GRM’s ‘Path to the Podium’ Club Spec Mustang Hits the Track

AUG 28 2026 — Club Spec is SCCA’s build once, compete everywhere series of classes, where one set of rules span SCCA Autocross and Time Attack, allowing someone to own a car that’s not only drivable on the street, but also competitive in class. Club Spec currently has classes for the NC MX-5s and early S197 Mustang GTs, with 718 Porsche Caymans and Boxters on the way in 2027.

GRM’s video series began with an introduction, then jumped into interior mods followed by a differential install. With much of the build complete, part four in the series takes the car to Carolina Motorsports Park (CMP) for the June edition of the Tire Rack SCCA Time Attack Challenge, where Tropea co-drove with Pasterjak. This was Tropea’s first time at CMP and his first time lapping a racetrack for a time; Pasterjak, meanwhile, hadn’t been to this particular track for 20 years. Needless to say, there was a learning curve.

5 Reasons to Team Up

SEPT 16, 2026 — With the increase in gas prices and tariffs making imported car parts more expensive, motorsports isn’t getting any cheaper. Regardless, it’s a sport we’re all addicted to, so justifying the additional costs is part of our fiber. The question is, how can we sustain our motorsport addiction while still being able to keep food on the kitchen table? For me, the obvious answer is to eat less food, which helps you lose weight and thus makes the car faster. All kidding aside (although I could certainly benefit from losing a few pounds), sharing the costs of racing with another person can really help balance a racing budget. Enter this month’s column: 5 Reasons to Team Up.

Over the years, I’ve teamed up with different friends – and sometimes total strangers – to strengthen my own competition efforts. Sharing a car is very common in both autocross and RallyCross, but I’ve shared cars in road racing as well.

Most road racing weekends have separate races on Saturday and Sunday. My car partner and I simply raced one day each and split our racing costs 50/50. We were given Spanish nicknames by our competitors, Sabado and Domingo to differentiate which one of us was inside the car on the starting grid (I was Domingo as I always raced on Sunday).

In all cases, not only did we share the costs of the weekend, we shared car maintenance labor, towing duties, and data to help make each of us faster. The partnership started out of a financial need, but the team-up ended up being so much more, which is why I’m a big proponent of having a car partner.

Solo Nats Stats Expansion Pack

SEPT 10, 2026 — The all-time high score record for Tetris on the original Nintendo Entertainment System is 40.2 million. So, Sports Car Club of America™ has a way to go to match that number on the game we call the Tire Rack SCCA^® Solo^® National Championships. That’s not to say, however, that Solo Nats doesn’t already have some impressive stats after 53 years.

Want big numbers? Going into this week, there have been 44,736 entries at Solo Nationals, gunning for 13,992 trophies and 2,852 championships. That number is clearly going up as we speak this week in Nebraska at Lincoln Airpark.

If championships are the high score equivalent, then the ultimate high score goes to Karen Babb with 21 victories. In open classes, Jeff Keisel is hoping to reset the mark today. Currently, he’s tied with John Thomas with 18 wins.

It Takes a Village to Grow Solo Town

SEPT 8, 2026 — This year is the 53^rd running of the Tire Rack SCCA^® Solo^® National Championships, and the 17th time in a row this marquee event has been held in Lincoln. With upwards of 8,400 runs being made across two courses in four days, it’s an understatement to say Solo Nats couldn’t happen without help from friends.

Behind the scenes, a great deal of aid has come from individuals who aren’t members of the Club. One such example is Dave Stremming, now a member of SCCA’s Hall of Fame who was key in obtaining Forbes Field as home for the Solo Nationals in the 1990s and early 2000s. Another example is the late Derek Feyerherm, who worked tirelessly to give the Solo Nationals a home at Lincoln Airpark.

Similar to how Forbes Field airport president Stremming helped turn a dream into reality with a move from Salina, KS, to Topeka, KS, giving the event plenty of room to grow, Feyerherm did the same for the Solo Nationals at its current home in Nebraska.

Feyerherm joined the Lincoln Convention and Visitors Bureau in September 2005, and over the next two decades became the indispensable man of that organization. As Vice President of Operations and Development at the Chamber of Commerce and Visit Lincoln, Feyerherm worked extensively with the Sports Car Club of America^™ to not only bring Solo Nats to Lincoln, but to make that relationship flourish.