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NorCal Race 4
Thunderhill 10-3,4-09
Only two racers made it to the October race: NorCal
points leader Robert Walter and Rick Anderson. With perfect weather and
clear skies, the weekend had all the makings of a two man shootout.
After Saturday’s qualifying, all of group B’s times
were combined for the grid with Rick at P2 and Robert at P3. At the
green, Rick jumped ahead of Robert and managed to keep two CMC2 cars
between him and Robert. After a full course caution (thrown for the
amusement of the officials in the tower!!), Robert got past the two CMC
cars to challenge for the lead. Unfortunately for Robert, time ran out
and Rick managed to edge him out for the win.
For the qualifying race on Sunday, the grid was
inverted based on the Saturday finishing order. At the start, Robert
dove under the front running CMC cars to take an early lead into the
first corner. Rick had nowhere to go with two big sedans in front until
for no apparent reason they split apart from each other leaving about
one FFR width and a couple of inches of room. That was all Rick needed
to squeeze through, take a nice line through turn one and take the lead
away from Robert by turn two. The two challenge cars stayed nose to
tail for the remainder of the race with Rick taking another win.
For the final race on Sunday, Rick edged Robert for
the pole by 3 tenths of a second! At the start, Rick edged Robert for
the lead and extended his cushion to a couple of seconds by midrace.
However, Robert was not going to go away quietly! At three laps to go,
Robert had once again crept up to striking distance of Rick and both
were “going for it”! On the next to the last lap, Rick broke the track
record and on the last lap Robert broke Rick’s record (only two minutes
old!!!) with a 2:06.744!! Rick took the win and Robert takes the
record!!
With drops deducted, Robert holds a 10 point
advantage over Rick going into Infineon November7th and 8th.
Should be a fun weekend!
Rick
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