NASA Utah Teen Mazda Challenge driver Lincoln Larson made the trip to Chuckwalla Valley Raceway in Southern California in the hope of walking away with a trophy or two. Scoring pole position for the Saturday Spec Miata race put Larson in position to do just that, but Chuckwalla Valley Raceway is a challenging track, with tricky turns and blind rises. Winning at Chuckwalla takes hard work, and some unlikely tire choices.
For Saturday’s first race, Larson gridded ahead of NASA Arizona’s Eddie Yakin Vazquez, Jason Bleak in third, Ryan Busk in fourth and Finley Stufkosky in fifth in a field of 18 cars.
Larson capitalized on pole position after holding off Yakin Vazquez. Larson made a couple of mistakes after overheating his tires in the first few laps, but settled in and began to build a gap on his way to the win with an 8-second gap.
“Once I got in a rhythm, it was pretty good for the rest of the race,” Larson said. “For tomorrow, I’ll just be checking over everything on the car and should be looking pretty good. Nothing broke or feels weird, so I’m pretty happy. So far it’s felt pretty good.”
Yakin Vazquez went with new tires in his effort to get the win, but the odd thing about Chuckwalla is that it seems to favor old tires. After battling with Larson for a few laps, Yakin Vazquez settled in for a second-place finish.
“We tried new tires today. I don’t think the surface is ready for them. It changes the whole setup completely,” Yakin Vazquez said. “So, I think tomorrow we’re going to try to go back to what we did on the test day. Just run some old tires, change the setup back because that’s what I was sort of comfortable with. We were hoping that would have changed by now, but it’s not really the case, so, yes, I think the old tires are the move.”
When the checkers flew, Jason Bleak finished .200 seconds behind Yakin Vazquez, which was about as close as it gets. After Saturday’s race, Bleak was focused on Sunday.
“I was pushing Eddie. Eddie’s solid. They’re all solid. It’s a good field,” Bleak said. “We’ll watch some video tonight. Look at data. See what I can do different.”
Sunday’s qualifying race ended with Larson in first, Yakin Vazquez in second and Finley Stufkosky in third, with Ryan Busk in fourth and Charlotte Traynor in fifth. That set the grid for Sunday’s main.
Yakin Vazquez took off the scrubs from Saturday and mounted the oldest set of tires he could find. Though Larson was on pole, Yakin Vazquez got a push from behind and beat him to Turn 1 and then turned on the afterburners to get out to a lead he would never lose.
“I got a bit lucky that Lincoln appeared to miss the shift because, yeah, I was only barely going ahead of him and then I kind of heard him red line for a second and then he dropped way back,” Yakin Vazquez said. “Thanks, Finley, for the bump as well. I’m just happy with the race. I was able to just get out in a clean air and just show the pace that I felt like I’ve had the whole weekend.”
Larson ran in the top three for a while, but as the race continued, his engine began to emit a sour note. It was clear he was losing power and losing positions at the same time, which left the door open for Busk to take over second position in a nose-to-tail battle with Stufkosky, Larson and Charlotte Traynor.
“I was trying. I just drove like I did the entire race,” Busk said. “I mean sliding pretty much every corner a couple times I thought I was going off, but just made it stick a little bit and everybody else was pushing it just the same. Some were catching me from behind Finley and then he started slipping and sliding a little bit as well. Yeah, I mean, it was fun.”
At the end, it was Yakin Vazquez in first, Busk in second and Traynor in third.
