BahnBaum and Bren found out what had gone wonky with the rear suspension in BahnBaum’s STX E30 325is.  After much contemplation, discussion, hemming and hewing on Friday evening, BahnBaum decided to take photos of the event on Saturday (over 1,700 of them!) and Bren hopped into Clyde’s B Stock RX-8.

Saturday morning began with several rays of hope.  Despite one of the nastiest weather forecasts in recent memory for the DC area, the sun was out in the morning and the surface at FedEx Field was dry.

Believing that the morning session on Saturday might be the only dry session, Clyde went all out on his four runs.  His scratch times showed that he’s finally getting back into form.  “Well, I guess that I’m pretty much f#@%ed now,” Clyde said after tagging the outside cones on his last morning run on the right side.  When reminded of his proclamations that “cones don’t matter,” over the previous few weeks, Clyde just looked at the ground, shoved his hands in his pockets and walked away.  Without cones, Clyde would have been sitting in first place in BS after the morning session.  With cones, he was sitting in eighth…out of eight and, thus facing the prospect of driving on overheated tires in the Saturday afternoon session as the second driver…if it even stayed dry.  Meanwhile, Bren was able to make a solid midpack showing in a car he had only driven once before in a class that was not devoid of decent drivers. “I was kind of afraid of this,” Bren said after the morning runs.  “I wonder what other kind of bizzaro demand Clyde will make for codriving his car now that he’s going to be second driver in the afternoon.”  Oil, Bren, it’s all about the oil.

Over in A Stock, John V was showing Team WTF?! teammate Andy and the rest of the class what an otherwise unprepared Boxster S can do with some rented wheels.  While his codriver (Team WTF?!’s favorite genius Frenchman, Greg Obadia) was occupying himself with slippery lips and obscene gestures that he called normal bodily functions waiting for the car to come back to second driver grid, John V was tearing up the courses on his way to a first place lead for the morning.  “I don’t know what I was thinking about Pro Solos before…this shit is fun!” John told Greg when they made the driver change.  When Greg got back, all he had to say was, “I don’t know what you’re thinking, man,” He told John after his runs. “This car sucks.  I hate it.”  Greg was sitting in 11th of 16 a whopping 4 seconds behind John V.  Andy was doing okay and sitting in third, but he knew that he could do better. “I’m not sure what’s going on.  I was aiming for that cone there knowing that I would slide just a bit around it so I could be lined up for that next one and I just wasn’t doing what I meant to do.  I think I need to analyze it some more.”

In B Street Prepared, Nick was sweating bullets.  Aside from the fact that the site was hotter than the face of the sun and more humid than a sauna, Nick was worried that it would rain by the time BSP ran in the final heat and that he was going to get shown up again by car owner Bobbie Boykin.  The weather held out and Nick got some dry runs in, but after two red lights and some cones, he was sitting nearly two full seconds behind Bobbie…and had the slowest combined time for all Team WTF?! drivers in the morning session. “I know why I’m so slow…we need to make massive changes to the car.  There’s way more than three seconds out there for me to get, not including the cones.”

When afternoon runs began, the sun started poking though the clouds and everything heated up…the course, the competition and the tires.

In B Stock, Bren went out first in the RX-8…and coned both left side runs.  He dropped some time on the right, but not enough to help his case.  “Clyde was bothering me with all kinds of stuff.  If I hit a cone I should go slow so I don’t put more heat in the tires.  If I redlight I should go slow. Blah, blah, blah.  He wouldn’t just STFU.”  When it was Clyde’s turn, he sensed an opportunity to lay down some impressive times and improve on the morning’s disappointment.  Then, he promptly drove two safe runs.  Yes, he cleaned up, but he went so slow that he didn’t improve his position.  The only thing that he was getting close on was his RT, with a .505 on the first right side run of the afternoon.  While waiting to stage for his final left side run, he reset his mental programming and was ready to drive at full speed…and then cut a .499 red light and went as slow as dared to keep the tires as cool as possible to still give himself a chance on the right side…and after telling himself to hesitate an instant on the tree, cut a .293 redlight.  “I suck.  What are you gonna do? :dunno:”  After all Saturday runs were complete, Clyde was still in eighth of eight about 1.2 seconds behind the B Stock leader, Carter Thompson and Bren was about 0.9 seconds back in fifth place.

John V’s prayers for rain were unanswered and AS ran in the dry in the afternoon too.  He couldn’t improve on his times in the afternoon session and wound up falling from first to second.  Greg was able to move up into 10th place as he started to figure out the Boxster. “When you don’t try to drive it like an S2000, I guess it’s not so bad.  Those slippery lips, though, they’re a killer.”  In the red S2000, Andy was only able to find a tenth on the right side, cones and spins keeping him from finding any more, and dropped from third to fourth place.  “My head just wasn’t there.  I don’t know where it was.  Maybe it was still lost somewhere in West Virginia.”

The late running Team WTF?! entry into BSP was able to run in the dry as well, and Nick did pick it up some and pull ahead of Bobbie…and leave Clyde as the only last place dweller on the team.  “The car still isn’t right.  We’re going to change springs, and the bar, and ooooooohhhh, it’s going to be so fun in the morning,” Nick said as he rubbed his hands together in delight.  Bobbie just said, “We can do whatever you want Nick, you know what you’re doing.  Nickstein Tuning hasn’t steered me wrong yet.”  And Nick ran off to the portajohn giggling like a schoolgirl.

Sunday started with mixed impressions from Team WTF?!  Most of the members woke up to pouring rain.  But not Clyde, the one that was most in need of a dry morning.  When he awoke at 5:00am, there was no rain outside of his house.  The pavement was dry and his hopes were raised.  Then he checked the latest weather forecast on the computer and saw the radar images.  Clear at his place, for the moment, but rain at FedEx.  While he waited outside for Nick to pick him up, it started to rain, and the rain hid his tears.

The rain was intense for most of the day, varying only between downpour and deluge.  No one had a chance to improve their times and no one moved anywhere in their positions throughout the day.  There were some interesting moments, such as when Bren tried to figure out how to engage traction control and/or DSC in the RX-8 and when the ice cream truck showed up after the event had finished.  A high point was Nick turning a perfect .500 RT in the rain on his final left side run.  Of course, he picked the worst time to do it...in the rain where he couldn't help himself.  The sun was out by the time the Super Challenge finished, naturally, but not before playing havoc on the Bonus and Ladies Challenges and the early rounds of the Super Challenge itself.  John V was the only Team WTF?! member to make it into the Super Challenge, and he made an early exit.

In the end, it was a great event put on in the face of great adversity.  The WDCR Region put on a great show and the National staff made things work…and made them work on time.  Team WTF?! applauds their combined efforts and thanks them for making the DC Pro something that should be a great memory…driver performance notwithstanding.