Seventeen Thunder Roadsters, including two new drivers, Aaron Croslyn fresh out of competition school and James Long from Florida, took to the track for qualifying. When finished, Rob Summers set a new Road Atlanta track record for Thunder Roadsters at 1:38.941 bettering the previous track record held by Randy Suddreth at 1:40.030 since March of last year. Brad Daugherty and Darrel Hamilton were also both under the former track record at 1:39.261 and 1:39.802 respectively. Once again showing the competitive nature of Thunder Roadster racing, positions 7 through 14 all qualified within one second of each other on the 2.54 mile 12 turn circuit.
The Saturday race began with Summers and Daugherty side by side through the first turn and up the hill. At the end of the first lap, there were eight cars in the lead group. Soon after, Randy Suddreth took the lead in a four car breakaway including Daugherty, Summers and Brandon Pantas.
The lead changed a number of times among the front runners. Pantas finally caught and passed Suddreth only to have Suddreth return the favor between turns 11 and 12 on the last lap for the win. After stalking Hamilton for the entire race, Mike Brooks finally caught him and attempted the pass at the checked flag. However, Hamilton held on for third by a nose (.013 of a second separation). Finishing in fifth was James Long while sixth through tenth were Jeff Williams, Ralph Nolan, Mike Molloy, Will Miller, and Sonny Tu.
The prediction of heavy rain for Sunday turned out to be true for the morning. Rob Summers was the only Thunder Roadster driver to attempt qualifying in the morning rain. Sadly, he stalled between turns four and five and damaged his engine. Four Thunder Roadsters stayed and were rewarded when the rain stopped several hours before the race. The track was still completely wet with drizzle and mist all afternoon. Three of the four chose to run the newly allowed rain tires (actually dirt track tires with a good tread).
Pantas was the one exception and chose to run with the standard Hoosier tires. Scott Langford and Will Miller took most of the instrumentation out of their car in preparation for the wet conditions. Mike Molloy took the lead in Turn 1 with a great start that placed several other class cars between him and Pantas. Langford and Miller followed several car lengths behind. That order remained throughout the race as everyone was dealing with tough conditions as well as a number of cars from other classes. This was the first Thunder Roadster win for Molloy and the best Thunder Roadster finishes so far for Langford and Miller.
Four different winners in the first four races shows just how competitive this series is.
