22nd Jul2016

NASA Utah Round 5: The Melty Way

by Michael Chandler

It was hot. Very hot. So hot, in fact, that some competitors ended up being less than competitive because of it. Andy Moench’s and Mike Bratsch’s TT3 cars were feeling the heat, as were some of the Spec Z cars. Greg Warnock’s E92 M3 racecar succumbed to overheating issues, but he just hopped into his Cayman GT4 Clubsport and got some more laps in. I mean, who doesn’t have a back up race car in this day and age? Speaking of Greg’s race…

THUNDER

That’s where we start our coverage. Surprisingly, it was pretty drama free. At least from where I was. We had one GTS3 competitor, and that was Mayor McCheese himself: Blake Troester!

Byron Smith was back! Unfortunately for him, Darrell Troester was still there. He finished a lap up on Byron, and claimed another GTS4 win.

Despite going spin cycle early in the race, Gerry Shear (who gets it) got everything straightened out and took home a GTS5 win.

NASA Utah’s own BFG, Bob Evans, took the Snickers Ford Fusion NASCAR Sprint Cup High Downforce Prototype to the top of the podium in ST1.

J.R. Smith, proving that good things can be made better with the addition of an LSx, claimed another ST2 win.

Benevolent Overlord Matt Guiver hopped in the Minion (or banana mobile) and out drove five of the Ford Performance Racing School Mustangs. Five! That’s a lot of Mustangs to beat out.

In the Super Unlimited class, Pirate Supreme Les Long threw down some blistering laps and took home the class win. Could he take home the overall win?

Well, no. Makes & Modesl had their Huracan Super Trofeo back on track, and Derek was a man on a mission. Despite rising temperatures setting off alarms, he managed to claim the GTSU win AND the overall race group win. Speaking of that white, German/Italian super-weapon…

TIME TRIAL

Brendon Stewart hopped in the driver’s seat for the TT sessions and threw down a best time of 1:35.580 to take the TTU win.

TT1 saw a few Vipers. Definitely not a bad thing, especially given the news that FCA will be killing the big snake after 2017. Topping the podium was one of those snakes, the one driven by David Gilliland. He slithered around the East course of UMC in 1:41.8.44

Shawn Murphy wasn’t there that long on Saturday. He had a wedding to go to. I suggested someone Facetime him in, but that one didn’t fly. My brilliant idea didn’t fly, but Shawn did. And in the crowded combined session to boot. His best time in his “street car” was 1:40.988.

As mentioned earlier, Andy and Mike’s cars were feeling the effects of the heat. The heat didn’t seem to be a problem for James Pasquier, and his reliable as the sunrise 993 911. He set his best time in the last session of the day! Clearly we should all get 911’s, and be immune from heat.

Darin Beaudoin barely escaped the day with a win in TTB. He had Stephen Martin hot on his heels. Stephen posted a best time of 1:47.795, which was so close to Darin’s time. Darin, in his Honda Miata, posted a 1:47.760.

For those keeping score at home, Porsches have claimed five wins on the day so far. After this, they will have claimed six. Max Dufford, in his Boxster, ran a 1:48.977 in TTC.

Todd Green, listed in the #60 which I don’t have a picture of nor even see, took home the win in TTE. He posted a best time of 1:47.335 in the second TT Storm session. I don’t have a photo of that car, but I do have a photo of the mythical beast that is L’oreal! I MEAN PAUL MITCHELL!!! Speaking of things that you could hear about later…

LIGHTNING

Things got a little spooky, then kinda violent. Some Spec Miata drivers got too close coming out of Release, and one spun. Later in the race: a couple of Spec Z drivers got together, sending one into the dirt. Aside from those events, and another Spec Z losing an engine over the course of the race which left the car stranded at pit in, the race was fairly straightforward. Let’s start with Spec Miata, where Chris Bond returned! He took home with win, and managed to stay clear of any sort of shenanigans.

Otto Silva wasn’t the only 944 Spec driver this weekend! He was still the winner, but he wasn’t alone!

We haven’t had any open wheel races this season, which has meant that the usual drivers have been doing other things to occupy their time. Apparently one of those “other things” for Troy Duffin is getting a hold of a Datsun 510 racer. He brought it out this weekend, and took home the win in PTE.

Here we see the GTS2, PTB, and Thunder Roadster winners, all at once! Tom Rogers got himself a win in GTS2, Nathan Rohner in his RX7 (which was originally built as an autocross car) got another PTB win, and JD Stull took the win in Thunder Roadster. This was JD’s first race, and it was great seeing him out in competition.

We had one, lone GTS1 competitor: Steve Burns. He and Chris Bond had a solid battle all race, which was great to watch.

And in Spec Z, we had the #42 DXDT car, driven by David Askew, atop the podium.

PHEW! What a day! On to some miscellaneous stuff:

Todd Green usually dominates PTE, except this race. Why? Because he had a dead battery. He got a push start, but ended up being two laps down. Wouldn’t know it by the way he drove.
The Spec Z that lost an engine was the #46 DXDT car, driven by James Burke. It was smoking on every downshift from what I heard from some of the other drivers
It was Kyle Schick who wound up in the dirt. Can’t quite remember who hit him though, but I do have footage of the contact!
I ran around and slapped some CAM stickers on to some competitors cars. If you’d like one, shoot me an email and have some space on the passenger side of your car clear.
For those of you who want to purchase photos: go to here

And that is that! We’ll be back for Round 6, and the 6 Hour Enduro on August 6.

*Article and Photos are copyright of CAMautoMag.Com and their respective owners.

Category : Coverage

Tags : 350z, 510, 911, 944, 993, 996, 997, Air Power Racing, BMW, Boxster, Datsun, Dodge, DXDT Racing, E36, Ford, Ford Performance Racing School, Fusion, GT3 Cup, Honda, Huracan, Huracan Super Trofeo, Lamborghini, Lyfe Motorsport, M3, Makes & Models, Mazda, Miata, Mustang, NA Miata, NASA Pro Racing, NASA Utah, NASCAR, National Auto Sport Association, Nissan, Porsche, RX7, S2000, Spec Miata, Spec Z, Sprint Cup, STi, Subaru, Super Trofeo, Tatum Racing, Thunder Roadster, Utah Motorsports Campus, Viper, Viper T/A, WRX STi

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10th Feb2016

That’s Not Gone Well

by Michael Chandler

That has not gone well at all…

*Article and Photos are copyright of CAMautoMag.Com and their respective owners.

Category : Photo Post

Tags : 90, 911, 944, Audi, collision, contact, crash, Miller Motorsports Park, NASA Utah, Porsche, wreck

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24th Oct2014

Tresduro: NASA Utah’s 2014 Season Finale

by Michael Chandler

Words and photos by Michael Chandler

Every year for… many years NASA Utah, and MPRA before them, have thrown an endurance race to close out the season. Normally it’s the standard X amount of hours in a row, on a track that has the corners in the same places as the lap before. This year things would be different. Very different. Not mind blowingly, life alteringly different, but still different. There would still be an endurance race, but not all in a row. It would run on the Outer Loop… and the East Course… and the West Course.

That’s right baby! Dynamic track! Basically here’s how it would shake out: All the HPDE groups and TT would run on the Outer Loop only, while the race group and the open wheel guys would jump between all three configurations. If you remember the Pirelli World Challenge races from a couple of months ago, then this track switching concept isn’t so foreign. They ran the World Challenge GT races on the Outer Loop, Spec B and Miller GT Challenge on the West Course and the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West guys got the East Course. What was foreign, and I can’t stress this enough, was having the same group of competitors running three different track configurations on the same day for the same race! Well, technically it wasn’t all the same race, but the drivers’ times in each race would be combined and whoever had the best time would be the class winner. Speaking of which, let’s stop talking about the track thing and talk about racing!

The Open Wheel guys were in the same boat as the Race Group: three different tracks, three races, one time to decide a winner. In Formula Troy Duffin and Steven Costello continued their season long battle, but at the end of the long day there had to be a winner. And that winner was Troy, who completed 34 laps in the allotted time compared to Steven’s 33. In Super Formula it was the the #11 Rodizio Grill sponsored car of Terry Biner running away with the class win, leaving Steve Burns and John LaBrie to duke it out for second. In what can only be described as driving feats never seen since the days of Juan Manuel Fangio*, Steve Burns defeated John LaBrie!

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*Not really true at all, but both John and Steve had really good drives in their races

It was time for the TT competitors to take to the track after the Open Wheel drivers vacated it. Their four sessions held weight because, while the season points chases were over for everyone else, this was a points event for the TT drivers. While some people had wrapped up their season titles (more on that in another post), some people were still fighting tooth and nail for theirs. People like Shay Campbell and James Pasquier, who pitted their Porsche 911s against some ST3 competitors and a healthy chunk of the Spec Z field. Despite finishing in 14th, five spots behind James and scoring 5 points less than him, Shay locked up his TT3 points title! Meanwhile, at the front of the TT3 crowd, Travis Tidball took the win.

In TT1 the guys of TW Racing put their Audi R8 LMS atop the podium, and solidified their championship. However second place in the class was up for debate. If you remember, Shawn Murphy ventilated the engine block in his WRX STi which sidelined it for the remainder of the season and seemingly opened the door for Smith-Burke Racing to leapfrog one of our favorite Wyomingans… Wyomingites? Whatever, Shawn needed to hold off the C5 Corvette, so he did what any enterprising man with a willing girlfriend would do: he used her car for the last two events. He didn’t win, but he scored JUST enough points to hold off the Data Motorsports backed Corvette to stay in second place.

In TTE Ben Lamberson put used all 127 horsepower his Audi could muster to beat Steve Larsen, and cement his title. TTU was missing it’s most notable competitor: the Lyfe Motorsports/Wild Schick Racing R35 GTR was in California doing some testing, which left the class wide open for Rhett Panter to win. TT2 was won by David Bradshaw, and Josh Bennett took home the win in TTB.

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And we finally arrive at the Race Group, the other group that would take on the perils of driving three different tracks over the course of one race day. It also had some interesting driver line-ups, including George Smith piloting a Miata with Les Long, Derek Wolthoff driving Brendon Stewart’s Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, and… Well, there’s no easy way to say this…

PPPAAAAAAAUUUUUUUULLLLLLLLLLL MMMMIIIITTCCCCCCHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Which was driven by Matt Guiver, Todd Ainsworth, Alex Whetman and Todd Green. That mighty team could only muster a third place finish in E3, behind Allan Anderson (who slid around Wind Up, but it’s cool because he has a Corolla so he knows what he’s doing) and David Sherman.

In E0 we saw No Whammies (Travis Tidball) hit big money and stop atop the podium, ahead of Travis Williams in the #22 Discount Tire FR500S Mustang and Good Guy Gus Stribakos in the 888 Porsche.

In a class by himself, literally, was the Idaho Mountain Touring Porsche 911 in E1. Let’s take a moment to appreciate how pretty it is. Ahhhhhhhh.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

ES. The Big boys. You know the Names: TW Racing, Big Bob Evans, Dandy Dan Worley, Steve “Mister” Burns and “Mister En Fuego” Brendon Stweart. They were all fighting for the victory. The gritty field went wheel to wheel and door to door all day! Except when Brendon broke a suspension component. That sidelined him. And Bob blew a tire in the last race of the day, so his day ended early too… But when they were running, they were threatening to take away podium finishes from other drivers! In the end it came down to two teams: the TW Racing crew had adjusted their R8 LMS so Allen Turner could fully exploit it’s advantages, while Tatum Racing had the LSx powered Porsche 944 tuned to peak efficiency for Dan Worley. Who would emerge victorious?

In the end the Audi proved too much for the Porsche, and TW Racing took home the class and overall victory.

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In the end, we all took home a victory. Over the course of the season we saw drivers snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and overcome devastating events. We saw camaraderie and good natured competitiveness, and most importantly: everyone at the end of the day could walk away uninjured.

And so ends the NASA season. On behalf of me and the staff here at CAMautoMag, I would like to say thank you to Matt Guiver, Dave Kizerian and Dan McKeever for the awesome season, the track workers for the thankless and tireless jobs they do to make the racing happen, and especially to the drivers. Everyone from the HPDE 1 drivers, all the way up to the Super Unlimited class drivers and everyone in between. We do this because we have the same passion as you guys, and since we can’t get out there and drive with you guys (yet!) the next best thing is to come out shoot some photos and say some nice words about what you’re doing out there.

We’ll be at the Awards Banquet on November 22, where we’re looking forward to seeing everyone! We will also have things for you to purchase if you so choose.

*Article and Photos are copyright of CAMAutoMag.Com and their respective owners.

Category : Coverage

Tags : 911, 944, Audi, BRZ, Car Of Tomorrow, Chevrolet, Corvette, Endurance Racing, Evo, Evolution, Ford, Formula, FR500S, FRS, Lancer Evolution, Late Model, LMS, Mazda, Miata, Miller Motorsports Park, Mitsubishi, Mustang, NASA Endurance Racing, NASA Pro Racing, NASA Utah, NASCAR, Porsche, R8, R8 LMS, Scion, Super Formula, Tatum Racing, Tresduro, TW Racing

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29th May2014

NASA Utah Round 3

by Michael Chandler

Good news: there wasn’t a monsoon at Miller Motorsports Park over Memorial Day Weekend! Bad news: … Yeah. The good weather and holiday weekend brought out a healthy sized field. The TT class had twenty-one competitors in seven sub-classes, with TT3 fielding nine competitors!

And in TT3 we had a very close battle for the third spot on the podium! Chad Hess took his Porsche 911 to the final podium spot by a mere 1/1000 of a second over Shay Chappell’s Porsche 911. Finishing ahead of the tight battle was Josh Miller in second and Travis Tidball in first.

Scott Corsetti edged out Greg Valdez for the win, with Vincent McAllister rounding out the group.

TT1 saw the debut of a new chassis from T W Racing: Among the field of familiar cars was an Audi R8 LMS, which posted the fastest time of the TT field, and took home the TT1 win. Two seconds behind the Audi was the Corvette of Smith-Burke Racing, and two seconds behind them was the #667 Subaru of Shawn Murphy. Is this a sign of things to come? Will we soon see other IMSA GTD class cars competing in TT? I, for one, welcome our new IMSA overloards and may long should they reign.

Ahem

TTE was a two man race between Ben Lamberson’s Audi and Jeb Brown’s Subaru. Ben bested Jeb by two and a half seconds. TTC, TTB, and TTU were all one man affairs; with Richard Thiessens in TTB, Rod Kujaczynski in TTC, and Wild Schick Racing in TTU.

There were two open wheel races this weekend, and this time nobody spun like a top! The field even lined up, most likely unintentionally, for a very cool photo. And the racing was a good watch as well, specifically Chris Taylor going through the top of The Attitudes. He had no quarrel with getting right on top of the curbing! Unfortunately his placed in third for both Formula races. The finishing orders didn’t change at all for the classes in either race. Troy Duffin took first in Formula and Steven Costello took second. In Super Formula, Terry Biner beat out Ian Lacy both times; however, Ian posted a quicker fast lap than Terry in both races. Also of note: Ian ran a little over half the laps in each race.

The Lightning group had some close racing, but not necessarily for the Spec Z field. Arthur Golebiowski ran away from Tom Kaminski and Paul House. Arthur also ran away from the rest of the competitors in the run group, putting an eight second gap between himself and the next fastest driver. The next fastest driver was Blake Troester in GTS3, who took the class win over Gus Stribakos who retired from the race with four laps to go.

Spec Miata was a chess match, with Chris Bond looking to make a move on McKay Snow for most of the race. When an opportunity presented itself Chris took it, and put a 1.3 second gap between himself and the young Snow. David Sherman finished in third.

PTE was interesting. Allan Anderson and Todd Ainsworth finished second and third respectively, but Todd Green ran away with the win, and even got his nose in the Spec Miata pack. He was right up there with McKay and Chris.

While Spec Z and PTE had the largest margins of victory of the group, 944 Spec had the slimmest. Samuel Kapp and Otto Silva might as well have had their bumpers tied together the whole race. Samuel beat out Otto by 0.137 seconds. Placing third, a respectable 1.491 seconds behind Mr. Kapp was Greg Troester.

American Iron and PTB only had one competitor each, which is somewhat sad. Bill Noblitt and his PTB Boxster need a playmate, and Mike Mieke’s Firebird looks so lonely out there. Someone grab a Fox Body and get out there with Mike, and someone else get cracking on another PTB entry!

After the Lightning came the Thunder, which saw John Potter (Detroit) take the Magnus Racing Porsche out against David Donner in GTSU. David was a good sport as John hung a 28.277 second gap on him.

GTS5 had Alan Wilson, the guy who designed the track at Miller Motorsports Park, defeating Michael Stevenson while also showcasing a new track design on the hood of his yellow Porsche.

Darrell Troester (the third Troester for those keeping score at home) was competing against people in other classes, because he was the lone competitor in GTS4.

The three car field of ST1 featured three cars powered by big, american V8s. Unfortunately for Bob Evans and Dan Worley one of those cars was the Smith-Burke Corvette, which walked away from them at a brisk pace. Bob put the #88 Snickers/EA Sports Ford Fusion in second and Dan retired five laps in.

Bad Luck Brendon had some bad luck in ST2, but not catastrophically bad! It was more of a puzzling bad. On lap 11 his Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution just stopped running. No fires, no wheels flying off, no hitting of tire barriers and armco. It just stopped. After it was towed to the paddock, and after the race, the car started up and ran again. Initial speculation was that something over heated, and the leisurely tow off the track allowed it to cool off enough to start working again. Either way, he took home the class win because he was the only one in the class.

Super Touring 3, aka the Mustaing And Occasional Others class, was deep as usual. In a class dominated by Ford products, a pair of Corvettes managed to take two fo the top three spots. Cary Wilson put his black and green Corvette atop the podium, while Travis Tidball parked his blue Corvette in third. Alex Whetman, through sheer grit, cunning and over boosting, put the Focus of Doom in second.

Super Unlimited was interesting not only because Dave Dingman’s Miata was in the class, and not because of Bob Blizzard’s Ford Ranger looking thing. The class was won by James Miller in the chop top C4 Corvette, with George Smith in second and Bob Blizzard sliding his way into third. Wild Shick Racing, which posted the fastest single lap time of the group, finished last after contact with the Smith-Burke Racing Corvette left Kyle with a down right rear tire. I’ve heard the story from Kyle, and I’d like to hear the Smith-Burke side.

It was another good weekend for race fans and organizers. Hopefully the June event will be an even better one. If you’d like to come out and race, then go ahead and register! If you just want to come out and watch some racing and meet some drivers, then that’s a great option as well. Either way, we look forward to another race weekend and seeing you guys out there!

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Words and photos by Michael Chandler

*Article and Photos are copyright of CAMAutoMag.Com and their respective owners.

Category : Coverage

Tags : 350z, 911, 944, Air Power Racing, Audi, Chevrolet, Corvette, Evo, Focus, Ford, GTR, Lancer Evolution, Magnus Racing, Mazda, Miata, Miller Motorsports Park, Mitsubishi, Mustang, NASA, NASA Pro Racing, NASA Utah, Nissan, Porsche, R8, R8 LMS, Ranger, RX7, STi, Subaru, Wild Schick Racing, WRX

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16th Oct2013

NASA Utah Round 6

by Michael Chandler

Nationals were only a month behind them when the Miller locals returned to the west track for Round 6 of the NASA Utah season. It was also three weeks before the season ending endurance race. That led to some of your favorites taking the weekend off. They still came out to instruct HPDE and hang out, but their chariots were still.

But that doesn’t mean the track was empty. Cole Powelson was out in RaceCo’s new Porsche, Todd Ainsworth was out in his STi in ST2, George Smith hustled his ~~flying banana~~ C5 Corvette to a win in the Super Unlimited class and first place overall in the race, and Park got a few runs in in his Vette as well.

Oh, and Jason Smith raced Roger Miller’s World Challenge Mustang. More on this humbling experience in a later post…

STR1 went to Bob Evans in the Snickers, EA Sports Ford Fusion. He battled with Jason for a good chunk of the race, but he left him behind when they encountered traffic. Passing Jason got him into second overall.

Again the Spec Miata/GTS guys were out with the bigger, faster guys. While Jason and Bob had a good battle going, there was a dog fight happening at the front of the herd of Miatas.

Todd Green and Mike Ferrara were never out of the other’s sight the whole race! They might as well have tied their cars together, thats how close they were. After an epic battle, Mike emerged the victor. They might not be as fast as the open wheel or ST cars, but they fight just as hard if not harder than those other classes.

Speaking of open wheel, the shorter track kept them closer than usual. There weren’t any dirt drops or wheel touching, a la the Japanese GP, but the closeness brought action.

This is Dave Wann. He ran a 1:49.75, and did the best pirouette of the day. Kudos to you Dave, kudos.

I see you race a Z32. I too like to live dangerously. And if I remember right this either placed or won TTC. You don’t see a lot of Z32 300ZX’s out on track days, which is a shame because, as our friend here is demonstrating, they can do some serious work. They’re also such handsome vehicles.

You don’t see too many Z cars out in general, at least out on our little ribbon of tarmac. 370z’s are pricey, and S30s are gorgeous and more people would rather do them up and then take them to shows instead of the track. Hopefully seeing that Datsun go will bring a few more out.

Here are some random photos from the HPDE session. Nothing too crazy to report, just some guys getting in some supervised laps. Anyway, thats what happened in a rather light day. We’ll be out there for the season ending endurance race on the 26th, and we’ll do a photo dump ahead of that. We’ll see you there!

Words and Photos by Michael Chandler.

*Article and Photos are copyright of CAMAutoMag.Com and their respective owners.

Category : Coverage

Tags : 240z, 300ZX, 302S, 335i, 370Z, 911, 944, Altima, BMW, Boss, C5 Corvette, Chevrolet, Datsun, Ford, FR500S, Fusion, Honda, Mazda, Miata, Miller Motorsports Park, Mustang, NASA, NASA Pro Racing, NASA Utah, Nissan, Open Wheel, Porsche, S2000, S30, Spec Miata, STi, Subaru, WRX, Z32, Z34

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21st Aug2013

NASA Utah Round 5

by Michael Chandler

August 10th was an extremely busy day at Miller Motorsports Park. The Gotham Dream Car Sprint was happening in the Midway, starting at 6pm there was a Western Endurance Racing Championship six hour endurance race, and during the day the NASA locals were joined by some SCCA fellows for some laps! Exciting right? You betcha! However, the arrival of the SCCA guys meant that some of your NASA heroes raced with them instead of in the NASA groups.

This was most apparent with the open wheel guys. It was one of the larger open wheel fields in recent memory. And since this was a SCCA deal, I don’t have the results… Sorry guys, but I do have more pictures!

Looks like you herped when you should’ve derped there Bill.

See? That kinda makes up for the lack of actual information!

I’m not 100% sure what these are, but I think they’re Club Ford cars. Whatever they are, they’re very cool and deserve some time in the spotlight.

I don’t have results for the SCCA groups*, but I do have results for the NASA guys. With the increase in traffic on track, they split the NASA folks in to three groups:

Thunder: GTS 3, 4, 5; American Iron, Camaro Mustang Challenge, Spec Z, STR1, and ST2, 3 and U
Lightning: GTS1, 2, 3; Spec Miata, Spec E30, Spec 944, and PTB, C, E and F
TT: I’m not explaining this one

Let’s start with the TT group.

Despite a momentary lack of traction control, which led to a slight off track excursion, Kyle Shick took top honors for TTU in the RaceCo/Envision Wraps GTR with a 1:59.336. The car is fine, and Kyle was his usual smiling self about the incident at the awards dinner later in the evening.

The TT1 crown was claimed by Steven Streimer in the Lux Performance/Streimer MotorSports/Natalie’s Estate Winery Porsche 911 with a time of 2:03.395

Greg Valdez took #lelantos to the top of the heap in TT2 with a time of 2:09.348. The Ziptie Dynowerks sponsored STi has been getting better over the course of the season. Fun fact: the wing on the car is wider than Greg is tall.

The TT3 title was claimed by this fellow: Steve Nagel in the MarVista BMW M3. His time: 2:09.318. I would say something witty or funny, but I know nothing about him so I shall refrain.

Emilio Cervantes and his 949 Racing sponsored Mazda Miata took the TTB crown with a 2:13.901

Another Miata took TTC. This time it was Sonny Watanasirisuk with a lap time of 2:17.986

AND Jay Kidd took first AND last in TTE by being the only competitor in the field. The Track Speed Engineering Miata put up a 2:20.258.

Moving on to the Lightning group, and more specifically the three Spec classes that were running.

Dan McKeever took Spec Miata in the #10 Falcon Graphics sponsored roadster.

Larry Moore took the Spec E30 win in his wild Bavarian coupe. Quick question: when did red and blue become the official M colors? This came up while out shooting and nobody had a good answer.

And Samuel Kapp was deemed the fastest of the Spec 944s.

The Pro Touring field was pretty deep, featuring privateers and a factory backed effort. Logically the factory team would be the fastest on the day right? Allow me to show you why that isn’t really true.

When you show up in a Fit, you make Miatas look like fire breathing Blancpain series Lamborghinis. That said, it probably had to fill up once the whole weekend. It also took the PTF class.

Andrew Kidd put the #71 Track Speed Miata in the winner’s circle again in the PTE category. See that Porsche he’s chasing?

It’s the PTC class winner driven by Ed Mineau! Eight hundredths of a second separated the fastest laps turned by your E and C class winners.

And speaking of Porsches, Douglas Turnquist took the PTB win in his non-Spec 944.

In GTS they really turned up the wick! Well, sort of. These still are semi-reasonable cars we’re talking about.

Lee Bohning took the #36 Alpine Autohaus M3 to the winners circle in GTS2.

Meanwhile, in GTS3, Stefan Sajic piloted his E46 M3 to victory. In addition to being M3s and winning their classes, these cars have something else in common: red roll cages. I support that 103%.

And now on to the senior circuit: the Thunder group.

Mark Smith piloted the Eagle Marine Boss 302 Mustang to victory in American Iron, beating an F Body with a big wing. However, the General would have his revenge!

And that came in the form of Joe Bogie taking the Camaro Mustang Challenge win!

The Spec Z crown was claimed by David Dirks, seen here chasing down a CMC competitor.

GTS was dominated by Porsches. Gus Stribakos took his physics defying machine to glory in GTS3.

Darrell Troester won GTS4 in his 996 GT3.

And Les Long turned a blistering 1:58.901 on his way to a GTS5 victory! His time was THIRD fastest of the day!

ST3 was loudly won by Daniel Wennerberg in the Pure Performance, high visibility BMW.

Bob beat Skip for the STR1 win. One of my favorite moments from the day was Matt Guiver, at the awards presentation, asking “Hey Bob, where’s Skip?” Not sure why, but I enjoyed it.

And the Davidson Racing team took top honors in SU, the Thunder Group, and on the day. They won their class by 1:07.978, making second place George Smith (and his fastest lap time 1:57.705) look like he was standing still.

After the NASA guys finished up, the SCCA guys got to turn some laps…

And this happened. Spec Miatas might not be the fastest cars on track, but they aren’t afraid to bang! Not entirely sure how, or why, but Tyler Dahl and Glenn Conser were going at it the entirety of the SCCA Small Bore race.

And on a more somber note, this was unfortunately the last NASA Utah event Regional Director Roger Miller attended. The following weekend he traveled to Kansas City for the GRAND-AM Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge. He and co-driver Ian James finished eleventh in the race. Tragically that evening, Roger passed away in his sleep. Roger was a truly great man, and driver. His passion for racing was unparalleled, and he wanted to bring more people into the fold and share that passion with them. He will be missed, but the work he has done with NASA Utah will never be forgotten.

Words and photos by Michael Chandler

*If anyone has the SCCA results, feel free to send them over and we’ll get a post up for them

*Article and Photos are copyright of CAMAutoMag.Com and their respective owners.

Category : Coverage

Tags : 350z, 911, 944, BMW, Camaro, Chevrolet, Fit, Ford, GTR, Honda, M3, Miller Motorsports Park, Mustang, NASA, NASA Utah, Nissan, Porsche, SCCA, STi, Subaru, WRX

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CAMautoMag

NASA Utah Round 5: The Melty Way

THUNDER

TIME TRIAL

LIGHTNING

*Article and Photos are copyright of CAMautoMag.Com and their respective owners.

That’s Not Gone Well

*Article and Photos are copyright of CAMautoMag.Com and their respective owners.

Tresduro: NASA Utah’s 2014 Season Finale

Words and photos by Michael Chandler

*Not really true at all, but both John and Steve had really good drives in their races

*Article and Photos are copyright of CAMAutoMag.Com and their respective owners.

NASA Utah Round 3

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NASA Utah Round 6

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NASA Utah Round 5

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