Saturday Race: Carlos Suarez grabbed pole with a qualifying time of 2:17.37 followed by Joe Craven 2:17.72 , Scott Neville 2:18.97, David Pina with a 2:19.27 and Daniel Pina with a 2:22.71. (Dan found out later that his car had a broken sway bar mount which seriously affected the handling of his car...he got it fixed by Sunday's race. Overall though this weekend proved to be a sorting out weekend for Daniel's car was not running at 100%).
Our
Paddock
The GTis were grided near the back of Race Group A pack followed by the lone SU and RSR. The green flag dropped with Joe taking the lead followed by Carlos, Dave then Scott and Dan. The faster SU Daytona and RSR were gridded behind the GTis and following the Green flag drop were trying to get by the pack of GTis. The RSR got in-between the 2nd place GTi (Carlos) and the third place GTi (David). The Daytona muscled his way in-between David and forth place Scott and by Turn 6 both had passed all the GTis.
Green
Flag Drop for Five GTIs Plus Our SU & RSR Friends
This bit of traffic resulted in Joe and Carlos with about a ten car length lead over David and Scott. The end of the first lap left Carlos and Joe battling for 1st place while David and Scott fought hard for 2nd place. Daniel was falling behind with his under performing GTi. These positions remained the same until about lap 6 when Carlos, in an attempt to keep pressure on Joe, over-reved and grenaded his engine. This left Joe far ahead and uncatchable in 1st place followed by David and Scott (still battling for 2nd place) then Daniel. Scott was able to keep pressure on David for the remainder of the race as they mixed it up with the Spec Maitas who by now were overtaking the GTis (they were the first wave of race cars in Race Group A). On the last lap David and Scott got into a blinding dust cloud kicked up by two battling Spec Miatas as they exited Turn 11 and ended up sliding around on the infield grass. Dave held on to his lead after the dust cloud and finished 2nd place followed closely by Scott. Click here to check out the off track action taken from Scott's in-car camera. Joe took 1st place and Daniel 4th. Following a post race tech inspection, NASA DQ'd Joe's car for having a non-spec sway bar (this bar was modified in 2003 when Alex raced in SCCA ITB). This gave the win to David, 2nd place for Scott and a 3rd place for Dan. Fast race laps were as follows: Joe: 2:16.61; Carlos: 2:17.08; David 2:18.55; Scott: 2:19.25 and Daniel 2:22.71.
Turn
3 First Lap Sorting Out - Joe Leads followed by Carlos, David, Scott &
Daniel
Sunday Race: Carlos was out of Sunday's competition with a blown engine and Joe decided not to race which would have meant another sway bar DQ. So today's GTi field consisted of David and Dan Pina and Scott Neville. David got pole with a qual time of 2:19.93 followed by Scott with a 2:20.59 then Daniel with a 2:25.12. Dan's qual time was down as his car was not running well and didn't get it fixed before race time.
Sunday's
Grid Line Up
Sunday's
Racing Grid Turn 14 on our way to the Green Flag
David took the lead off the start followed by Scott then Daniel. By Turn 2 Daniel made a "hail Mary" outside pass on Scott and edged in front of Scott. He and David had a little father-son "love tap" and exchanged a little body paint as they jockeyed for position exiting Turn 2. As Daniel and David mixed with some slower Pro7s approaching Turn 8 Scott maintained his momentum and ended up crazily passing both Dave and Dan by going off track at the exit of Turn 8. Scott kept the lead for nearly 2 laps until David made a outbraking pass in Turn 14 and held the lead until the end of the race with Scott in his rear view mirror the entire time. Dan's car was misfiring (Dan later found out his distributor timing gear had slipped a couple of teeth on the timing belt) and was not competitive but he finished the race and took 3rd place. Fast race laps were as follows: David 2:18.71; Scott: 2:19.93 and Daniel 2:23.23.
Scott
going a bit off-road exiting Turn 9 trying to catch David
Sunday's
Cool Down Lap
Here's the NASA link for race results.