It was a great weekend of racing with the Fl region SCCA and one of the biggest fields I can remember down there in quite a while. A big thanks to Fl Region for the hospitality. There were some fine performances in the GT field, Machavern winning on Saturday in his blue 26 Riggins Vette. Sunday he lost a driveshaft handing the GT-1 win to Ray Webb, who now leads the V8 StockCar GT-1 points with two wins and two seconds for the year. Randy Walker was again dominate in GTA as he was at Sebring in his ex ASA Monte Carlo. 17 year old Bobby Kennedy put on a show in dad Squeak Kennedy’s #5
SPO Monte Carlo. Bobby has been around the race track since he was an infant and has been racing since he was ten years old in quarter midgets, short track trucks and more recently in showroom stock scca. He is fast in anything he gets in! Bobby won our V8 SPO class on saturday, cutting a very quick for the slick track conditions 1:23. He had never seen the track before this weekend. The car is just a GTA car with a little less weight and just over 450 HP but this kid carries speed, late brakes, quick back on the gas and yet is still very smooth and precise. Next up for the #5 and Bobby Kennedy is the
“the Mitty” at Road Atlanta with Historic SportsCar Racing. There should be twenty some ex Cup cars, ex ASA and late models, plus a similar number of GT/Trans Am types in their own race.
Dell Haverland has a great weekend on his home track taking both ends of our V8 GT-2 class in his beautiful STO type Corvette. On Sunday he had a great battle with Bill McGavic in his quick tube frame RX7, with Dell just holding Bill off at the checker.
Paul Breehne (Roush-Yates Performance Parts Ford Fusion) missed Saturday’s race with a broken distributor, but Tommy Riggins had one back in his Jacksonville shop and had former Riggins fabricator Beau Dickson pick it up and put it on a bus for Palm Beach. Breehne’s crew chief Mike Breault picked it up Sunday morning, arrived back at the track as the group was heading to the grid and had it installed and running in minutes. Paul made it to the grid, lining up last due to missing qualifying. He then proceeded to drive through most of the field and probably would have won overall but detected a loose front wheel with two to go settling for third overall and first in V8 SPO.
Squeak and I brought out the new Vette, we had hoped to be there friday for the test day, however the powerful storms that ripped through central Florida changed that. I lost a couple of big oaks in the yard, which took out the power at our house and another tree took out the neighbors power and grazed his house as well. We were without power for about 30 hours, finally getting it back in time so I could get away. I had never driven the new PBIR before and the car had never turned a wheel under its’ own power before the qualifying session. On the second lap, the car started missing and I came in after lap 3 to see what was amiss. Turned out to be a plug wire laying on the header, which woody and steve quickly rememdied. Lined up for the race still not really knowing which way to go. The good… the car tracked well, had great brakes, shifted well, pointed to the apex, …the BAD, pushed like a DUMP TRUCK! Did a little over half of the race and came in to get her worked over. Woody and Steve inspected the tires and decided that these left over Continentals from the “roar before the 24” would durometer about the same as concrete. Woody found that we also had too much camber in the front, which he quickly adjusted.
We installed a set of slightly better rubber, take offs from the 24, that had one heat cycle. Sunday, I started 18th, not really getting in anything one would call a complete lap. At the start picked up a couple of spots immediately in turn one and couple more by turn five.
By lap four or so I was running sixth overall just in front of
Bill McGavic and just behind Dell Haverland in his Corvette. I had just closed on Haverland underbraking at the end of the long back straight and was on his bumper coming out of the horseshoe when the car suddenly just shut off. I let her coast on down stopping to the right of the chicane well out of the way. It looks like we lost power to the fuel pumps. We found out a lot about the car this weekend even if we didn’t get in many laps. My best lap was around 1:27 flat, which is well below what the car is capable of. With a little more work, NEW rubber and a less clueless driver I think the car will do sub 1:22 at this track despite its’ only having about the 400 HP to the wheels. These Rolex GT motors (FI 5.7 LS6) are little more than blueprinted stock with forged internals. We hope to make a real test day soon and run with V8 StockCar at VIR May 14-15 on the Grand Am/Trans Am weekend.