NASA Southeast is home to some of the best Thunder Roadster racing in the country. However, Thunder Roadster isn’t a national class, so to get in on the Championships action, the Roadsters slot into Super Touring 3. All but three of the 10 cars in ST3 were Thunder Roadsters.
Two of them were Chevrolet Corvettes. Pole sitter David Ziegler had one and so did second-place starter Kevin Harvey. Starting from third, Bobby Butler was in a Thunder Roadster.
Harvey got by Ziegler early on in the race, but the full-course caution bottled everyone up again. When the race resumed, Ziegler retook the lead, which he would hold till the end to finish first and earn the ST3 Championship.
“I got held up by some slower ST2 traffic and Kevin got by me, and a couple of laps later we had a good battle back and forth a little bit,” Ziegler said. ”I ended up getting by him and I think the final verdict of the race was dictated by some slower ST2 traffic.”
Harvey’s great start led to a pass on Ziegler before the double yellows came out, but Ziegler was having none of it and got back around Harvey before the field bunched up.
“On the restart, we got into a great battle again and like Dave said, we got back into traffic, and that was the determining factor,” Harvey said. “He was able to get by it and I was not, so that’s where we placed.”
Meanwhile, Mike Rea had leap-frogged from his fourth-place starting position past Bobby Butler to take third.
“Both those guys got Corvettes and I’ve got a little motorcycle-engine car,” Rea said. “There were a bunch of them out there, but Gary Tinker built me the fastest one. I was lucky to be able to drive it in front of those other guys because they’ve got some good drivers in the Roadsters that were here today. There was no way I could catch the two Vettes, but I had a great time. I’ve only been racing a couple, three years and I’m having a blast.”
