60 brave souls took to the McCarty Ave OGS parking lot for Round 2 of the 2015 MoHud Solo season on Sunday, May 31st.  The morning started out warm and muggy, with temps in the low 70’s, but as registration for the event came to a close, a cold wind descended and the temperature dropped 20 degrees in a matter of minutes.  It was to get worse…

Initially 63 entrants had registered, but as the rain started to fall, several contestants withdrew due to challenges with their vehicles in the wet and rough conditions.  The field was broken down into 3 heats, with a schedule of work-off-run.  Hats off to the brave souls who worked their assignments in the driving rain at the start of the event.

The rain made the morning runs of Heat 1 (Street Touring and Street Prepared) some of the worst conditions this competitor can remember in some time.  The rain was relentless, and competitors had to ford minor streams in portions of the course.  Timing & Scoring set up in the van, but several leaks in the MoHud van meant even those of us in the van weren’t spared from getting wet.  At one point your humble Timing & Scoring Chief had to have his hand on the ‘Reset Finish’ button as the water splashing kept tripping the finish timing lights prematurely for many competitors, while the laptop was canted to one side in the front seat to keep the drips off it.  Heats 2 & 3 had better conditions, but the course was still wet and there was runoff in several corners of the course.  Despite the challenges, some competitors put down very impressive times, so all were on notice that the rain was no excuse to hold back. Check out the MoHud Facebook page for pictures from the event – DJ McArdle’s 350Z’s splashing around is pretty impressive.

When all was said and done, and as conditions dried for the last heat of the day – G Street, Street Mod, Prepared, and Kart – had last shots at top times but they couldn’t take much advantage of that.  Fastest raw time, Pro class and fastest overall PAX of the day went to Jon Staude and his STS Honda Civic hot hatch.  All-wheel drive came in handy for some as Andrew Bernstein had the fastest Street raw time in his BS Mitsubishi Evo X, Dan Whaley took fastest Street Prepared raw time in his ASP Mitsubishi Evo X, and Stephen Zavos had the fastest Touring raw time in his STX Subaru STI.  Rear wheelers Joe Rapp-Dimopoulos and Paul Dudley took fast raw time honors for Prepared and Street Mod, while Johnathan Burckhard braved the elements to lay down some good times in his kart.

Here’s to hoping better weather greets us at Event 3 on June 28th.  Given what we had for Event 2, the odds are it has to be better… right?