It was the first event of the NASA Great Lakes’ season at the wonderful National Corvette Museum Motorsports Park in Bowling Green, Ky. Leading up to the weekend, we had three signed up for H1: Rob Oxford, Daniel Madamba, and Jack Baruth with Brad Adams being the only H2 entry.
Adams bumped to H1 before the weekend given that he was the only H2 car entered, so that gave H1 four cars for Saturday until the rain came. Baruth did not have the Toyo RA1 wet tires, so instead of a “fun run” in H1, he was bumped to SU where he ended up finishing P2 in the wet conditions. That left H1 with three cars to start the day under chilly, wet conditions. Adams set the pace in warm-ups with Oxford second and Madamba third.
Unfortunately for Adams, on the cool down lap, the check engine light came on, and the car would only run for about 10 seconds at a time. Adams was out, which left Oxford and Madamba to battle it out, and battle is exactly what they did! These two put their red S2000s through the paces, and Oxford barely edged Madamba out at the line. What do we mean by barely? Well, the answer is .012. That’s right, one one-hundredth!!!
Sunday was dry, but cold and windy. Kris Popovic decided to come back up for Sunday and registered for H1. Also, with the dry conditions, that meant that Baruth could slap those Toyo RRs on and join Honda Challenge. Adams took his ECU back to the hotel to see if that was the culprit, and it was, so he was the fifth H1 entry. Baruth and Adams skipped qualifying, which left the other three fighting for pole. Madamba brought it home with a time of 2:29.294, Oxford a 2:29.645, and Popovic rounding out the top three with a 2:31.002.
Since there were five cars, H1 did a standing start, and they were right behind CMC. Baruth, who started fifth, said he was going to take it easy on the start, but that V6 Accord did anything but take it easy. By Turn 1a, Baruth, Madamba, and Popovic were three-wide with Oxford in the lead. Once the legs got stretched in Jack’s Accord, there was no looking back for him! Oxford and Madamba battled closely for most of the race. Unfortunately, Popovic had to pull off on lap two. Adams was cruising to a fourth-place finish. Madamba edged Oxford out this time, but barely, by .05 seconds! Baruth checked out to take the win and had the fastest lap in class of a 2:21.999.
