MARRS VI - Watkins Glen Race Report
Watkins Glen International is a storied track at the southern tip of the Finger Lakes in New York. It has been home to many professional races including Formula 1 (many years ago) and NASCAR (today). The historic look of Watkins Glen is maintained with many blue Armco barriers at trackside to keep the cars in and limited runoff areas elsewhere. The severity of the conditions claims automotive casualties every weekend. One such casualty was the Sisu Racing Mazda RX-7 in 1999. Having not been to this track since that time the team was a little tentative to start out the weekend. Building up to speed slowly so as not to hurt the equipment.
There was a unique format for this race weekend. The first qualifying session would determine the position for a 6-lap qualifying race based on fast time. The finishing position of the qualifying race would determine the starting order for the “feature” race on Sunday. The weekend started slow with the Sisu Racing Nissan 240sx claiming a lap of 2:27; slow compared to the fastest two ITA cars at 2:21 on the 3.47 mile Watkins Glen long track. This time placed us 8th on the grid for the qualifying race. There was one MARRS series competitor in 2nd (Chris McClary) and others back in 12th (Matthew Yip) and 13th (Gregg Ginsberg). McClary and Ginsberg are the main threats to Sisu Racing’s championship aspirations so we needed to do well vis-à-vis those tow cars. The series championship only gives points for finishing order of the cars registered for the series so the other cars were there to deal with, but not a threat to take away points.
The qualifying race started with a flourish. There were cars everywhere. The Sisu Racing Nissan stayed out of the fray and allowed the craziness to end before engaging the battle. We picked up a few positions on the first lap and sought to maintain that differential with hopes that McClary would come back a little. Everyone maintained position for 3 laps when a black flag all came and we all had to “pause” the race. The restart was another mess as the lead car was swallowed up by the 4 following cars. He went off in turn 1, rejoining far back. McClary was now in the lead but not for long as he was passed by two non-MARRS cars. The finish of the race, the grid for the Sunday race was McClary in 3rd, Dohne in 5th, and Ginsberg in 8th.
The Sisu Racing Nissan 240sx was lined up behind McClary’s Honda for the two-by-two start. At the drop of the green, McClary moved right and tried to take the inside line to turn 1. That was our thought as well so we followed him into the hole. Having gotten a better jump than him, we bumped him into the lead and followed into second place. We ran up the back straight side-by-side taking the lead into the braking zone for the inner loop. Unfortunately, we were on the wrong side of the track and McClary was through cleanly into first place. We dropped a little time as we got sideways through the inner loop. That would be all McClary needed to pull out a lead far enough to start moving away. For several laps we ran 1-2 overall. Then the Hondas, which have an easier time on the handling side of the track started to come through and insert themselves between the Nissan and McClary’s Honda. We fought for every position but dropped back. Our advantage on the straight was not enough to overcome the disadvantage in the turns.
Ginsberg’s Honda slowly made up the time lost on the first lap and ended up on our bumper for the remaining laps making moves and being fended off. The race ended with the Sisu Racing Team claiming second place points and maintaining the lead in the season points championship. Our win streak is over after three race wins. There are three races left in the year and the points are close. Stay tuned…
MARRS VI - Watkins Glen Race Results
Overall Class Car # Class Name Laps Best Laptime Car Make 1 1 1 ITA Jon Marhefka 12 02:21.157 Honda 2 2 2 ITA Eric Justin Price 12 02:21.658 Honda CRXsi 3 3 8 mITA Chris McClary 12 02:22.565 Honda 4 4 00 ITA T.J. Hanifan 12 02:23.009 VW Golf GTi 5 5 9 mITA Kirk Dohne 12 02:23.846 Nissan 240SX 6 6 72 mITA Gregg Ginsberg 12 02:23.635 Honda 7 7 95 ITA Rich Smith 12 02:25.362 Honda CRX 8 8 29 ITA Rich Mayeres 12 02:25.569 Honda 9 9 78 ITA Richard Boehly 12 02:26.525 Mazda 10 1 37 SRX7 Brian Zalner 12 02:27.657 Mazda 11 2 50 SRX7 Dave Ade 12 02:27.387 Mazda 12 10 01 mITA Matthew Yip 12 --:--:--.--- VW 13 11 08 ITA John Morris 12 02:26.249 VW Golf 14 12 85 ITA George F. Morris 12 02:26.965 VW GTi 15 13 44 ITA Larry Hebeler 12 02:26.794 Honda CRXsi 16 1 65 ITB Greg Subtelny 12 02:26.282 Volvo 142 17 3 56 SRX7 Russell Maloney 12 02:28.160 Mazda 18 4 20 SRX7 Kevin Elion 12 02:28.616 Mazda 19 5 98 SRX7 Matthew Littleton 12 02:27.738 Mazda 20 2 80 ITB Bill Radford 12 02:26.357 BMW 2002 21 6 17 SRX7 Stephen Figura 12 02:29.033 Mazda 22 7 93 SRX7 Chris Hubbart 12 02:29.891 Mazda 23 8 76 SRX7 Matthew Stadt 12 02:29.947 Mazda 24 14 63 ITA William (Bill) Weaver 12 02:29.251 Mazda RX7 25 15 68 ITA Courtney Hubbard 12 02:28.744 VW GTi 26 3 86 ITB Charles Broring 12 02:29.851 Volvo 27 9 16 SRX7 Casey Ray 12 02:32.112 Mazda 28 16 35 ITA William Robertson 12 02:32.397 Honda 29 4 89 ITB Alton Fryer 12 02:31.620 BMW 30 5 99 ITB Kevin Fryer 12 02:32.128 BMW 31 10 46 SRX7 Yusuf Mohamed 11 02:34.340 Mazda 32 11 97 SRX7 Douglas Ensor 11 02:35.023 Mazda 33 6 10 ITB Shawn Fohs 11 02:36.735 VW Rabbit 34 7 88 ITB Michael Gilbert 11 02:36.232 VW Golf 35 17 04 ITA William Bifulco 11 02:38.470 Mazda 36 8 13 ITB Daniel DeBell 11 02:34.763 Volvo 37 18 24 ITA Windell Holmes 10 02:22.651 Honda CRXsi 38 9 54 ITB David Small 10 02:46.468 Alfa Romeo 39 10 49 ITB Phil Hunt 7 02:26.492 VW Golf 40 1 71 SSB Eric Mund 6 02:28.120 Camaro DNF DNF 94 ITA Chip VanSlyke 5 02:23.463 Acura Integra DNS DNS 14 SRX7 Al Gervais 0 --:--:--.--- Mazda DNS DNS 30 ITA Brian Duka 0 --:--:--.--- Toyota DNS DNS 31 ITA Gene Litz 0 --:--:--.--- Nissan DNS DNS 7 ITB Jim McGurgan 0 --:--:--.--- VW DNS DNS 83 ITB Daniel Thiel 0 --:--:--.--- Volvo 142E '71 DNS DNS 90 ITB Jerry Monaghan 0 --:--:--.--- VW Golf