NASA Great Lakes returned to Mid-Ohio for its annual Memorial Day fun. The weekend started on a rainy Friday, testing car control skills of everyone on a track with a notoriously challenging wet racing line. Thankfully, for the weekend races, rain wasn’t a factor.
Saturday brought cool weather, clouds, a damp-but-drying track for qualifying, and John Allen grabbing pole on the Club Course. The race started with a tight battle for positions two, three, and four between Kyle Webb, Randy Summerville and Will Dodd, with as little as 0.5 seconds separating them for the first eight laps. This allowed Allen to build a 6-second lead in route to a 1.2-second win over Webb.
Sunday’s races on the Pro Course were greeted by plenty of sunshine and afternoon temperatures in the high 60s. The first race was unfortunately red-flagged after one lap due to oil through China beach, catching the Spec Miata leaders charging hard. Race two pole-sitter Webb and Will Dodd had contact as a result. Thankfully, all necessary spare parts and hammers were available in the Spec Miata paddock to get them both back on track for race three.
The other outcome of race two was a shuffled starting grid for race three. Gridding by fast lap times, several of the leaders were shuffled to the rear. Dan Mount, Travis Lee, Kyle Webb and Will Dodd worked their way back through the pack to get within sniffing distance of the leaders by lap seven. Meanwhile, P4 John Allen got by P3 Jeff Wood and P2 Wyatt Wood by lap three, and started working on first-place Randy Summerville and passed him on lap four. From there, John built a lead of nearly 5 seconds on his way to victory.
Teen Mazda Challenge was well represented again with five racers. Sean and Jason Ludlow along with Matthew Mockabee all joined us for the first time this year with regulars Wyatt Wood and Chase McIntyre. Congrats to Wyatt and Matthew for podium finishes in the Sunday races.
