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| June 05, 2012 News |
| SCCA: Tight Racing Theme of the Day at Mid-Ohio Super Tour |
Round Six of the 2012 BFGoodrich Tires SCCA Super Tour concluded with great racing at picturesque Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on Sunday (June 3), as part of the Ohio Valley Region/Cincinnati Region Race of Champions weekend.
Group three for small formula cars got off to an inauspicious start. Second starting Lewis Cooper III got the jump in his Martini/Voss Water Van Diemen over polesitter Tim Kautz’s Braeburn/Two Dogg/Hoosier Piper to lead Formula F, but chaos ensued behind. David Lapham’s Formula 500 car sputtered from seventh on the grid (second in class), causing a stack up that saw cars make contact and spin before they even reached turn one. Andrew Genkinger (Van Diemen Formula F) and Chris Jennerjahn (Jennerjahn Machine Vortech Formula Vee) got the worst of it and were unable to continue, although neither was injured.
Also involved was Formula Vee polesitter Michael Varacins (Speed Sport/Veetech/Hoosier Speed Sport AM-5), who came to a stop and was dead last in the field after getting back going. The race was stopped to clean up the carnage, and the field was put back into original grid order, meaning Bautz was back up front, and Varacins was able to move back to the front of the FV pack. One car not taking its original grid spot was Lapham’s QRE/Hoosier Invader QRE, as it needed new spark plugs to cure its running problem.
On the restart, Cooper again jumped to the front, but that was short-lived as Kautz made a bold move around the outside of the Carousel to retake the lead. From there, he built a two second lead, with the pair then trading fastest race laps before Kautz finally set a new track record of 1:30.937 (95.011 mph) en route to victory.
After starting shotgun on the field, Lapham, who was celebrating his birthday Sunday, sliced through the field and passed James Weida’s Weida Apartments Scorpion W1 for the Formula 500 lead on lap 14. That was short-lived though, as Lapham spun in Turn Nine several laps later, handing the lead and the win back to polesitter Weida, of W. Lafayette, Ind.
Varacins, of Burlington, Wis., led every lap after the restart, except for the last one. Jeff Loughead started second in the Hoosier Tire/LL Loughead DDS Vortech and ran right on Varacins’ gearbox the entire way, getting side-by-side on the final lap in Turn Four initially and then finally taking the lead in the Carousel as the pair ran to the checkered flag.
While he finished second, Varacins did leave with a new track record of 1:40.139 (86.280 mph) breaking the previous record of Bill Wallschlaeger, which stood for 18 years.
Group Six had the biggest variety of classes, and up front it was the Swift 016 of three-time SCCA National Champion Hans Peter that ran away with the victory. Peter, of Olathe, Kan., battled Saturday winner Sedat Yelkin’s Everclear Swift early, but gradually pulled out a healthy lead before Yelkin retired with just a few laps to go. As his son did earlier in Formula F, Lewis Cooper Jr. scored a runner-up finish in his Martini/Voss Water/St Charles Wine Swift.
Michael Crowe, of Jamestown, Ky., battled with Jeremy Hill before Hill’s Hoosier Tire Photon slowed exiting the last corner just past halfway, allowing Crowe’s Crowe Motorsports/Applied Oxidation/PFC Van Diemen to speed away to the win. Matt Machiko, of Allison Park, Pa., put his Hoosier Tire/Machiko Motorsports Van Diemen in Formula Continental victory lane, topping Saturday winner Robert Allaer's Voss/Martini/LTD Motorsports Van Diemen.
After his pair of wins on Saturday and dominating Spec Racer Ford victory earlier in the day, Scott Rettich hoped to go four-for-four with another win in Formula Enterprises. But 2010 Formula 500 National Champion Pat Gallagher, of Thornton, Ohio, had other ideas, coming out on top of the battle in his Jay Motorsports/CTL Engineering Formula Enterprises entry. Rettich, who led early and charged late, had the fastest lap, but could not close the gap enough at the end of the 19-lap race.
Doug Peterson, of Rochester Hills, Mich., cruised to the Formula Mazda win in his 3Dimensional.com Star Mazda after polesitter Steve Jenks pitted his High Impact Company entry early in the race. Jacek Mucha, of Quebec, sped away to the C Sports Racing victory in his Phoenix-Innotech Swift JMS Mazda and David Locke, of Lafayette, Ind., won D Sports Racing in his Stohr WF1.
As is customary with the BFGoodrich Tires Super Tour, five volunteer workers and one driver took home cash prizes in a blind drawing at the Saturday night party, sponsored by BFGoodrich Tires. Event workers Jim Henson, Nancy Schillace, Joyce Jones, Louie Beal and Doug Gall each took home $100 cash, while Sports 2000 driver Glenn Jividen Jr. nabbed $500.
The next BFGoodrich Tires SCCA Super Tour event is scheduled for High Plains Raceway, Byers, Colo., on June 30-July 1. For more information, please visit http://www.scca.com/supertour
Full Formula Atlantic/Formula 1000/Formula Continental/Formula Enterprises/Formula Mazda results available HERE
Full Formula F/Formula 500/Formula Vee results available HERE |
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