5-Time Sports Car Club of America Solo Champion Jeff Kiesel, of Poway, Calif., has been named the latest SCCA Star Performer, as revealed in the ESPN3.com and ABC broadcasts of the American Le Mans Series Presented by Tequila Patron Baltimore Grand Prix.

Kiesel earned his first-ever Gumout Super Challenge win on Sunday, Aug. 28, topping the 260-car field at the Tire Rack SCCA ProSolo Finale in Lincoln, Neb. Less than a week later, Kiesel earned his sixth SCCA National Championship at the Tire Rack SCCA Solo National Championships driving his E Modified rotary turbocharged Austin-Healey Sprite.

As part of its relationship with the American Le Mans Series Presented by Tequila Patron, one SCCA member will be announced as the Star Performer during each ALMS series broadcast. Past winners include Robert Thorne, Chip Van Vurst, Scott Rettich, Ron Sharp, and, now, Jeff Kiesel.

Congratulations to Jeff and Team Kiesel Racing on an outstanding season!

Jeff Kiesel in the 2011 KFR / Goodyear Tire / Racing Beat Rotary-Turbo Sprite does it again with back to back wins in Packwood Washington. The first of the two events was the Western States Championship 7/16-7/17. Despite the wet conditions both days Kiesel put the hammer down on final runs to take a huge win over co-driver Shawn Kiesel.  Not stopping there, Kiesel dominated the 13 car field in the R1 class at the Packwood Pro Solo the next weekend 7/23-7/24. Kiesel crushed the field winning overall by 2.038 seconds.

After the event Jeff stated, “This States Championship was an important event for us, with this States Championship win and the Divisional Championship win all that is missing is the National Championship win. If a competitor  wins all three in the same class there is a special award given out called the Triad Award. The competition at the National Championship will be very tough and we are going to go back there prepared and give it our best, hopefully we can pull it off again. Our car seems to be getting better and better at each event, it’s the small tuning tweaks we have been doing this year that has made the difference.”

The Pro Finale is August 27th and 28th the class Jeff races in is classified as R1. The Solo National Championships is September 1st and 2nd the class is Emod (EM).

After driving players into the walls of NHL hockey rinks all season long, NHLTampa Bay Lighting defenseman Marc-Andre Bergeron will need to reprogram his hard charging mentality to steer himself clear of the unforgiving walls of the race track. This summer Marc-Andre is heating up his off-season by running his Mazda RX-8 in the Super Touring class of the Canadian Touring Car Championship Series. After seeking technical advice and race-engine support from Racing Beat, Team Bergeron will be running in three select races this summer. We’ll follow up shortly with an interview and race photos, check back soon for more details.

Jeff Kiesel in the 2011 KFR / Goodyear Tire / Racing Beat Turbo Sprite has great success back in Lincoln Nebraska. With back to back major races in Lincoln Nebraska Kiesel went back to compete in both the Lincoln Pro Solo (5-26-5/28) and the Lincoln Spring Nationals (5/29-5/30). Kiesel brought home big wins at both events. The Lincoln Pro R1 class (race tire class) was a 14 car field made up of 7 prepared and modified car classes. Kiesel crushed the field winning overall by 1.855 seconds over a talent packed class made up of 7 multi time national champions. As if that was not enough Kiesel then ran away with the win in at the 2011 Lincoln Spring National (5/29-5/30) EM class win. Despite hitting 1 cone every single run the first day of competition (adding a 2 second penalty for each cone hit) Kiesel still put a big hurt on the class winning by 5.511 seconds with the 2 second penalty.

We caught up with Kiesel during the drive back and here is what Jeff had to say “The events in Lincoln are the best and most important because Lincoln is the site where the National Championships and Pro Finale are held. Extra attention and effort are put into these events, along with more detailed notes. The car was amazing at the Pro and was dialed in perfectly. We did crack the rear end housing on final runs at the pro and I had to weld the housing up right after the final runs to get it ready for the following event. I had to change the set up on the car during the final day of competition for the Spring Nationals and I got the set up pretty good in time for my final run. The car was still not 100% and felt like the a few changes could have dropped us another second. Overall it was a great event for us and we learned a lot while we were there.”

We’ve been working hard to update our seat cover line-up for all 79-85 RX-7 model years. We’ve just found out that there’s a slight difference between the 81-83 and 84-85 RX-7 seats, we’ll be introducing new part numbers within the next few days for the revised 84-85 versions. The product listings will be streamlined to include simple drop down option menus to ease the ordering process. If you’d like to place an order in the meantime, use the order form on the site and we’ll contact you directly to confirm your order.

We’ve been having some fun with a GoPro video camera and our collection of product video clips is slowly starting to grow. As new clips become available we’ll add them to individual product pages, our first videos can be seen on the Mazda2 exhaust and suspension spring pages – check them out!

Jeff Kiesel will be running the 2010 KFR / Goodyear Tire / Racing Beat Turbo Sprite at the El Toro Pro Solo in Irvine CA next weekend 4/8 – 4/10. For more information on the El Toro Pro Solo go to http://www.scca.com/event.aspx?hub=3&event=17168

1981-85 RX-7 owners we need your help!
We need photos of the seats in your RX-7 so that we can continue to expand our line of replacement RX-7 seat covers for these model years. Once we’re finished updating our product guide we should have the most comphrensive offering of RX-7 seat covers on the market! Send a couple of decent photos, year, model, etc.. to photos@racingbeat.com

Racing Beat recently hosted the Center for International Business and Communications (CIBACS) group from Edison High School, Huntington Beach, CA. This rigorous program promotes the professional development of these young adults through a series of challenging projects and  presentations throughout their high school years. Racing Beat has been a proud host of CIBACS groups for the past 7 years, providing business operation details which the students incorporate into a comprehensive oral/written presentation. (www.cibacs.org)

We’re collecting photos of your cars for our new Customers’ Rides section of our website. Once we receive enough photos we’ll load them up to the website and your car will appear in the homepage for your vehicle section.  Send a decent quality 3/4 front view static or action shot of your car to photos@racingbeat.com and be sure to include your name, city, and state/country.