#DRIVENASA – Arizona Region | We Drive Harder!

Some people have been telling me that the last NASA AZ event was held at Firebird West, but I’m still convinced we somehow ended up racing on Firebird Lake instead! Arriving just as the sun was coming up you could tell that track was going to be full of standing water, puddles and small streams as the Firebird vacuum trucks made their rounds, doing their best to clear the track as the rain continued to drop from the sky. During the event there were even reports of ducks swimming in the infield, they were getting so brave that Turn 5 could have touched them with their flags! The conditions in the pits were cold and wet, but that didn’t stop the NASA AZ family from having a great time. Tage even lost his voice late on Saturday, he just told himself “Ain’t nobody got time for that!” and continued to have a blast in his bright yellow rain suit. As dreary as it may have seemed upon arrival, the scene was set for some excellent wet weather driving and driver progression!

 

I’d like to send out a special thanks to all of the volunteers and staff that made this event happen, especially the corner, grid and gate workers that stood in the rain and mud all weekend to keep everyone on track safe. You guys rock!

 

 Ending the event with a double rainbow!

Photo Credit: Stephen Busler

Saturday Small Bore Race Group

Small bore for Saturday consisted of PTC, Honda Challenge HC2, and 944 Spec. There was a better turnout for PTC this weekend with Justin Markiewicz in his BMW E30 and Drew Maloney in his Mini Cooper S joining  David Snyder in his Mazda RX8. Drew was on pole for the start of the race but Justin would come from the back to pass David and Drew for the win. In Honda Challenge 2, Eric Dayton would once again take the checkered flag with a pretty good lead ahead of second place to continue his winning streak from Chuckwalla earlier in the month. Team LBR started in third and finished second after battling it out with Team FTW, finishing narrowly ahead of them. Over in the popular small bore class of 944 Spec, the race started with 7 competitors and they were pushing hard in the rain, there was lots of sideways action in turn three! Pete Dimuzio came away with the win, with Rob Giorgio coming across the line right on his heels. The rest of the group wasn’t far behind, with Jeff Wojnar in third, Harold Dunn in fourth, and Stephen Marlow in fifth.

 

Saturday Small Bore Race Group Results

PT-C

1st – Justin Markiewicz

2nd – Drew Maloney

3rd – David Snyder

Honda Challenge  H2

1st – Eric Dayton

2nd – Team LBR

3rd – Team FTW

944 Spec

1st – Pete Dimuzio

2nd – Rob Giorgio

3rd – Jeff Wojnar

 

Photo Credit: Dan Klaudt at ArizonaMotorsportsConnection.com

Saturday Big Bore Race Group

The car count for Big Bore on Saturday was a little low with only three cars, but it was still fun watching some position swapping between the participants, especially going three wide down the straight! Ricky Johnson in his Mini Cooper S proved to be the driver to beat in the rain. He nabbed the overall win and first place in PTB just like PIR a couple years ago in the wet. Jeremy Renshaw took second overall and first for PTA, and Mark Alger pulled off early at lap 12, taking third overall and first for ST1

Saturday Big Bore Race Group Results

ST-1

1st – Mark Alger

PT-A

1st – Jeremy Renshaw

PT-B

1st – Ricky Johnson

Photo Credit: Kyle Pope

Sunday Small Bore Race Group

In PT-C, David Snyder managed to set the fast lap in qualifying, proving to be the quickest in challenging wet conditions. During the race though the track was starting to dry up significantly in some areas, Justin Markiewicz put on his game face and pushed to first position, Drew Maloney finished in second, taking the checkered flag right after Justin. David finished close to Drew, making for some good racing. In Honda Challenge 2, Jason Noel would join in on the fun increasing the count to four cars in class. Jason started from the back of the field and pushed his way up to second, but Eric Dayton was able to hold him off with only six tenths in between them at the finish line, getting his fourth first place finish in a row this season! Will anybody be able to put an end to Dayton’s domination in HC2, or will he continue to rack up the wins at Firebird East? Team LBR and Team FTW were also close behind, coming in third and fourth respectively. In 944 Spec, Pete Dimuzio takes ANOTHER first place finish only one second in front of Norm Hamden. Perhaps there is a new sheriff in 944 town! Turn 3 proved once again to be a challenge as this was one of the only areas left with a serious amount of standing water, there was plenty of sideways action here just like the previous Saturday race. Taking third place after Norm was Stephen Marlow with Rob Giorgio coming across the line in fourth.

Sunday Small Bore Race Group Results

PT-C

1st – Justin Markiewicz

2nd – Drew Maloney

3rd – David Snyder

Honda Challenge  H2

1st – Eric Dayton

2nd – Jason Noel

3rd – Team LBR

944 Spec

1st – Pete Dimuzio

2nd – Norm Hamden

3rd – Stephen Marlow

Photo Credit: Dan Klaudt at ArizonaMotorsportsConnection.com

 

Sunday Big Bore Race Group

Thankfully the weather was starting to look up a bit on Sunday by the time Big Bore Race was due to take to the track. This coaxed some more cars out of hiding, increasing the starting field to seven drivers. Team ArizonaPain.com in their Radical SR8 started in their usual fashion from the back of the pack, quickly moving to second place by lap six. A great battle between Mark Alger in his Dodge Viper and the Radical ensued after the Radical caught up to Mark. The Radical finally made the pass on lap eleven. After this, the two big bore titans let up a bit and cruised to the finish line. Kent Porter in his Subaru powered Porsche Boxster had a good showing finishing third overall and second in ST-1. He made his way back to this position after an unfortunate spin, nice recovery! GTS-3 had two competitors, Jeremy Renshaw in his BMW M3 and Erik Davis in his Porsche 911. Erik was doing great until the river at turn three caused an unfortunate spin, letting Jeremy by. Kudos to Ricky Johnson for excellent accident avoidance on this one, I’m sure Erik appreciates your quick thinking! Erik worked hard to make up ground and was able to sneak past Jeremy, taking fourth overall and first in GTS-3 by a small margin. Ricky Johnson in PT-B was excellent in the rain but as parts of the track dried up, the high horsepower cars were able to reel him in. But he wasn’t going down without a fight! Kent Porter had to attempt a pass on the straightaway multiple times on different laps before pulling it off, Ricky Johnson stuck to the inside line and used his killer super late braking technique to hold him off. Ricky finished sixth overall and first in PT-B.

 

Here is a video of the race from Kent Porter’s point of view from inside his Subie powered Porsche!

Sunday Big Bore Race Group Results

SU

1st – Team ArizonaPain.com

ST-1

1st – Mark Alger

2nd – Kent Porter

ST-2

1st – Justin Stevenson

GTS 3

1st – Erik Davis

2nd – Jeremy Renshaw

PT-B

1st – Ricky Johnson

Photo Credit: Kyle Pope

Saturday Time Trial

The rain definitely didn’t keep the time trials competitors from coming out in force, between small bore and big bore there were 43 competitors on Saturday, with TT-C looking to be the new popular class with 9 drivers. Travis Barnes set the fastest time of the day at a 1:15.274 in his backup vehicle, a brand spanking new Subaru STI. The first and second sessions of the day had some pretty decent rainfall and Turn 3 was completely flooded. There was also standing water in a lot of places on track. Thankfully for the 3rd and 4th session, the constant running of cars had dried up the track a tiny bit and the rain had let up but was still coming down in short bursts. Great job driving safe out there guys!

 Here’s an onboard video of Time Trial Big Bore with forum user elf_cruiser in his TT-2 Nissan GT-R!

Saturday Time Trial Results

TT-U

1st – Travis Barnes – 1:15.274

2nd – Team ArizonaPain.com – 1:19.691

3rd – Anthony Szirka – 1:22.097

TT-1

1st – Chris Willson – 1:17.697

2nd – Russel Whelan – 1:18.590

3rd – Mark Alger – 1:19.046

TT-2

1st – Wes Hanson – 1:18.729

2nd – Gabe Ortega – 1:25.299

3rd – Mervin Tan – 1:29.665

TT-3

1st – Timothy Bidwill – 1:22.962

2nd – Harold Dunn – 1:24.084

3rd – Jeremy Renshaw – 1:30.794

TT-B

1st – Ricky Johnson – 1:21.825

2nd – Pablo Soria – 1:24.178

3rd – Arty Whitmore – 1:29.524

TT-C

1st – David Schotz – 1:15.450

2nd – Justin Markiewicz – 1:19.049

3rd – Joel Schotz – 1:21.320

TT-D

1st – Tage Evanson – 1:22.084

2nd – Stenos Wijaya – 1:23.062

3rd – Robert Rose – 1:23.592

TT-E

1st -Paul Bloomberg – 1:21.055

2nd – Chris Ambrosio – 1:23.985

3rd – Simon Pavlick – 1:33.688

Photo Credit: Dan Klaudt at ArizonaMotorsportsConnection.com

Sunday Time Trial

It looks like the slightly better weather conditions lured some more drivers out for Time Trial on Sunday, as we now had FOURTY FIVE competitors taking to the track! TT-C was once again the most popular class at 9 drivers. Conditions started off looking about the same as Saturday but by the third session had dried up considerably. By the end of the day, everyone was going about five to ten seconds faster on their hot laps. Since this was the first event at Firebird West Course with the new Time Trial classes in place, all the records for TT-U, TT-1, TT-2, and TT-3 were set. Turns three and four were still pretty dicey so a new round of record breaking should be happening if we get another crack at West while it’s dry out.

Here’s Stenos “Noz” Wijaya in his TT-E 1994 Mazda Miata, he was upclassed to TT-D for this weekend.

Sunday Time Trial Results

TT-U

1st – Travis Barnes – 1:07.700 – New Track Record!

2nd – Team ArizonaPain.com – 1:09.481

3rd – Dan Maloney – 1:20.246

TT-1

1st – Mark Alger – 1:00.726 – New Track Record!

2nd – Chris Willson – 1:04.187

3rd – David Seybold – 1:05.410

TT-2

1st – Gabe Ortega – 1:08.674 – New Track Record!

2nd – Markos Mylonas – 1:08.735

3rd – David Stark – 1:10.037

TT-3

1st – Jeremy Renshaw – 1:04.236 – New Track Record!

2nd – Adrian Little – 1:06.493

3rd – Timothy Bidwill – 1:21.223

TT-B

1st – Pablo Soria – 1:08.935

2nd – Jason Greipentrog – 1:10.904

3rd – Jon Via – 1:11.196

TT-C

1st – Jeff Abrams – 1:07.763

2nd – Justin Markiewicz – 1:08.691

3rd – David Schotz – 1:08.783

TT-D

1st – Robert Rose – 1:07.238

2nd – Stenos Wijaya – 1:10.054

3rd – Jay Ronquillo – 1:11.643

TT-E

1st -Paul Bloomberg – 1:11.307

2nd – Chris Ambrosio – 1:12.397

Photo Credit: Dan Klaudt at ArizonaMotorsportsConnection.com

UMS Tuning Time Attack Series

For the Time Attack session on Sunday, the track was still in its semi-dry state, with turn three having a decent amount of standing water and turn four onto the straight away damp from water being carried by cars coming from turn three. There were 20 cars that took to the track to throw down some times, here are the top results!

UMS Tuning Time Attack Series Results

TA-A

1st – Jeff Abrams – 1:09.647

2nd – Aaron Hiar – 1:12.389

3rd – Ravi Tomerlin – 1:13.225

TA-B

1st – Justin Markiewicz – 1:09.748

2nd – Dan Haski – 1:10.036

3rd – Pablo Soria – 1:10.378

TA-C

1st – Travis Barnes – 1:06.780

2nd – Taylor Wilson – 1:07.751

3rd – Russel Whelan – 1:08.286

Photo Credit: Kyle Pope

HPDE

Driving on track in the rain is something that the drivers of NASA AZ only get to experience once in a great while, and for the HPDE environment is a ton of fun while really allowing drivers to further their skills in a challenging dynamic environment. From the sounds of it, all of the HPDE groups were doing great all weekend, learning track etiquette and the limits of their cars! It looks like we’ll have plenty of people looking to move up to the next HPDE level and Time Trial at the next event. Special thanks to all the HPDE drivers that came and toughed it out in the soaking wet pits, as well as the instructors for providing a great experience for our new and returning drivers. If it were up to me, I think the die-hard instructor and student award for the weekend would go to Justin Markiewicz, who accompanied his student Kevin Roberts in his convertible Miata with no roof at all! I asked Kevin how his first NASA event went and here is what he had to say: “As a first time driver with NASA and racing in general, I was totally surprised at how nice and helpful the staff and other drivers were. The camaraderie  between everyone is amazing. With plenty of advice and help from my instructor and fellow drivers, it makes me want to attend every event. NASA AZ is an awesome organization that I am proud to be a part of!”

Here is some HPDE4 action from Stenos “Noz” Wijaya, piloting Todd and Aaron Hiar’s 1994 Mazda Miata, with a special guest appearance from the Director himself, Tage, in his Honda Accord!

Kevin Roberts with his instructor Justin Markiewicz out on track!

Photo Credit: Dan Klaudt at ArizonaMotorsportsConnection.com

Hope to see all of you at Firebird East, it should be a blast!

Next event Info and Registration link can be found here: http://forums.nasaaz.com/showthread.php?t=5637

 

Written by: Aaron Hiar

Photo Captions by: Tage Evanson