The list of cars registered for Super Unlimited at the Eastern States Championships reads like a what’s-what of fantastic racecars: Norma, Viper, Speads RS11, Corvette, Viper, Mustang.
Of course if you’re familiar with the 25 Hours of Thunderhil, you’re familiar with Davidson Racing’s BMW-powered Norma chassis, which it has been campaigning — and winning with — for a few years. That streak continued at Watkins Glen when driver Brian Frisselle went home with all the marbles and the Super Unlimted Championship.
“I’ve got to thank the team,” Frisselle said. “We had an issue in the last race, and electronic issue, and those aren’t always easy to solve, and they were able to solve it so we could get back out there so we could win the race.”
The race itself was marred by a lap-one crash on the front straight in the Super Touring 1 race at the start. Driver David Greenman got an offset bump from behind at the green flag, which spun him into the inside wall and left his car disabled and scattered across the front straight.
That left the field to circle the track under caution for nearly 20 minutes while crews cleaned up the wreckage. Then, about 12 minutes later, the track went to full-course caution again for all but one lap, which was a green, white checkers — and that last lap was manic. There were more collisions on the way to checkers, but Ray Sweers managed to take second in his Viper.
“The best we could muster is second but I’m really grateful for that,” Sweers said. “There was a lot of attrition out there and we’re relatively new to this track and, boy, there’s not a lot of margin for error here. We knew there was going to be some attrition. There certainly was and we just came out on the right side of it this time.”
Michael Bagnoli found his way through the 3.4 miles of blue Armco and finished third.
“I had all sorts of problems, but things came together yesterday and today was fun,” Bagnoli said. “I wish we had more time to race because I think I would have been higher up in the standings. It went very well. I have to thank everybody: God for a great race, my wife, my crew chief and the great drivers we ran against. Hoosier and Hawk, and everybody who supported this event has made it a wonderful weekend.”
