Coming into this race, Dave Schotz was already NASA’s winningest National Championship driver, with seven titles to his name. Schotz was running his Firebird to try to win titles in Performance Touring B and Time Trial B and running his freshly built C4 Corvette in Time Trial C and Performance Touring C in a quest to up his total number to eleven National Championship titles. However, Bob Schader from NASA’s Rocky Mountain Region was not going to make it easy for Schotz.
Schotz was running his Pontiac Firebird against Schader’s 350Z and despite the big differences on paper between the two cars, the two were in a dead heat all weekend, with multiple lead changes in both qualifying races and little daylight between the drivers in every corner. Schotz got a great start at the green flag, but Schader kept challenging him until a mechanical failure sent Schader off course and left his Nissan buried up the doorsills in one of Mazda Raceway’s infamous gravel traps.
Even though his main competition was gone, Schotz did not let up and kept pushing until the checkers to take home yet another trophy to his already impressive collection at home. Robert Seibel took the next step on the podium in his BMW M3 followed by David Thede in the Team Incidental Contact Mustang, which they towed all the way from Kansas, where they compete in NASA’s Central and Rocky Mountain regions. Schader finished fourth after putting in a great effort all weekend but being sidelined by mechanical issues.
