It’s been a difficult season to be sure, but it’s not been without its rewards. Take, for example, the season-opening event at Parkland College. Larz tore through Vipers, Corvette Z06s, and Elises to clinch his maiden overall win in the 1993 Mazda RX-7. Proof that all you need to put everyone else to bed is 275bhp-powered thirteen-year-old car and the skills to turn in faster times than those with more experience than your age. At that same event, I unveiled the BMW after a hard winter’s work with an entirely new suspension and brake system. The result was the recognizable emergence of an evolving and competitive track monster. That first event also saw the rising of a new trend: competitiveness within the group drives higher performance on a large scale, as Ryan and I fought back and forth all day with consistently better times until we had started to reach the top of the pack. Larz and Dean did the same, which led to Larz’s eventual event-winning lap that gave him Fastest Time of the Day.

The goal of expansion began to take form in June when a new soul ventured out to start the long, hard gauntlet of earning his way into the ranks of the club. Long-time Deviant Tuning member, Brandon E., brought out his immaculate 1998 SVT Ford Contour to begin the arduous task of building up enough events and laps to be considered eligible for the dedicated race team.

Unfortunately, 2007 also had its brutal punishments, with not one but two of the team’s cars finally succumbing to the intense stresses that racing puts on a vehicle. June’s Charleston venue saw Ben’s previously bullet-proof 1993 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX take the fall after a spectacular engine failure which left his motor’s entire supply of oil sprayed down the longest stretch of track. Three months later en route to September’s Rantoul venue, disaster struck again. This time, however, it struck Dean’s 1994 Mazda Miata, a car which was believed to be the least likely to give up the ghost any time soon. It was the worst season in the club’s history in terms of reliability, claiming the lives of two of our quickest cars.

Larz, Ryan and I kept the faith in the run-up events to October’s penultimate race, Ryan pulling down his first maiden class victories at the September event in his 2004 Dodge SRT-4. We finished off the season on a high note as Ben announced a week before October that the Eclipse was back up and running. It was also announced that Dean’s Miata had gone through its teardown and was on its way back to a complete rebuild, but that he would be out for the rest of the season regardless. Larz pulled a podium finish out on the last day of the event, which when coupled with my two second place finishes and Ben’s podium finish brought the official season to a close.

All in all… a good, albeit event filled, year. Only 164 days until the start of the 2008 season. Time to get crackin’.