Category: Race Coverage

This was our second 2021 visit to Arizona Motorsports Park, known as “Arizona’s Safest Road Course,” is a 2.26 mile, 16-turn, and reversible track with a few passing zones and one big challenge: a sound restriction that forces the NASA crew to setup a single file of cones on one section of the track to ensure that competitors remain compliant with the local sound ordinance.
ST3 driver Ken Orgeron nabbed pole position Saturday and Sunday and took the ST3 and overall wins both days, adding to his collection of “winner” stickers.Great weather on Saturday meant clean racing. The track was run in the clockwise direction both days. In qualifying, Ken Orgeron set the pole for ST3 and overall, with a 1:45.060 in his No. 199 BMW, followed by Spec Corvette racer Darren Griffith in his GM No. 07 with a 1:50.190. Elliot Freireich rounded out the top three and Ted Standen

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Anyone who has raced in NASA’s Arizona Region has probably met Robert Rose at least once. Whether he’s recruited you to join the Spec Miata class, taught your HPDE course, coached or competed against you in Spec Miata or Time Trial, Rose is busier than a politician working the crowd during a NASA race weekend.
“Describe me as this crazy guy out there in Arizona with seven children who since 2013 has been on eight different teams with a bunch of different goofy team names,” Rose said with a laugh. “They’ll probably know who I am.”
Rose is a ball of energy whose passion for auto racing runs deep since he started racing in 2006 when he was the lone Mazda Miata driver in a sea of Chevrolet Corvettes. Fifteen years later, he’s still as enthusiastic as Arizona Region’s Spec Miata leader and chief recruiter.
“It’s kind of the Tom Sawyer effect, where

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After finishing third in a 15-minute heat race, NASA Arizona Spec Miata racer Jason Griepentrog found himself at the back of the field for the second heat race, which featured an inverted field. The ensuing race was wild one on the tight east track Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park, and it gave passersby on Interstate 10 a little entertainment in the process.
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