After looking strong all weekend, David Schotz’s managed to keep up his top form into the race Sunday to win PTB in his powerful 2001 Pontiac Firebird at the 2016 NASA Western States Championships at Buttonwillow Raceway. Leading start to finish, David Schotz’s near-perfect race grabbed him the top step of the podium, and the bragging rights to match.
“It was dirty. Dusty and dirty,” said Schotz. “You just drive through dust devils. I couldn’t see the bottom of the corners, but it cleaned up the second half of the race. The way they did the start this time was good, because we didn’t catch traffic for quite a while and it was a very clean race.”
Coming in second place by a little over 10 seconds was Ricky Johnson in his 2003 Mini Cooper S from the Arizona Region.
“This car is under-classed, so we are about 45 to 50 horsepower under what it should be,” Johnson said after the race. “It’s always fun to run these types of lap times and run with the big guys and have a bit of fun. Dave Schotz is an amazing driver and he has a V8 in that thing, so he’s got a lot of torque. You’ll see him just pull away in the beginning, but I’ve got good handling, so I was able to carry speed through the turns.”
After starting in second place, Anthony Lanza was unable to hold off the pressure of Ricky Johnson for very long and was forced to settle into a third-place finish in his 2006 Lotus Exige sponsored by Lanza & Smith.
