Road To Tulsa - Day 4 & 5

By: Ben Vollmer, Car Audio Nationals/Team SoundDomain

After spending upwards of 18 hours on the road and in airplanes, we have finally come to the days that we made the journey for. Joe and I spent most of the day on Saturday judging cars for the USACi Regional Event, so much of the day was a blur to me with the exception of seeing a ton of cars. I think we judged about 35 or so cars during Saturday's judging.

The thermostat reached a heat index of 104, which lead to a bit of sweating for Joe and me.

The hardest part of the whole day? Deciding on the best cars for the USACi Portion of the show. I can't think of any recent occasion when there have been this many strong cars in a single location that wasn't a World Finals event from one of the competition sanctioning bodies.

The Money Round Judging was probably the most organized I have ever seen it in recent times. Each competitor was assigned to a group, and each group was assigned a time. I think the Money Round judging was done by about 11:30 or so on Sunday, which is actually ahead of schedule. By contrast, the USACi Judging wasn't done until about 9:30 on Saturday night. (Blame me for that...)

After the trophies were handed out, Andy, Rick and I headed out of Tulsa and back towards Memphis. We made it about 85% of the way before deciding to stop for the night. We made it as far as Lonoke, AR, which is as far as I could drive before I wanted to pass out. Our hotel was also the destination for some Gustav evacuees and unfortunately, we got gouged for a hotel room, which to me should be a crime. We paid almost as much for one night in this place as we did for 5 nights in Tulsa.

And the list of winners from the Tulsa Invitational are:

 

1. Steve Head (Honda) 239
2. Jason Syner 235
3. Mark Eldrige 233
4. Steve Head (Truck) 218
5. Wayne Watkins 217
6. Jan Bennett 212
7. Anthony Davis 208
8. Andy Jones 204
9. Alex Mendoza 199
10. Lou Le 198
11. Rick Sellers 194
12. Larry Stevens 192
13. Jack Everrett 191
14. Jorge Jauristi 189
15. Matt Hall 188
16. Kirk Proffitt 187
17. Lee Chavers 186
18. Eric Riley 181
19. James Risenhoover 177
20. Mike Hudson 174
21. Adam Pate 173
22. Jerry Niebur 171
23. Matt Roberts 169
24. John Roberts 165.5
25. George Saltzman 165.25
26. Tony Gozy 160
27. David Seal 159
28. Ron Baker 158
29. Mike Hudson 157
30. Jordan Roberts 152
31. Michael Campo 141.5

Here are Team SoundDomain members Andy Jones and Rick Sellers holding the 1st and 2nd place trophies from Intermediate Pro and Andy's 8th Place Trophy.

Here are a few pictures. More are available at http://www.caraudionationals.com/photos/tulsa