Super Touring 2 had an interesting mix of cars at the 2015 Eastern States Championships. For example, in this year’s field, the class had three Corvettes, a Lotus Exige Cup car powered by a Toyota Camry V6, a former ASA Monte Carlo powered by a Ford Small block and Porsche 944 with an GM LS engine swapped in place of the factory 2.5-liter four cylinder — and it made for some interesting racing.
Kevin Harvey started from pole, followed by Eric Kuhns and Dave Balingit in third.
First, the black flag gave the competitors fits. Balingit said he tried to calm his mind while they were sitting and waiting. Kuhns, who converted his car from a 944 Spec car, was worried about his car restarting after sitting and heat-soaking on grid. It restarted, coughed and sputtered initially, but cleared out and ran well enough to mix it up with Balingit. The two traded positions a few times throughout the race.
“We found over the course of the race that we definitely had our differences in where he was able to pick up speed and where I was able to pick up speed,” Balingit said.
As Balingit and Kuhns mixed it up, with lap times within 1 second of each other, and after all the early-race flags subsided, Harvey put his head down and started clicking off lap times the rest of the field couldn’t match. Harvey took home the win and the Super Touring 2 Championship.
“The yellow and black was interesting,” Harvey said. “Cars were going everywhere at the start. When the Mustangs got together over there between three and four it was nice that they reset the order so we could go back to racing fairly. Later when the Lotus went into the wall in the Esses, the race went yellow and went green really fast. I had my wife and friend calling flags for me. That really helped.”
In the end, Kuhns in his Porschevrolet got the better of Balingit in his Ford Monte Carlo.
“Dave and I had an absolutely fantastic race,” Kuhns said. “He brought out his stock car with the CMC motor, so he and I were both a little under-motored, but it made for a great race for the both of us. He had the light car that had the advantage under braking. I got out of the corners much better so we were back and forth and back and forth.”
