John Reamer returned to racing after knocking off 18 months of garage dust. During the warmup session Saturday, John was being passed and he knew his driving skill could not have diminished that much. While in the pits after warm-up, competitors Stephen Pearce and Rob Oxford also knew something was not right with his car, so everyone went to help Reamer find the problem. Reamer knew what it was within 30 seconds. It turns out he got all the dust off the car, but forgot to reconnect the speedometer, which put it in limp mode.
Competitors Pearce and Oxford knew they would have their hands full despite Reamer being out of practice for over a year, racing on old tires in an underpowered H2 car. As they all went out for qualifying, Reamer and his B Series Honda motor started to click, and before you knew it, Reamer put a full second on Oxford and Pearce.
When the green flag dropped, Reamer, Oxford and Pearce wasted no time moving up the field putting five cars behind them before Turn 1. Two laps into the race, traffic management came into play, so Reamer ran off and hid. By midrace, Oxford started to put a gap on Pearce as his tires fell off, but he still wasn’t within sight of Reamer. As the checkered flag waved, it was John Reamer in first, Rob Oxford in second and Stephen Pearce in third.
Sunday was a new day, a little colder so the cars should have more power and Pearce mounted a “newer” set of tires. Qualifying went well for all, but for Reamer it went really well. He improved his lap time by 2.5 seconds! When the green flag dropped, Pearce was on his game, putting four cars between them by Turn 1. Oxford seemed to be asleep at the wheel. Reamer was already to midfield by Turn 2, as predicted, and running on the bumpers of some GTS and Super Unlimited cars. On lap three, there was a bad crash. No one was hurt, but the full-course yellow got the field bunched up to allow safe clean-up and to prepare for a restart. Once the track went green, it was on, and Oxford wasted no time pushing on Pearce’s rear bumper. Reamer continued to pull a huge gap while Pearce and Oxford battled for second. As the checkers waved, it was Reamer in first, with a blistering lap of 1:22.852, Pearce in second and Oxford in third, with only .02 seconds separating second and third.
