CVU grad continues winning ways

Dillon Machavern, CVU Class of 2013, continues to rack up podium finishes this year. He showed off his talent once more at Virginia International Raceway in the latest Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) showcase as the SCCA US Eastern Conference Majors took center stage for rounds seven and eight of the championship.

Machavern made the most of his talent as he piloted the #24 Heritage Automotive/Panic Motorsports/Ti-Speed Engineering Mazda Miata to an impressive win on Saturday, holding off fellow International Motor Sport Association driver Andrew Carbonell in an excellent battle. As the 25-minute shootout began to wind down to its closing laps, Machavern found himself in the lead. As the leaders approached Turn 14, Carbonell dove to Machavern’s driver side, putting him on the outside of the right-hand and downhill curve. Carbonell’s momentum carried him off the track momentarily through Turn 15, allowing Machavern to take the checkered flag with the win in hand and setting a new track record of 2:14.429 in the process.

Machavern made room for himself on the podium throughout the weekend. Sunday’s 16-lap race saw another intense battle between Carbonell, Alex Bolanos, and Machavern as the trio spent the first 15 laps of the race looking to gain an edge. In the final lap, Machavern made a hard charge for the lead as the three approached Turn 14. This time, however, Machavern was on the outside line, where he simply ran out of room, finishing a scant eight one-thousandths of a second off the race win, a result neither driver was sure of after crossing the finish line.

“This weekend was really awesome,” Machavern said after the dust had settled. “I had yet another hard battle with Andrew Carbonell on a drying track in the Miata. We pulled out a pretty decent margin after a few of the top cars went off-track, and we were battling it out on the last lap going very deep side by side under braking a few times. Eventually, Andrew went just a bit too deep in one of the last turns to give me a comfortable victory in the end. It was awesome to come away with the victory at such a great track!”