Pontiac Solstice Wins Showroom Stock B Title in Rookie Season
GM Vehicles Extend Championship Win Streak to 51 Years at SCCA Runoffs
When Don Knowles drove his Pontiac Solstice to its first-ever Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) National Championship Runoffs win this past Friday at Heartland Park Topeka in Kansas, he kicked off a three title weekend for GM vehicles and also extended GM's consecutive championship win streak to 51 years.
Prepared by Phoenix Performance and Joe Aquilante, Knowles' Solstice was one of five racing in the 28-car Showroom Stock B (SSB) class, and the win earned the veteran road racer his third SCCA National Championship. He averaged 72.884 mph during the 45-mile race, while teammate and Northeast Division SSB champion Andrew Aquilante set the fastest lap on the 2.5-mile track at 2:01:700 with his Solstice.
"This win puts the finishing touch on an extremely strong rookie year for the Solstice in SCCA," said GM Performance Division executive John Heinricy. "We knew the Solstice would be very competitive, but winning a National and Northeast Division Championship in Club Racing and two more National Championships in Solo autocross competition really validates the performance of this top selling vehicle."
All SCCA Club Racing Solstices and most Solo entries are equipped with the Z0K Club Sport regular production order option package, which is designed for the weekend racer and currently available to order through any Pontiac dealership.
Developed by GM Performance Division, the Club Sport package features the standard five-speed manual transmission along with antilock brakes (ABS), a limited-slip differential and FE3 suspension. The FE3 suspension is standard on the 2007 Pontiac Solstice GXP.
Phoenix Performance was instrumental in introducing the Pontiac Solstice into SCCA racing for 2006 in cooperation with GM Performance Division. In addition to the Solstices driven by Knowles and Andrew, Phoenix also supported Runoff entries driven by Stan Czacki and Beth Aquilante. A fifth Solstice was raced by Alan Yankielun.
Tacking on two more wins for the weekend were a Pontiac Firebird driven by GM Performance Division executive John Heinricy in American Sedan (AS) class and a Chevrolet Corvette C5 Z06 driven by Lance Knupp in Touring 1 (T1), bringing GM's grand total to 128 SCCA championships since 1956.
Heinricy's win extended his personal Runoffs consecutive win streak to six, and also gives him a grand total of 10 SCCA National Championships for his career. It was his fourth championship in the AS class.
The T1 victory earned Knupp his first National Championship as he bested a strong field of challengers, including drivers of the Dodge Viper SRT-10 and Ferrari 360 Challenge.
"Lance's terrific T1 class win was a complete surprise after the way the Vipers and Ferraris performed in qualifying, but qualifying is only for tomorrow's newspaper; winning the race is for the history books," said GM Performance Division engineer Greg Fadler. "A Corvette has now won T1 for six consecutive years."
Joe Aquilante finished fifth in the Touring 3 (T3) race with his Cobalt SS Supercharged, and was the only non-Mazda RX8 in the Top 11 finishers. Other GM entries in the T3 race included Stan Wilson and Mike Kramer in their Cobalt SS Supercharged and Saturn ION Red Line cars respectively.
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