Hemmingson - 4th
Fowler - 7th

In some very fast company up front. Congrats to those guys, who continue to do extremely well in their first year in the series and their first year racing Proteges.

39s and 40s at Road Atlanta... On street tires... Absolutely smokin'.

1 92 Will Turner/Newburyport/MA Turner Motorsport/H&R Springs/BMW 325i 500 01:39.0 92.36
2 42 Peter Cunningham/W. Bend/WI RealTime Racing/Acura Integra R 200 01:39.4 92.014
3 1 Pierre Kleinubing/Erexim/BZ RealTime Racing/Acura Integra R 100 01:39.5 91.922
4 19 Chuck Hemmingson/W. Des Moines/IA OPM Motorsports/Mazda/TBPG/Mazda Protege 01:39.5 91.878
5 4 Shauna Marinus/Folsom/CA TriPoint Mtspts/Mazdaspeed/Mazda Protege 01:39.8 91.666
6 81 Mike Fitzgerald/Phoenix/AZ Team FBR/Trans Sport/Lexus IS 300 01:39.9 91.515
7 18 Tom Fowler(R)/Cumming/GA OPM Motorsports/TBPG/Mazda/Mazda Protege 01:40.0 91.477

Scott, who still gets a kick out of the "(R)" next to Fowler's name.

 

Somehow I'm surprised that Hemmingson qual'd ahead of Fowler at Road Atlanta. Is Hemmingson getting the better of the two cars? Or is he truly the skillz masta?

 

Congrats to the OPM crew. The IS300 .. er IS280 is 6th and the RSX is 19th. I wish I could go. Guess I will have to watch this one on TV.

 

They are both skillz mastas. Hemmingson has more SVWC experience.
Also, Fowler's car was pretty much "totalled" at Road America (I think) and has been completely rebuilt. It was a shell a few weeks ago.

 

Fowler also had an off in qualifying destroying his front splitter and carbon fiber under tray... so he cut his session short by coming in. For the OPM fans, the real key here (and at every race) is to be the top Mazda finisher. But winning a race is definitely a very sweet added bonus.

#70 who I'm crewing for this weekend Bob Baxter qualified 13th, but his 4th gear syncro stopped working in qualifying and also cut his session short. The car has a brand new tranny now, so it's all good for tomorrow.

Can't wait for the race!

 

were you there in your ITR alex, I think I saw it yesterday or today(I've been out there 3 times already and can't remember) parked outside the entrance to the paddoc. If I get a chance I'll come down and say hi.

 

Alex, you lucky dawg! Have fun and wish Bob good luck for me.

 

How did Roger do?

Edit: Nevermind, I found it. Foo qualified 30th. Looking at the grid, I'm very willing to bet that something was wrong with the car.

Also of interest... Boris Said in a Realtime Type R in 14th, and Kevin Schrantz in the Realtime RSX in 19th!


[Modified by speedracer33, 10:30 AM 10/11/2002]

 

You can find the WC Touring race results now via IMSA Live Timing & Scoring at: http://www.imsaracing.net/2002ts/wcttest4.html.

RTR Integras 1st & 2nd. RTR RSX 11th.

 

What a race! All green with no yellows. It think this is a first for this year. Both Fowler and Baxter started on the inside row of the track this morning on a wet line, while the outside row had it dry. Fowler had a bad start and dropped back to like 10th or so. Baxter quickly moved off the wet line to the dry and had a decent start and was 11th. Oh and I had my eye on the Audi A4... it takes off just as awesome as its V6 motor sounds. Turner was always in the lead with a lot of pressure coming from PD later on in the race once they hit traffic. Finally with a few laps to go Turner just spins out coming out of T7. PD was only a car length behind him at the time and gladly took the lead. Further back there were so many great battles. Fowler passed Harvey early on into T12(!!) which was got everyone's attention and then he went on to pick off the people in front of him one by one. In the end he got back to finish 6th with Chuck in 4th and Baxter in 8th. A 4, 6, 8 finish was awesome and everyone was very happy. Tom also seemed very happy since he *finally* had a race without any real bad luck. So such a good result is a good relief. Foo is good buddies with Baxter, so he was hanging out close by sometimes. Too bad his car (team) did not seem too ready for this weekend since his first laps of the whole weekend came in qualifying since the car was not ready before that... He did have a great fight with a BMW in the race which was fun to watch. Boris Said did an "ok" performance. I thought he would be faster, but I guess he didn't get used to the FWD car. Kevin in the RSX ran well. Man that car looks sweet on the track! But it looked like he was very cautious as he made many passing attempts in T1, only to back off. Overall a great race. I can't wait to see again on TV Kleinubing and Altenburg's side by side action in T12. They were both in a pretty big slide going side by side through the whole turn! That was spectacular. And at the finish line a few laps later I think maybe less than a foot seperated their front bumpers. Hearing those cars scream by just a few feet away coming out of 12 was just great. The Civic Si (and there were so many of them!) are the loudest of the bunch. And there was this one Civic 4-door with a 1.8L motor in it. Wierd! But nothing to worry about since he was always running at the back.

I'm back at work now, so I'll miss the GT and Trans Am race. Ryan, yes that was our ITR. I was there this morning with my talon also. We'll be back there tomorrow to see the Petit Le Mans. Maybe I'll see you around. Ciao


[Modified by Hracer, 2:23 PM 10/11/2002]

 

Fan-effing-tastic! Great report, Alex.

 

the race was great. I was sitting near the esses watching and saw the new rsx go into taz harvey. I was surprized that there were no yellows with all the hitting and cars going off track. I didn't get to come say hi since I had to get back for a class but traffic held me up and didn't even get back for it. its been a great 3 days of racing so far, can't wait til tommorow. I've definately been getting my moneys worth out of the ticket so far though.