American Road Race of
Champions
Road Atlanta -- November 10-12, 2000
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Road Race Report By Bill Perry Chattanooga Region’s Rivergate Racing Pod sent five cars and six drivers down for the biggest event of the year for Improved Touring classes. Entries totaled 289, from all parts of the U.S. and some from Canada. Workers from our area included Jamie Hamilton, Flagging & Communication and Registration; Dave Hester, Flagging & Communication; and Bob Forsten, Safety Steward. Crew included Crew Chief Art Thompson, Gail Perry, David Stubblefield, Ken Hurt, Scott Dobler, John Perry, Roy Yother, Rusty White, George Lewis, and lots of family, friends and guests. The ARRC ITC field included 28 cars, including champions from across the nation: Pacific Coast Champ Bobby Carter, Datsun 510; CedDev Champ Jamie Blair and SARRC Champ Vesa Silegren for example. It also included previous ARRC Champions: Walt Puckett, Gareth Rebstock, Will Perry and Tom Fowler, Jr. ARRC qualifying placed Will Perry in the #36 CRX third, Vesa Silegren’s #38 Civic in tenth, Jamie Blair’s #34 CRX eleventh, Carl Blevins in the #35 CRX in fifteenth, and Bill Perry’s #37 Civic in twenty-second.
The other Rivergate Racers were working their way up in the field. Beginning the last lap, Vesa was in fifth with Jamie just behind him in sixth. But in turn 10 of the last lap, Jamie tried a pass on Vesa. Jamie’s front right contacted Vesa’s left rear. This caused Vesa to nearly spin in this tight turn, putting him back to seventh. The finish had Jamie fifth, crossing the finish line while rubbing with 6th place, Vesa 7th, Carl 11th and Bill (the oldest driver in the race) in 15th. Too bad for this writer that awards in racing all go to the fastest, never the oldest. Will finished 18th, two laps down. Gareth Rebstock won. For Sunday’s two-hour endurance race, the Pod entered 4 cars. Will and Vesa shared the #36 CRX, Jamie and Carl each soloed their #34 & #35 CRX’s and Bill and Brian Stubblefield co-drove the #37 Civic. Will qualified first in ITC, Jamie second, Brian third and Carl fourth in the 14 car ITC field. A total of 49 cars started. Will held the ITC lead during his stint at the wheel of the #36, with Jamie second and Brian right behind in third and Carl not far back in fourth. Brian’s unsuccessful attempt to pass Jamie at corner three caused body contact that cut a ($145) tire to the cord. After the contact Brian settled back to follow Jamie, not risking further damage to his Uncle’s car. His performance was particularly impressive considering he had never sat in the car before that morning and that this was only his second race of the year! The big pit crew handled the stops in the usual great way, changing tires and fueling our four cars, plus the Scirocco of Eric Alimena. The cut tire on the #37 car was found and switched. Soon after the pit stop, Carl ran down and passed Bill for third place. Vesa easily held first in the #36 car. The enduro ended as a full Rivergate Racing Pod sweep: #36 – 1st, #34 – 2nd, #35 – 3rd and #37 – 4th. The fifth place car was the Pacific Coast Champion 510 and Eric Alimena, aided by our fine crew, finished 6th. The drivers were cheated out of the all Rivergate Podium, with champagne and race queens waiting, by a timing and scoring crew that couldn’t produce results on time.
2000 was a great year for the Chattanooga Region’s Club racers, and 2001 may be better. Dwight Floyd will be racing his Baby Grand, Art Thompson & Roy Yother in their new CRX ITC racers and Rusty White in his Super Production RX7 Turbo all expect to do the February School at Roebling Road, perhaps joined by Scott Dobler and his BMW ITB car. Will will be introducing his Honda Accord ITB car and all others will return with their 2000 ride.
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American Road Race of
Champions Enduro
2000
Five cars enter under the Rivergate Pod banner
All five cars come in for service around the half way point
The Rivergate Hondas finish First
through Fourth
! ! !
The VW finishing sixth
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Photos by Ken Walker
Red Sand in My Shoes
Updated November 18, 2000
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At the start of the 20 lap championship race, Will went into second behind
Gareth Rebstock, the pole sitter. Later he dropped behind the 510 from
California. On lap 12, Will got a great draft on the 510 and swept out to pass
him on the front straight. An exhaust pipe off another racer was lying near the
right edge of the track there. As Will pulled out to the right to pass, the 510
moved to the right 2/3’s of the track width to block. This ran Will right into
the exhaust pipe. It stuck into the floorboard of the CRX, lifting the backend
off the pavement. This put Will into a wild “tank slapper” for about a
quarter of a mile. He stopped to check for damage, then continued after
losing two laps. A smashed header limited RPM’s to 5000. Carter, the driver of
the 510, had been earning the reputation as an unsportsman-like blocker, even in
qualifying. This incident happened right in front of the pit road, so it caused
lots of comment, with witnesses split on whether running Will onto the exhaust
pipe was intentional or not.