NASA Utah 2015 Round 3: Fetch Thine Umbrellas!
Words by Michael Chandler. Photos by Michael Chandler and Michael Wells
The unusually wet spring Utah has been experiencing has meant that there were two consecutive rain soaked round of the NASA Utah season for the first time in… Well, ever. Mercifully the rain wasn’t as heavy as the second round, and it had let up by Sunday. So without further ado, let’s get to the winners!
In Spec Miata, David Sherman led the suddenly surging Spec Miata field to a win on Saturday, and Daniel Williams kept fighting the good fight and took advantage of the sunny Sunday weather to win on Sunday. Will he sell on Monday? Your guess is as good as mine, but I doubt he’ll be letting go of his silver NB.
Spec Z on Saturday was wild. Tom Kaminski was chasing the eventual class leader Arthur Golebiowski like a man possessed. He was coming around Clubhouse Turn at full opposite lock, which probably didn’t help close the gap but it looked very cool. Meanwhile, Kyle Schick (6th in class) had another scary moment in Clubhouse. He spun out, but managed to slide off the racing line.
As mentioned earlier, Arthur Golebiowski took the win on Saturday and the #98 of Team Askew Motorsports ran a tight race and took home their first win of the season on Sunday!
Bill Noblitt battled Gus Stribakos in GTS3, and took the win in his mid-engined Porsche on both days. Say what you will about the Boxster, but that car in the right hands can do some pretty awesome things.
Paul Mitchell, guided by the steady hand of Todd Green, navigated the rain and took the win in PTE on Saturday. Paul wasn’t done for the weekend, but he was done in PTE. GTS2 had a competitor on Sunday: the Team CA Sport BMW 3 Series. We need more lots of things out on track, and E36s are one of them.
While we’re all familiar with Todd Ainsworth’s new ST3 E36 M3, we’re not familiar with the red E36 M3 pictured above (but below Todd’s). Turns out the red car is driven by one of our favorite Corvette drivers: George Smith. Where is the Vette? Beats me, I didn’t see much of George so I couldn’t ask him but it spent the weekend running around in ST2. There it ran into something the engineers who created the M3 never imagined it would be competing against: a pickup truck.
Mike Mielke can wheel in that truck! Hopefully this season we’ll see some epic, and frankly strange, battles between the super truck and George’s new M3. Because who hasn’t wanted to see that?
Travis Tidball got himself a wing to go along with his fancy new (for this season) bodywork! He also got himself a pair of wins out of the weekend. The car was back on the dyno at JDP Motorsports to verify its power-to-weight ratio after some questions were raised during the weekend. The results? The car is ST3 legal. The C5 Corvette: ruining people’s race weekends since 2001!
A big surprise was seeing Brent Holden running in with the NASA Utah guys and gals instead of with the Pirelli World Challenge crew up in Canada. No matter, he had an impressive showing in his Global Motorsports Group Audi R8 LMS Ultra and took wins in the Super Unlimited class on both days.
On Sunday he battled the TW Racing R8 LMS, and you know what? The older LMS got around the Ultra! It was an amazing battle to watch! However, an untimely penalty forced the TW Racing R8 into the pits to serve out its penalty and cut the fight short. How did the GTSU class R8 fare in it’s class?
Not well, unfortunately. The 911 GT3 Cup cars of Alan Wilson and Les Long took the wins on Saturday and Sunday respectively. The Air Power Racing prepped Porsche of Les Long is currently tied for first in the season’s points race with the TW Racing Audi. How will this back and forth battle play out? Hopefully we’ll see more tight battles between the two as the season plays out.
More Porsches battled in GTS5. On Saturday David Lockwood notched another win for the Air Power Racing camp, while Darrell Troester picked up a win for himself and Tatum Racing on Sunday.
Have I told you that I really like the E90 3 series? Because I like the E90s, especially in race trim. Conveniently, Byron Smith drives a race prepped E90 AND he won the GTS4 class. That confluence of events allowed me to express my opinion on the E90. Moving on…
TT1 is being dominated by Subarus. On Saturday, Shawn Murphy in the Lyfe Motorsports STi took the win over Ziptie Dynowerks STi of Greg Valdez by less than a second. On Sunday the roles were reversed and Greg beat out Shawn, but the margin of victory was smaller: only .33 seconds separated the two!
TT2 is ruled by the iron fist of Robert Rathbone, and his authority is enforced by his 911 GT3. All those who oppose him will be laid to WASTE!!! Well, not really… at all. He is currently running away with the TT2 championship.
Alex Whetman is a bad, bad man in a bad, bad Focus. He took TT3 on both days, earning his 4th and 5th wins on the season. He also had the fastest TT times of the weekend. Not just TT3, ALL of TT. By the way, buy the shirt.
In the sea of FRS’s and BRZs, what rises to the top? A Honda S2000. Dave Wann took TTB on both days, and is right in the thick of things in the class. We don’t have a shirt to promote here, or anything really.
Paul Mitchell ladies and gentlemen! The intrepid Miata won TTE on the weekend, but that’s not the story here.
Jeb Brown and Ben Lamberson are continuing their battle from last season, with Jeb currently leading Ben by a mere 70 points. Was this little update necessary? Eh, probably not. But would you look at that picture!
Fresh off their win at Global Time Attack, Lyfe Motorsports brought out their R35 GTR on Sunday AND!… Did not post a time during a TT session. They did post the fastest time of the day (1.31.803!) during the Thunder group practice that morning. The TW Racing R8 LMS did post times during TT sessions. Did it on both days. It’s fastest time in the class was a 1:40.763, but that wasn’t the fastest lap it did over the weekend. In the Sunday Thunder Group race, they posted a 1:33.825!
McKay Snow was out again in the Patron Elan DP02, racing in Super Formula. He took both races in commanding fashion.
Formula saw Troy Duffin take the first race of the day with young Bruno Carneiro in second. In the second race, they swapped podium places: Bruno won, and Terry took second. At the end of the day, the young Brazilian clings to a twenty-five point lead in the class.
And there you have it. If you’re doing rain dances, stop it! Round 4 is also on the East Course, and the Lucas Oil Offroad series will be dropping by the off road course at MMP as well. Come out, bring an umbrella (and possibly a winter coat. You won’t be laughing when it snows three and a half feet!), and take in a full weekend of all sorts of racing!
Saturday Gallery
Sunday Gallery
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