Arizona racers saw it all in March, with some late seasonal weather mixing things up a bit. Despite a last-minute track change to Wild Horse Pass, Super Touring had yet another great round of racing.
For those in the social media game – check out the new group for the NASA Arizona Super Touring series here. We set this up because the forums are moving from the NASA Arizona website to the national website, and this gives us another great resource for asking questions, discussing races, cars, and coordinating activities.
The great news is that our groups are growing! We have lots of prospective racers finishing up new builds or refreshes, cars moving between classes and new racers coming from the excellent comp school program. Super Touring 4 is looking at some great growth. We may see as many as 11 cars by the end of the year! Super Touring 2 also has a lot of its cars coming back from rebuilds.
Race Report From Wild Horse Pass
With some cooler weather and a venue change from the main track to the short-but-challenging east track, the stage was set for some great racing. Some familiar faces joined the NASA Arizona Super Touring group for rounds four and five of the series. In qualifying, each of the first four spots were occupied by a different class car.
Timothy Bidwill put his No. 40 Porsche Cup car on pole Saturday in Super Unlimited in his first run with NASA Arizona this year, followed up by Chris Wynne in his No. 50 ST2 Mustang. Ken Orgeron broke into the 59s for the third overall spot with his ST3 BMW M3 and Ricky Johnson fourth overall in his Mini — but mighty — Cooper in ST4. This showed that the tighter smaller track closed-up competition between the varied ST classes.
With the race kicked off — and with a few sprinkles of rain — Bidwill sailed to victory overall, but the battle for second and third was very close: Tage Evanson smoothly worked from the back of the back to take that second spot — and more importantly first in class — by just inches: 0.044 seconds separated him from Chris Wynne in the Mustang. Their fast laps were separated by an even more close 0.036 seconds.
Elliot Freireich took first place in ST3 having moved past Orgeron in the M3, followed by Andrew Titus in his Porsche Cayman. Ricky Johnson closed out the “W” in ST4 followed by up-and-coming rookie Kevin Kirkwood in his Subaru BRZ
Sunday featured warmer weather, clearer skies, and racers were ready to go. This time Tage Evanson in his No. 17 Honda Civic found himself in pole position, followed by Bidwell’s Cup car. Chris Wynne and Ken Orgeron set up the second row Followed by Ricky Johnson and Brian Turner in his No. 524 Porsche 911. Once the race started, Bidwell dialed up the speed to set a 56.878 lap and took the overall win. The ST2 battle was again close, but a mechanical forced Evanson out early. Ken Orgeron worked his way to victory followed by Brian Turner in second place, and Andrew Titus rounding out the ST3 podium. In ST4 Ricky Johnson kept his Mini hustling for the win followed by Kirkwood.
