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Buttonwillow Race Report
Nine challenge series drivers made the trip to
Buttonwillow Raceway for the final race of the California Cup Series;
Karen Salvaggio, TC McNett, Dave Standridge, Rich Norgrove, Robert
Walter, Mike Beeler, Ron Stebles, Tom Coon, and Rick Anderson. Also
joining us: Ron Morris (Should be racing with us!!), Victor Penner (will
be racing with us), Jeff Awender (HPDE, will be racing with us), John
Tongish (HPDE), Bill Robertson, and Pete Goglia.
With only five points separating leader Karen and
Dave, it was anticipated that this would be a lot of fun to watch! As
it turned out, Dave’s motor didn’t “get the memo” and was down on
horsepower (way down!). Soooooo…. The winner is Karen!!! With two race
wins and a second for the weekend, no one but TC got to watch her in
their mirrors!
On top of that, Karen also drove the GTM-R the
first hour of the 3 hour enduro and handed the car off to co-driver
Chris Durbin (Pittsburg, PA) who went on to finish first overall and
first in class!! Owner Rich Migliori and his crew of Ted, Tom, Kevin,
and Don have put together a very “pro Team”. Congratulations to all!!
On the Saturday race, Karen started at pole with TC
next to her. It was quite a battle between those two with Karen finally
getting the best of TC near the end of the race and holding on for the
win. TC took P2, followed by Rick, Mike, Ron, Rich, Tom, and Dave.
Good battles were had all through the pack!
One note, during the morning warm up, Robert’s
motor tried to re-organize it’s internal parts. Didn’t work!
Connecting rods should never exit the side of a block and there never
should be metal parts “burped” up into the intake!!
Sunday’s qualifying race had TC at the front (with
a new Track record: 2:11.103. Way to go TC!!) followed by Karen, Rick,
Rich, Mike, Dave, Ron, and Tom.
For the Sunday feature race, TC and Karen resumed
their battle from Saturday with the rest of the pack doing their best to
keep up. There were many battles going on throughout the group making
it very exciting for the spectators as well as the drivers. Late in the
race, Rich had to retire because there was a bad vibration (broken Motor
mount). In the end, it was Karen for the win, with TC taking a close
second, then Rick, Dave, Mike, Ron, and Tom.
After Saturday’s race we all sat down to a great
potluck BBQ and enjoyed each others stories of the day (read: bench
racing).
One final note: Temps were around 114 for the 2:00
PM race!! That made grip real interesting.
Rick
Anderson
West Coast
Race Director
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