For the last several years, gridding up in 944 Spec in the NASA SoCal Region means you are likely to be sitting on grid with a NASA National Champion. Charlie Buzzetti, Marcelo Vine have numerous National Championships between them, and now Josh Cleye has one of his own, having won it all at Utah Motorsports Campus in 2024.
For Saturday’s race, Kalem Fletcher had pole position, with Cleye in second, followed by Charles Sharp, Team R&R Racing, Zeb Little and Carl Atwood in sixth.
Fletcher used pole position to jump out to an early lead he never relinquished. Traffic played a role later in the race, but Fletcher held on for the win. After the race, Fletcher was asked how it felt to beat a national champion.
“This is my track, and I had a tire advantage on this one, so I think I had more grip out of the corners than Josh,” Fletcher said. “I was building a gap, and then I hit traffic and then he closed back up and fortunately I got the white flag at the right time and it’s like, OK, I got this, but he was coming back on me.”
Try as he might, Cleye couldn’t get past Fletcher and finished the race in second place.
“I made a few mistakes, went off, hit a bump,” Cleye said. “I think I knocked something loose so that didn’t help, but I just wasn’t fully focused. So, that’s my goal tomorrow, to focus.”
Starting from third, Sharp was able to keep Cleye in his sights, but could not climb any higher on the podium, and finished third.
“I stayed with Josh until we got into traffic and he did a way better job in traffic than I did, and then I went sideways,” Sharp said. “Staying with him. National Champion, right? For our class, I mean, I’ll take that. I’ll take that.”
For Sunday, Cleye came out on top in the qualifying race, followed by Fletcher and Sharp, then Team R&R, Little and Atwood. That set the grid for Sunday’s main.
From his second-place starting position, Fletcher was able to get around Cleye for a bit, but he went four-off, which allowed Cleye to get back to first, a position he would hold till the end. Fletcher then had to contend with Sharp, who battled back and forth with and eventually got around Fletcher to finish second.
“I got the suspension dialed in right and we put on slightly better tires and yeah, it was way better,” Sharp said. “Well, he went off so I could get around him and then he caught up and then we just back and forth and back and forth. He and I had a great knockdown drag out. It was fun. It was a lot of fun.”
Fletcher ended up finishing third after battling with Sharp, and up front, Cleye was building a gap and threading his way through traffic.
“Everyone in the Miatas were super respectful and they let me by, which was really nice, even some of them in battles,” Cleye said. “I was going to let them have their battle, but they still pointed me by, which was really, really cool. So I’m very appreciative for that.”
