May brought NASA and its Spec Miatas to Carolina Motorsports Park for the Pit Bull Brawl. Recent rain, late-morning qualifying and traffic contributed to rather high qualifying times for Saturday’s race, with Keith Williamson in P1 and Dylan Stancil in P2.
At the start, Stancil quickly dropped in behind Williamson and the pair started bump drafting to build a lead over the rest of the SM field. The pair worked their way through traffic until about halfway through the race when Stancil’s 1.6 — possibly heat soaked — could no longer keep pace and began dropping back.
Meanwhile, Brian Tone, who did not grid for the qualifying session due to a broken fuel line, worked his way from P5 to P3 and eventually made the pass on Stancil with about three laps to go when Stancil went four-off in Turn 14. Williamson appeared to have a fairly safe lead until lap 10 when he got loose in Turn 11 and scrubbed off much of his momentum in saving the car.
Tone now had his chance, and pressed hard while Williamson went cautious upon seeing the white flag for final lap. Tone cut the lead with every corner, until coming out of Turn 14 he tried an over-under pass, but lost traction coming out one car length behind Williamson for a drag race to the checkers. Tone pulled to Williamson’s front wheel at the finish line but had to settle for second, with Stancil in third, and Bayani Dia and Jason Ball finishing out the field.
Sunday’s cooler temperatures, coupled with some clear track, resulted in better qualifying times for the field, with Dia in P1 and Ball in P2. At the green flag, everyone got a clean start and made it through Turn 1 with no contact, quickly getting into a five-car train.
Catching some GTS traffic as they entered the Carousel, Tone got shuffled back from third to fifth. Tone started working his way to the front. Williamson missed a shift coming out of Turn 14 and Tone moved up to fourth and then third when Stancil got boxed in by traffic at Turn 11. Tone then picked off Ball with an inside pass at Turn 1, moving up to second. By then, Yan Dia had stretched his lead to 15 car lengths. Tone reeled him in, and about four laps later made his final pass when Dia left the door open entering Turn 12. Dia continued to threaten Tone for a lap or two as Tone worked his way through traffic until Williamson caught Dia entering Turn 11. Williamson and Dia then battled for second for the remainder of the race, leaving Tone unchallenged for the win followed by Dia, Williamson, Stancil and Ball.
