NASA – Arizona Region | We Drive Harder!
Welcome to Arizona Chapter for the National Auto Sport Association. Here you can find all the information necessary to get on track at our events.
NASA Arizona’s Jason Griepentrog had a great dice with Michael Kasdorf of Team 8 Ball Racing at the Bondurant racetrack in Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park in Chandler, Ariz. This video doesn’t show all the action, but it showcases how competitive Spec Miata is in the Arizona Region. Nice work, guys.
We had 30 Spec Miatas take the green flag for the race on Sunday and only one less on Saturday. Eleven NASA Arizona drivers, 18 NASA SoCal drivers and one very fast NorCal driver showed up in the middle of the desert in February to a track that could be considered one of the top 15 in America. Maybe that’s the draw. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s only three hours from Phoenix and most of L.A.
In Saturday’s clockwise racing action, Justin Crickenberger was the immediate frontrunner, with blistering times in the mid 1:06s during warmup and qualifying, but Keith Dees, Ryan Pond and Justin Hall were in the mix too. When the flag dropped for the race, 29 Spec Miatas safely made it through Turn 1 with just the slightest of friendly fender rubbing. For a bunch of SM drivers who don’t normally race together it was one of the more “polite” Spec Miata race starts.
True to form, Justin Crickenberger won it with
The third annual NASA Western States Championships presented by Toyo Tires is in the books, with Championship races having been run at Buttonwillow Raceway today.
Under picture perfect California weather, 75-degrees and sunny, the 250+ NASA Championship racers started the day with the national anthem. The first group took to the track at 9:40 a.m. with Spec E30 and 944 Spec starting the Championship races.
Spec E30
Justin Ross, pole sitter, brought the Spec E30 field to the standing start line in his No. 80 BMW. Ross had a great launch at the drop of the green, getting nearly a car length lead going into Turn 1. Ross was followed closely in the early going by No. 55 Michael Mihld. By lap three, Friday qualifying race winner Michael Shawhan moved into the runner spot in the No. 152 BMW. As Mihld and Shawhan took up the battle for second, Ross was able to