The season-opener event for NASA Rocky Mountain at Pikes Peak International Raceway April 13-14 switched things up from previous years. We ran the track clockwise. Like it or lump it, the track was fast, and judging by the smiles around paddock, it was fun, too.
GTS2 had some heated battles between Gene Dackonish and Lee Bohning. These guys fought door to door all last year, and this event was no letdown. Each of these guys brought some new hardware to the fight: Bohning sporting some new aero and BF Goodrich tires, and Dackonish with some fresh Hoosiers and a lighter car. Coming into the weekend, Dackonish held the track record for GTS2. Bohning stole it, then Dackonish took back what was his, resetting the clockwise GTS2 record to 1:05.167. And while Dackonish was stealing records, Bohning was stealing the top spot on the podium, with three first-place finishes for the weekend.
Along with these guys, one of our rookies from comp school at Pueblo Motorsports Park last October, Judson Williams was out in GTS2 putting his refreshed E36 to work. Keeping it clean, learning and going faster … exactly what we expect from our rookies.
In GTS3, Cody Overcash, new owner of Brooks Motorsport, showed up with his M3 racecar/test mule to get some laps in on their Elite wing and custom splitter. However, due to a slight off-track excursion Friday, Overcash had to repair the front bumper and secure the splitter for the races the next day. It seemed to work, because Overcash had a clean sweep of the weekend with four first-place finishes. Giving chase to Overcash was Christina Werley and her franken-M3. Also a graduate from the October comp school, Werley pushed hard, but couldn’t catch Overcash this time. In addition to having a great season start, she completed her rookie races and is graduating from her provisional license. No more orange ‘R’ stickers for her!
Saturday also marked the debut of two new GTS rookies, coming in from the comp school at Pikes Peak on Friday/Saturday: Pete Norman (GTS3) and John Allen (GTS3) joined the race groups during race two on Saturday.
Running laps around the rest of us all weekend, Robert Prilika and his 911 Cup car were setting fast lap after fast lap, dropping the GTSU track record to 0:58.436!
