It is time for race number two of the weekend here at Sonoma Raceway in the California wine country, for SRO TC America. The touring cars powered by Skip Barber Racing School began the season yesterday seeing Jacob Ruud, Kevin Boehm, and Carter Fartuch, win in every one of the classes. Race two on Sunday is on deck and we join as always, Ryan Myrehn, Calvin Fish, and Amanda Busick, on commentary. Jacob Ruud, a ten-time race winner in 2021. Steve Cugliari seems to be his biggest competitor so far. Ruud and Cugliari will race against each other the whole season. Clay Williams, after issues with the Mini yesterday, seems to be in good shape. Clay Williams was focused solely on fastest lap of the motor race to set the grid for race two.
To recycle the electronics on the Mini, he had to drop below 30 miles an hour which on a racetrack, is extremely dangerous! Yesterday's pole man, Steve Streimer, finished fourth in yesterday's race. Clay Williams will have Kevin Boehm, another star driver from yesterday, will definitely go for it. Mat Pombo and Mike LaMarra are next up on the grid. Both L.A. Honda World cars are there. Ken Fukuda and Jeff Ricca on the next row and then comes Nicholas Barbato in the GenRacer/Ricca Autosport Hyundai Veloster which is the sister car to his teammate and team owner, Jeff Ricca.
Then comes Matthew Ibrahim. Next row, Ruben Iglesias and Joey Jordan. Joey remembers his dad, Joe, who was a massive part of the TC America community. He was part of the radio stream and the podcast for the series. We have 36 cars in the field today with front wheel drive and rear wheel drive cars, with several different engine displacements as well for TCX, TC, and TCA. More manufacturers will be coming into TCX to join BMW. We ought to watch Barbato and Ricca in the Hyundai's as well. It is early doors for the development of the Hyundai. Gresham Wagner and Spencer Bucknum will be two other young lions to look out for. Devin Anderson, Christian Perocarpi, and others. This field is stacked with talent.
Here comes the field through turns 11 and 12. Tom Hansing waves the green flag and we're off. Ruud starts well and poor old Stephen Cugliari didn't get the start he wanted as they head for turn one for the first time. Cugliari runs wide onto the grass! Can he recover it? He was in way too deep. Man oh man. Cold tires. The nemesis of every racing driver on a start. Here's the TC field starting their race. Now, Stephen Cugliari has rejoined the race just in front of Garrett Adams as we watch the start for the TC cars. Kevin Boehm to the inside of Clay Williams through the second turn. Fukuda has had a good start too.
TCA cars are now off and running as well. Carter Fartuch in the lead from pole position and he has Gresham Wagner bearing down on him. A big twitch in the middle of the pack and some contact to be aware of. Will make a note of that. Spencer Bucknum saves it! Christian Pericarpi is also looking racy from the off. Kevin Boehm leads overall, and we are looking at the scrap for third, fourth, fifth, and sixth places. Ken Fukuda, Mat Pombo, Jeff Ricca, and Mike LaMarra are all in this scrap. It is good to see Ken Fukuda get into a good spot to race. Mat Pombo passes Fukuda and has Jeff Ricca right behind.
Mike LaMarra slides off the road and, thud, into the barrier. It looks like he will be able to continue. Hopefully there is not much damage to the L.A. Honda World entry. The tires are still cold, the Pirelli P Zero's. Nicholas Barbato is behind and he wants to make a move on LaMarra but LaMarra has junk all over his tires. In the meantime, Kevin Boehm is bang on the money but has Clay Williams right on his six as Jacob Ruud leads by a second over Lucas Cattania. Garrett, followed by Cugliari, and Steve Streimer. Christian Pericarpi in one of three Mini entries here at Sonoma. He picks up a place. Side by side stuff here, look, for the lead. Gresham Wagner in the Subaru vs. the Honda for Skip Barber Racing School and Carter Fartuch. Wagner moves up to top of the shop in TCA.
Gresham Wagner had medical issues that delayed his motor racing career. A major surgery and a lengthy stay in the hospital to recuperate. But now, he has come back even stronger. Oh no! Commentators curse, it strikes again! Just as we are singing praises of the man, Gresham Wagner is in trouble! Too much speed through turn nine and Wagner goes off the road and gets grass and assorted clag all over his tires as well! Spencer Bucknum passes and so does Wagner's TechSport Subaru teammate, Devin Anderson. Wow. Wagner side by side with Anderson and speaking of side by side, there are battles all over the shop, and one is in TCX!
Ruud and Catania again! Everyone in the TC field has eaten their Wheaties this morning. Garrett vs. Cugliari. Cugliari dives in late on the brakes! He lunges and completes the pass. Cugliari has splitter damage on the right front corner, though. That could compromise his aerodynamics. Lucas Cattania has the Crowdstrike Fastest Lap of the motor race thus far. Jacob Ruud knows he has more competition this year and we have seen a bunch in just five and a half minutes of race two for TC America. Jacob Ruud, Lucas Cattania, Stephen Cugliari, Colin Garrett, and Steve Streimer, the top five.
Cugliari is regrouping to try and get his race on track, no pun intended. In TC racing, Kevin Boehm has Clay Williams all over him. Boehm will have to use every trick in the book to fend off Williams' challenges. Clay Williams has a sticker on the side of that JCW Mini that says Donate Life. His mother is going through health woes right now. It is an organization for being an organ donor. That helps save lives. Clay Williams is based on the west coast and knows Sonoma Raceway. Kevin Boehm from Ohio, but he too knows this track as well from SRO and SCCA Runoffs competition. Gresham Wagner is back in the picture and now, he is trying to monster Carter Fartuch for position.
Wagner though, he has the pace for sure. Fartuch leading the TCA class now but Gresham Wagner is really stepping up to the plate. Wagner also raced the SCCA Runoffs here at Sonoma in 2018. That is the amateur road racing national championship races every fall that rotates between different circuits every year. Joey Jordan at the wheel of the #70 Mazda 3 TC for FTG Racing, he has his hands full with Nicholas Barbato. Good to see the Mazda running so well. Joey Jordan is running well and honoring his dad, Joe who passed away over the weekend. A dozen members of the family gave the command to start engines for yesterday's TC America race here at Sonoma.
Carter Fartuch and Gresham Wagner are still fighting each other hard with only ten minutes elapsed. In his day job, Fartuch is an instructor with the Skip Barber Racing School in addition to being a driver. He pays it forward teaching people how to race cars. Corner speeds at turn seven on the AWS Race Vision, tells us that Jeff Ricca and Kris Valdez are fastest at 55.3 miles an hour through the turn. Valdez driving the #09 which is the second TC entry for DRS & Garagistic. That is a BMW, an M240iR. Valdez is followed on the speed chart by Stephen Cugliari in the #57 BMW M2 CS Racing for Accelerating Performance.
After that, we have Olivia Askew in the second of the four Fast Track Racing BMW M2 CS Racing cars, and then the Mini of Christian Perocarpi for MINI JCW Team. Cugliari and Askew run 54 miles an hour even through the turn and Perocarpi at 53.9 miles an hour. Turn seven is the tight hairpin at the end of the drag strip. The BMW cars are all rear wheel drive while everyone else has front wheel drive. There is definite parity between the three classes and the cars, as well as having loads of mechanical grip around the circuit. Williams hanging tough as Barbato passes Jordan as well as Ruben Iglesias and Mike LaMarra also wants a bite of the cherry.
Joey Jordan is really having to push. Ah. Lead change in TCA and Gresham Wagner passes Carter Fartuch. Wagner slides deep to the inside into the apex of turn four. He has also been really attacking The Carousel. Kevin Anderson and Techsport Subaru are based at Virginia International Raceway and SRO America will be racing there in mid-June on Father's Day weekend. Mat Pombo is third. Carter Fartuch is still being challenged as we have just 25 minutes left before the checkered flag. The tires will start squirming at around the 15 minutes to go mark. Kevin Boehm is keeping Clay Williams at a safe distance.
Whoops. I misspoke. Spencer Bucknum is the man catching the top two in the TCA class. Mat Pombo is gaining on the TC leaders ajd he is eating into the margin of Clay Williams, just a tenth behind the Mini driver. In a rear-wheel-drive car like the BMW, the tires are only turning, while the front wheel drive cars, the smaller automobiles, they are getting the power to the ground to propel the automobile. The Honda and the Mini rely more on their front Pirelli P Zero tires. The TCX BMW's are rear wheel drive. The Mini, the Honda, and the Hyundai, are all front wheel drive. We are seeing many customer cars on the grid but there are some home tuned specials as well. However, turnkey cars are very popular and easy to run and use.
There are loads of the M2 CS Racing cars around the world in different championships. Joseph Catania has dropped back. So, trouble in paradise for the #24, the first of the Rigid Speed TCX BMW's. Lucas Catania is second and just off the lead. Running fourth in TCX we see #44 Colin Garrett, #30 Steve Streimer, and #54 Garrett Adams. Rooster Hall Racing followed by HARD Motorsport, and yet another of the Fast Track Racing cars, of which there are four. All of them are right in the picture with just a tad over 20 minutes to go in this second race.
These boys are set to encounter TC traffic. Up ahead, one of the Mini's for JCW Team. This is the #62 in the hands of Canadian P.J. Groenke. Groenke has never driven an orange Mini in SRO but his first pro win was in an orange Mini in Canada. Groenke stretches his budget and makes multiple sponsorships go a long way to fulfill his dreams as a race car driver, his ambitions as a driver. Groenke found a way to make the border crossings work since they were such a king size headache during the height of the global pandemic while most drivers north of the border sat it out in 2020 and 2021. In TC, Kevin Boehm is just barely keeping Clay Williams behind him.
Things have been tooing and froing for these guys for a wee while. Boehm and Williams have gapped Pombo. Boehm's Honda Civic seems to have a broken exhaust pipe bracket and that could also be the case for Ken Fukuda's car. Fukuda lives and breathes motor racing, sleeping on sofas, working three jobs a week. He has also raced in Germany at the Nurburgring, and in Japan, following the dream. Adam Roberts, team manager for the Skip Barber Racing School team jokingly said looking after the Pirelli tires really begins after the second lap of one of these races. Driving styles have to change to save the tires so they are not knackered.
Sonoma is known for tire degradation. Same thing as being told about saving fuel to the end of the race. Boehm managing his tires while Pombo has dropped back having used his tires up. On fuel save, the fuel gauge tells you where you are, but with tires it is all about what you feel in the seat of your pants as a driver. On a doubleheader weekend, what can you use from the first race to the second race that you learned? The TCX battle has Steve Streimer all over 21-year-old Colin Garrett from Elmo, Virginia. Garrett is a stock car racer who has run at the South Boston Speedway in South Boston, Virginia, run the NASCAR truck and Xfinity Series and has done short track stock car racing in Canada as well.
He is a race winner is Steve Streimer. He is from Portland, Oregon, and has won in class at the Rose Cup Races. He was a Trans Am Rookie of The Year in TA3 in 2015. He started at the Ford Performance Racing School at Utah Motorsports Campus in Tooele, Utah. With 15 minutes on the board, Garrett leaves the door open for Streimer. Adams as well, is coming and making the pass. Garrett Adams and Steve Streimer both pass successfully. Turn three here at Sonoma is the highest elevation point on the road and then you plunge downward the rest of the way. Don't overdo corner entry into turns three and four. They pass the TCA entry of Sally McNulty. McNulty ran top five yesterday and she is sixth today so far and will keep digging running with VCMG, Victor Gonzalez Motorsports.
Jacob Ruud still leads overall just ahead of Lucas Catania by 3.5 seconds. Catania still holds fastest lap but has the deficit to make up to Ruud. Cugliari third, but is half a second down on Ruud. Cugliari still has a tweaked front end corner. He ran four races in 2021 and won three of them and was the thorn in the side of Jacob Ruud the whole way. Catania did not get any favors from Carter Fartuch in the Honda. Fartuch has dropped behind Gresham Wagner by five and a half seconds! Whoa. Fartuch just wants points and a podium spot. He had a mid-season stretch that put him in contention for the title. Kevin Boehm in the meantime, leads the TC class.
In TC, Boehm in the Honda has built a small cushion over Williams in the Mini. Mat Pombo, another Honda driver is third. Olivia Askew in TCX is behind Pombo. Good to see her back for a full season campaign. Olivia Askew moved away from her dad's team at DXDT and is now racing with Fast Track BMW and has Bryan Sellers as a driver coach. She did test her dad's GT3 Mercedes which could be in her future. Boehm with the assistance of traffic has been able to clear away from Williams. Clay Williams is experiencing the largest gap he has had throughout this motor race as we also take another look at Gresham Wagner, leading TCA in the Subaru BRZ for TechSport, car #21.
Wagner attacking The Carousel, driving in hard over the top, letting the car wash out and hits the second apex bang on. Techsport from Virginia and so is Gresham Wagner as he hails from Williamsburg. Carter Fartuch, second in TCA after winning the race yesterday. Spencer Bucknum has also run very well so far with Ryan Eversley helping him out and coaching him. Eversley is a veteran in SRO racing. He has driven for L.A. Honda World, and he drives for them in a different championship as well. Eversley has also run with Rick Ware Racing in both NASCAR and in GT3 racing in another championship. Jacob Ruud now leads by seven seconds and change over Lucas Cattania.
Wagner leads Fartuch by six seconds. But Kevin Boehm somehow or other still is in front of Clay Williams. Olivia Askew has driven 17 races thus far between 2020 and 2021 but had a few podiums along the way in TCX. We look now at the #88 GenRacer Hyundai Veloster. Team boss Jeff Ricca has a dual clutch Veloster which keeps the engine wound up and allows for quicker gearshifts. In TCX, Adams passes Garrett for fifth in that class and in the overall. Barbato is cutting 1:57 laps while his competition is down in the 1:58-1:59 range. Ricca has the sister Hyundai in the top five, the team boss. Stephen Cugliari too, he has held down a podium place, the final step on the podium in TCX.
Cugliari and company on this team are learning and the pace discrepancy is real trying to catch Lucas Catania and it seems that he is. He is 2.8 seconds down. Catania protecting while Cugliari is in attack mode. No worries though for Jacob Ruud, eight and a half seconds to the good in TCX in the class lead and in the overall lead. A deeper field in 2022 in TCX. Cattania and Cugliari are gaining experience and Ruud with one full season in the bag, he is really learning and getting used to tese cars. One lap to go for Jacob Ruud going two for two. But he will see it being nip and tuckl on the clock. White flag is out. Ruud leads the motor race by nine and a half seconds. He has not been assailed today or this weekend.
Fast Track Racing, which used to be called Classic BMW in years past. They have experience and great pedigree, running cars in TC America and GT4 America just the same. Ruud to the hairpin at turn 11 for the final time. Jacob Ruud, the Racine, Wisconsin native, breaks out the broom and sweeps the weekend at Sonoma Raceway! Wow! The rest of the field will be scratching their heads and wondering how to stop the BMW team from Fast Track Racing. Kevin Boehm is going to sweep as well, the TCA champ and SCCA Runoffs national champ is victorious. Gresham Wagner wins TCA as well in the Techsport Subaru.
GenRacer will get a top five. Fourth for Ricca and fifth for Barbato as the two cars drag race across the finish line. A couple more battles on the road as we see Mike LaMarra passing Ruben Iglesias. Iglesias ahead of LaMarra. Clean and green the whole way. Ruud is on top again.
Overall/TCX: #1 Jacob Ruud Fast Track Racing BMW M2 CS Racing
TC: #9 Kevin Boehm Skip Barber Racing School Honda Civic Type R TC
TCA: #21 Gresham Wagner TechSport Racing Subaru BRZ TCA
That is a wrap for TC America at Sonoma in the California wine country. They will be headed to Ozarks International Raceway, the new track in Missouri, next month, and that is indeed where we shall meet them for the next races of the SRO TC America Championship as we leave you from the sunny skies and green grass of the rolling hills of Sonoma, California in the California wine country. So long for now, everybody, and take care.
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