09/06/2025
2025 SCCA Solo Nationals Recap
2025 was another year focusing on my young family and growing the shock business (Team Overkill Racing Shocks). As a result Nationals was only my third event of the year.
As part of the work developing shocks I built experimental valving for the Chicago Tour. That experiment failed, so the shocks needed to be revalved prior to Nationals. While those were off the car I discovered broken bolts for the sway bar mount that needed fixed (likely due to the hopping in Chicago).
I finally got everything buttoned up Tuesday morning at 4am… when I discovered the car had a misfire. I had finally resolved a previous misfire just prior to the Chicago Tour. So, with a great deal of uncertainty, I loaded the trailer and decided to fix the car after getting to Lincoln.
Wednesday morning was a mad rush to figure things out. Pulled apart the intake and even had injectors out. Eventually found that some water had found its way into the #4 cylinder downtube when I cleaned the engine bay a few weeks prior. Repairs were completed at 1:55 pm… just in time for my 2:00 pm test and tune. I dialed in the shocks and knocked some rust off and was finally confident the car was going to make it through competition.
I was able to snag two more T&T sessions. Since the car was running well, it was a good opportunity to offer up the car for test drives to showcase how we can transform the car with shocks. Five different drivers jumped in the car and walked away impressed. One of the drivers was Mitch Welker (2024 ES National Champion and 2024 podium finisher). Mitch was impressed with the shocks and said the shocks were “very communicative” and made it especially “easy to place the car.”
The next morning I made final preparations by getting the under tray properly attached for the first time in a long time. This concluded 10 consecutive days of working on the car to get it ready for competition.
E-Street started on the East course on Thursday. This course was fast and flowed well, but punished mistakes. Considering the extremely limited seat time I’ve had and the deep talent pool in the class, sitting 0.2 seconds out of the trophies was only slightly disappointing.
The West course seemed like a course I’d do well with, but my strategy of trying to land a hero run on the first attempt led to a big spin near the finish. Second and third runs were better, but had too many mistakes and I moved back.
Overall, while I’m slightly disappointed with my driving, the car performed great, and I got to showcase the shocks in the best possible way, by having people experience it for themselves.
Additionally, I had multiple customer cars do well (including trophies) across several different classes. This made my personal performance less of a downer, since work I’d done led to other people’s success.
Hopefully next year I can build on the successes with the business and get more seat time so I can come back faster!
I’ll work to get video and data processed and get it posted in the next week.
