Fifth Autocross of 2018 Draws Over 120 Competitors to El Toro

Ideal weather conditions highlighted the fifth event of the 2018 season for Cal Club Autocross on Sunday, May 6 on the runways of El Toro in Irvine, CA. Nearly 125 competitors took to the Reed Gibson designed course looking to best their opponents and lay down fast times.

Three classes of Junior Karts led off the event with Robert Ekstrand taking the Junior A win by 1.4-seconds against Samuel Barrish. Tadao Nakata ran unopposed in Junior B, while Anthony Motonishi won Junior C against Lakshmi Nakata.

In the all Corvette A Street class, Randy Gonzalez led from the gate and improved on each of his four runs to take the crown by 1.6-seconds against Danny Castillo. Leonard Cachola kept his streak of consecutive E Street wins alive by earning a six-tenths victory over co-driver Edward Tsui, with Dennis Hubbard a close third by only .140.

Street Touring Roadster was the largest class of the event with 12 drivers and witnessed Jonathan Lugod clean up a dirty first run to stand on his third and fastest run to claim the .449 win. The battle for second place was fierce, though, as positions two through six were just half a second apart. Ultimately, Ken Motonishi claimed second with Robert Joe in third by .166, and Reed Gibson just missing out on the podium a mere .024 behind.

Michael Yanase switched to Street Touring eXtreme from his normal STR class at the May event, and reaped the rewards with a three-tenths win over Steve O’Blenes. For the first time this season, a Mitsubishi Evo did not win Street Mod Combined, as Matt Davis pulled off the upset over Stanley Kowalski with a 1.1-second victory. Julian Manolov was a close third only .029 behind.

Adrian Cardenas was another driver who led from his first run on course to claim a 2.1-second win in California Street Touring against Michael Bradley, with Scott Mullens taking the final trophy spot in third only .127 back. Matthew Ramirez had the Classic American Muscle Contemporary lead heading into fourth and final runs, but Brandon Porambo improved by over a second to move ahead into the top spot by almost six-tenths.

Jeff Wong only got one clean run on Sunday, but he made the most of it with a heart-stopping .029 victory over Anthony Porta in PAX. In fact, the top four finishers in the class all stood on their third runs and were separated by just .361. Catherine Tran had the early lead in PAX Ladies before Jessica Pao improved by over eight-tenths on her last run to move into the top spot and take the win by half a second.

It was a Porsche podium in B Street with husband and wife Sebastian and Shauna Rios claiming first and second (separated by four-tenths), with Tom Tanquary coming in third only two-tenths behind. Thomas Frecentese won C Street by three seconds over Michael Parker, who ran his new Mazda for the first time on Sunday. Nicole Wong and Yongzhe Wen each ran away with their victories, claiming five-second wins in F Street and G Street respectively.

Eric Wong was dirty on his first three runs before cleaning it up on the fourth to beat Ramy Mattar by seven-tenths in H Street, while Doug Teulie saved his best for last to earn a .836 win in Historic 1. In Novice, Juan Mauricio earned top honors followed by Michael Tiangco and Laura Corodimas.

Cal Club Autocross returns to El Toro for its sixth event of the season on Sunday, June 10.

A big thank you to all our chiefs and volunteers!