MARRS IV - 2006 - Summit Point Race Report
The Team Sisu Nissan 240sx had a three race win streak entering the fourth race of the year. Streaks, however, are meant to be broken. There would be a new race winner and some new blood on the podium. The weather was wonderful all weekend, if a bit on the chilly side when the wind picked up. The first news of the weekend indicated that Gregg Ginsberg's Honda CRX was crippled by overheating issues during the practice day and would not be racing.
The Team Sisu Nissan would attempt the first qualifying session with a good set of tires and try to nab the pole position. The afternoon looked as though it would be a bit slower as the track and air heated up. Taking off from the lead position, we encountered lapped traffic on the first fast lap so we set about to find an open spot on the track to get a few good laps. These would be few and far between, we were successful in finding two open laps and laying down a fast time. Jon Kofod in an Acura Integra would do the same and he seemed to be keeping pace. The first session showed a two-horse race: Dohne's Team Sisu Nissan on provisional pole with a 1:28.8 and Kofod second at 1:29.2. The next fastest car was 1:31.
Attempting to save the best life left in the tires for the race, Team Sisu went to an older set of tires - believing that the pole was safely in hand with the track presumably no better. Lining up on the false grid in the order of fastest times from the previous session, Kofod was immediately behind us. We went out to get some track time and have fun. we pushed the car and brought Kofod's Acura along. Kofod was pushing hard to keep up and catch up when he fell back a little. Well, we may have sealed our doom as Kofod made a fast lap that eclipsed our morning time by .09 seconds and moved him into the pole position. We had nothing left in the tires and could not retaliate. The running order for the start would be Kofod, Dohne/Team Sisu, Bryan Stitt in another Acura Integra, Bill Hutchins in a Mazda Miata, and Mark Johnston in a Nissan 240sx. Starting 9th was Jason Fields in another Nissan 240sx, more about that later.
The race was started with two pace laps due to the large number of cars in the group. The pole sitter brought the field around in an orderly fashion and the green flag fell. The torque of the Team Sisu Nissan is a chief advantage of the car and we got a jump on Kofod's Acura and moved cleanly into first position by turn 1. We moved out by about 1 second at the end of the first lap. That lead would fluctuate from 0-1 second throughout the course of a lap showing where the strengths and weaknesses were in the two cars. We swiftly moved away from the rest of the field. Kofod passed momentarily when we had trouble finding 5th gear on the straight. Kofod passed under braking into turn 1, fortunately we were able to repass in turn 4 after going through turns 1-3 side by side. Other than that moment we led all of the race entering the last lap. The last lap saw the two leaders come upon a group of 6 cars in the tight carousel area. The Team Sisu Nissan was able to get through while Kofod missed a shift and dropped back about 10 car lengths. They have a saying, expect the unexpected. Well, some things are just too unexpected. In 17 years racing at Summit Point Raceway, we had heard stories about deer but never seen one while racing. Well this was our chance. As we approached the bridge before the last turn and the checkered flag, a deer ran across the track immediately in front of the Team Sisu Nissan. Missing it by at most 10 feet at a speed of 100 mph was quite distracting - a simple calculation shows that we came within 7 hundredths of a second of hitting the animal and in all likelihood totalling a good racecar. With that incident out of the way we still had a lead and all we had to do was make it around one turn. Back to that loss of concentration, well we had it in our mind that we needed to downshift for the turn but we had never upshifted when we let off the gas momentarily for the deer so when we downshifted it was to a too low gear and we dropped an estimated 25 miles per hour allowing the Acura to close quickly. It was a drag race to the finish but the Acura had a 25mph speed advantage that quickly ate up our head start. At the line the Acura was a nose ahead, winning by a scant 0.153 seconds. Back in the fight for 3rd, Jason Fields had moved up from 9th position in a methodical process that saw him passing many cars to take the final podium position with a time that eclipsed his own in qualifying by 2 seconds.
The Team Sisu Nissan 240sx remains in first position in the points with a significant lead. Our next race in this car is at Summit Point Motorsports Park on July 18, 2006. We will compete in a Mazda Miata at the 12-Hour Non-points Race on June 24, 2006.
Finishing Position Name Car Laps Fast-Lap 1 Jon Kofod Acura Integra 16 1:28.591 2 Kirk Dohne/
Team SisuNissan 240sx 16 1:28.887 3 Jason Fields Nissan 240sx 16 1:30.772 4 Mark Johnston Nissan 240sx 16 1:31.455 5 John Cummins Mazda RX-3 16 1:31.712 6 Bryan Pritt Acura Integra 16 1:31.080 7 Brent Simonson Mazda Miata 16 1:31.497 8 Bill Hutchins Mazda Miata 16 1:31.393 9 Art Jaso Toyota MR-2 16 1:32.482 10 Thomas Thompson Chrysler Neon 16 1:32.970 11 Matthew Yip VW Golf 16 1:33.538 12 Earl Richards Nissan 240sx 16 1:32.982 13 Douglas Kinser Toyota MR-2 16 1:32.759 14 Sam Shaver Mazda Miata 15 1:33.813 15 Michael Schwartz Nissan Pulsar 15 1:35.731 16 Bill Griffith Toyota MR-2 15 1:38.862 17 Dick Hummel Toyota MR-2 14 1:40.316 18 Lauren Robison Dodge Neon 11 1:35.777 19 Dennis Courtney Mazda Miata 8 1:31.655