Subaru owners all over Southern California congregate regularly at “meets”, divided by region, but joined through a passion for a brand. The community aspect comes with the territory of owning a Subaru. They’ll assemble anywhere that’ll welcome them and once in a while, they’ll come together for one day of fun at a designated indoor karting facility to represent their sub community.
The first event took place only 6 months prior at K1 Speed in Torrance, with Team SCS placing a respectable 3rd place, proving the competition was fierce. For the second installment of what hopefully will be many more to come, the competition would be held at Dromo One in Orange, California next to Disneyland.
TripleX Crew’s Sashin and Yukio were the organizers, requiring a minimum of 5 participants per team and each participant is a member of one of the following internet forums: IWSTI, Nasioc, SoCal Subies, and RS25. The event is 3 rounds in duration: practice, qualifying, and the finals. Qualifying would divide the drivers into 4 groups, the grid of each group determined by fastest single lap time.
Leading into the event, Team SCS and SCV would become the favorites to take the grand championship. Each team had 10 or more capable drivers, allowing each team an equal opportunity to win. Standouts from the last event were Ferdie Ang / Vincent Tam for Team SCS, and Jaime Shadrick / Kevin Tidwell for Team SCV.
Participating in the event was F4, Pomona / Santa Clarita Valley (SCV), Boba / Monrovia, and SCS. Each team was anxious for a win and Team SCS would drive first on the cold track and tires. Nonetheless, they proved themselves worthy of the hype and ready to bring the pain with Vincent Tam driving what would become the fastest lap time in practice among all the teams (despite the obvious disadvantage of a cold track and tires).
In qualifying, Team SCS would drive first yet again, resulting in the majority of the team qualifying in the two fastest groups for the finals. The last final of the day and also the fastest group would have 8 of 10 drivers from Team SCS, a strong indicator of the outcome to soon follow. Team SCS emerged victorious, claiming 9 out of 10 of the fastest drivers in the finals.
The Top 10 drivers and their respective times, a Team SCS finish with the exception of Bill from Team SCV.
20.031 – 1 – Ferdie Ang (South Coast Subaru)
20.200 – 2 – Darin Nishimura (Westend Alignment)
20.200 – 2 – Vincent Tam
20.201 – 4 – Franco Ruiz
20.226 – 5 – Michael Matsumoto
20.261 – 6 – Sean Morris
20.265 – 7 – Neal Megata
20.276 – 8 – Samuel Malapas
20.341 – 9 – Bill Knose (I-Speed USA)
20.347 – 10 – Andrew Hsieh
Ferdie Ang set the bar with a blazing 20.031, the fastest lap time in the finals, closely followed by Vincent Tam and Darin Nishimura from Westend Alignment (tied at 20.200). With an average lap time 3/10ths of a second faster than any other participating team, Team SCS ran away with the grand championship, an indisputable win.
Final Results
1st – SCS
2nd – SCV
3rd – Boba
On behalf of the Subaru community, Team SCS would like to thank Subaru of America for providing DC Shoes apparel and complimentary Subaru Rally Team Photo Retrospective books as prizes for the 10 fastest drivers as well as a pair of DC Shoes Pro Spec 2.0 racing shoes, two t-shirts, and a DC Shoes backpack for the fastest driver in the finals.
Team SCS would also like to thank our good friends for their support:
Darin Nishimura, Sheri Nishimura, and friends (Westend Alignment)
Dusty Nabor (NNI Racing)
Team SCS appreciates Dromo One, the TripleX Crew, and the rest of the Subaru community for making this event possible. Team SCS excitedly awaits the next volume in the Battle of the Meets series to defend the title.
