It was a clean and fun first event at National Corvette Museum Motorsports Park, despite deteriorating weather and pesky sound limits. It also was great to see some new faces.
Chandler Premo scored two wins in his first two wheel-to-wheel races in his beautiful E92 M3. Rockstar driver! Meanwhile in ST3, Jim Brannon sliced and diced his way up into second place in ST3 in his Thunder Roadster. Ardalan Sadeghi brought another Thunder Roadster to the field this weekend, too.
Newcomers Patrick Kroll in his E36 M3 and his father were one of the few to brave the cold rain race on Sunday. Bravo!
Second-year regulars Ryan Shook and Jordan Farber brought their RX-7’s to the party, but suffered some teething troubles after some offseason car upgrades. The cars are coming along, and they showcase some savvy engineering.
Ray Freundt and new Series Leader Eric Kuhns brought another set of fraternal twins, V8 hybridized 944s to the party. Ray pointed his LS motor to a podium finish on Saturday.
Eric Kuhns kept warm by lighting the underside of his 944 on fire when the rubber exhaust donut found its flash point. With that fixed, he motored from 17th on the grid to third overall on Saturday, and slogged his way to a wet-weather win in ST1 on Sunday.
Larry Bailey souped up his Corvette into STU, and proceeded to decimate the overall track record on the Grand Course at NCM! It seems entirely fitting that Bailey set the new track record in a Corvette. Well done!
Finally, Sam Mangiameli brought out his beautiful Diasio 962 at the last minute in ST1, and even gamely tried bringing it out in the heavy rain on Sunday. Nice job this weekend, guys! Now let’s get some of the other many cars off the sidelines for Gateway!
