June 22, 2008 - Team Autoxrs Headquarters

After nearly a month off from competition the team headed to Washington DC for the DC Pro Solo. Co-driving for the weekend with team owner Sean Banerjee would be Philip Fitzmaurice. Sean and Philip had co-driven in STX and STS at the 2007 Solo Nationals in Philip's Acura Integra. The 2008 DC Pro Solo would be the team's first venture into pro solos, where drivers run head to head against each other on mirrored courses.

By the end of Saturday morning runs Philip was 5th and Sean was 8th. At the end of the two day event Philip remained in 5th, one spot from the trophies, while Sean dropped a few spots to 11th out of 13 STS2 cars.

The team arrived at Washington DC on Friday afternoon and began setting the car up for the novice sessions. Given the drag race start both Philip and Sean agreed they could use the extra help. After the session the team decided to follow Mike Johnson's suggestions and leave on the second yellow light to ensure the ideal launch. On the practice starts Philip did a 0.550 and a 0.560 reaction time while Sean pulled off a 0.513 reaction time. The racing format over the weekend would involve 2 runs on each course on Saturday morning, followed by 2 more runs on each course on Saturday evening. Then on Sunday the drivers would get another 2 runs on each course for a total of 12 competition runs.

On Saturday Sean would be first driver out, his first run on the left course was a 35.207 clean and a 34.058 on the right course. Philip red lighted once on each course but managed a 32.964 and a 33.502 on the left and right course respectively. At the end of the morning runs Philip sat in 5th place in STS2 while Sean was 8th place. Spots 4-8 were separated by just over a second on each course. With Philip being the faster of the two drivers in the Team Autoxrs CRX he would take the first runs in the evening. With a 32.494 Philip dropped almost a second on left course, but another red light negated any additional improvements on his second run. On the right course Philip managed a 32.475 to improve just under half a second. Sean failed to improve in the evening runs, a nagging problem on the starts caused him to drop over 7/10th of a second on the start alone. At the end of the session Sean had dropped to 11th in STS2 as first time pro solo jitters began slowing creeping in.

Philip would once again go first car out for Team Autoxrs on Sunday, Philip had another red light on the left course but pulled a clean 32.345 on his final run. On the right course he pulled a 32.235 for his fastest time on that course to solidify his 5th place in the class. Sunday proved no different for Sean as he DNFed his first run and pulled a 34.188 on his last run with another poor launch on the left hand course. On the right course Sean pulled a 34.112 that was no faster than his first run on Saturday along with a red light on his last run. All in all it was a very successful weekend for the team at their first pro solo event. "I am thrilled with Philip's performance against the Baker/Snyder team and the King/Strickland team" said car owner Sean after the event.

The team would once again like to thank Mark Connolly and everyone at McB Autosport for their continued support of the team. We'd also like to acknowledge the support provided by Jon Kofod/Team Flatoutracing and Curry's Auto Service.