Sunday racing action here on the bayou in New Orleans, will hopefully be drier than what we saw for parts of yesterday with the big rainstorm that came through and delayed some of the action which ultimately got going again. It is time now for race two of SRO TC America at NOLA Motorsports Park. The welcome mat has indeed been rolled out for TC America here at NOLA. 2.75 miles and 16 corners. Yesterday's race was wheel to wheel and extremely fun to watch! Today should be no different. Good to have your company along with Ryan Myrehn, Calvin Fish, and Amanda Busick. It is a gorgeous Sunday today compared to the clouds and rain we saw yesterday. Let's reshuffle the deck and go for it again. Last year we didn't even know we were coming here. But everybody loves this place, the track layout is conducive to close competition.
The caveat is that this track is very abrasive. We shall have to see what happens. The cars on the grid and ready to go. Some of the cars we saw in a shemozzle yesterday have regrouped and are ready to go. Jeff Ricca had his third win on the bounce yesterday. This is our first race of the day. Traffic management is a major deal and if you want to start a career in sports car racing, TC America is a good launchpad for a career into GT4, GT3 and perhaps even prototypes in other championships. Cristian Perocarpi was in that wild finish yesterday. Perocarpi had contact with Joe Catania which had a huge crash. No chance of Joe starting this race. He is OK but the car is totaled.
Cars rolling off for two formation laps behind the Toyota Supra safety car. In TCX, in race one, the two Honda's finished 1-2 and both were found to be out of technical regulation for different reasons. One of the teams, VGRT filed an appeal. Dai Yoshihara is still able to take his grid spot. But at L.A. Honda World, Kyle Loh, who was penalized, will start caboose on the field in the TCX class. Loh will be able to test his skills of working traffic. Watch for such drivers as Maddie Aust, Spencer Bucknum, Devin Anderson, and more, to make their moves.
Spencer Bucknum finally broke the duck in TCA and won. Jeff Ricca on pole in TC and Cristian Perocarpi gave him a tough run for his money. Kyle Loh showed tremendous pace and will slice through this field and can he catch Yoshihara? Luca Catania wants to go one better than he did yesterday, today. 40 minutes on the clock. Look after the tires even in a short race like this one. The axle is steering, accelerating, and braking on both ends of the car. Safety car lights off. Here we go. Yoshihara is the lead car.
Into the acceleration zone. Green flag! Let's go! Contact between Catania and one of the others as TC cars start with Ricca leading and Adam Gleason goes for second and the TCA cars start as well. Devin Anderson vs. Spencer Bucknum. Now Bucknum dives his way to the lead and Will Lambros is also right there. Poor old Anderson get dropped down a few places. P.J. Groenke in the Mini and the second Subaru BRZ in the hands of Shaoyi Che want a bite of the cherry as well, look. Lambros to the outside of Bucknum and Groenke spins the Mini!
Groenke's car has sustained damage! Game over for the Canadian! Dear oh dear. Not the way you want a race to go. Groenke will be fuming! Anderson and Lambros continue their battle. Has the safety car been dispatched? Dai Yoshihara is putting daylight between himself and Adam Gleason. Yoshihara of Japan is the former champion in drifting. He has been quick driving a front wheel drive touring car for the first time as Kyle Loh passes Maddie Aust. Aust could get on the podium. We'll see. She is a Formula 4 and single seater veteran.
In TC, Celso Neto is being harried by Clay Williams. Honda vs. Mini. Cristian Perocarpi has dropped like a stone to sixth place. Through turn 13, be neat and tidy. This is a tight final sector onto the front straightaway. Cristian Perocarpi has pulled off the track so it may be game over for him as well. Meanwhile, Gleason has hi hands full with Colin Garrett! This is going to be tight! Gleason on the inside. Catania and Loh are pressing these two blokes too. Take your time and be patient. Gleason forced out wide. Puddles still around the track from torrential rain yesterday.
Gleason defending from both Catania and Loh. Yoshihara has a three second gap as Will Lambros is biffed by Shaoyi Che and Devin Anderson makes a move while Spencer Bucknum consolidates his position. He has a massive gap over everyone else. Bucknum is being coached by veteran driver Ryan Eversley. Anderson closing back in as we compare and contrast the Honda and the Subaru as well as the Mini. All very interesting and capable race cars. Poor old Groenke loves NOLA Motorsports Park and it is a great shame he did not make it too far. Bucknum is taking off and controlling the lead of the motor race in the TCA class.
In TCX, Yoshihara too, leads by four and a half seconds. Catania has a Captain Cook on Gleason. The Honda's are faster than the BMW's but Kyle Loh is also getting stymied a wee bit. Catania and Gleason side by side and Luca Catania makes his move demoting Gleason back another place. Poor old Gleason is loose and Kyle Loh is right on his six. Yoshihara showing incredible pace. Jeff Ricca leads TC and is catching up to the TCX class cars. Ricca went to Korea to race for Hyundai and learned a bunch. He has less power but the ride height and weight have not been changed. Clay Williams in TC is still being harried by Celso Neto in the Honda. Williams passed Neto for position.
Kyle Loh has passed Gleason and Maddie Aust is pushing as well trying to make her move on Gleason. The Fast Track Racing BMW's are running in formation. Team boss Toby Grahovec is high on Maddie Aust's abilities. She was a cheerleader and a gymnast but also wanted to go racing. Her mom was not sure at first but now is accustomed to it. Aust will be at her home track at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, next time out. Kyle Loh also comes from single seaters. He is also learning how to drive a front wheel drive car. Side by side between Loh and Catania. Luca Catania, 11 podiums, six runner-up finishes in 2022.
He might get another runner-up and is still knocking on the door of victory lane. Catania only finished off the podium three times all season in 2022. Jacob Ruud and Colin Garrett battled for the wins last year. Ruud not racing this year. Kyle Loh is being patient and not taking very many risks and contact into Catania! Right in the wheel well too! Ouch! Racing incident I guess. The positions have not changed. In replay, deep into the braking zone, and... boom. Loh was committed. Maddie Aust has made it past Adam Gleason as well, look.
Spencer Bucknum's lead has evaporated, meanwhile, and Will Lambros is now right on his six. Devin Anderson behind these two. Bucknum last time by uncorked his best lap at 1:55.9 but is slower than the others. Lambros and Anderson have pace and they are right on top of Bucknum now. Will Lambros had his first podium in TC America in yesterday's race and he is not afraid to use the curbs. Shaoyi Che in the second Techsport Subaru is watching all of this. Get right on top of the curbs and hook the car into the apex as Spencer Bucknum runs wide and Will Lambros is turning sharper into the corner. Do not overdrive the car in sector three.
Turn 16 leads onto the front stretch and down to turn one. NOLA Motorsports Park reminds me of my home track at Brainerd International Raceway in Brainerd, Minnesota, where it is more of a Pro/Am venue these days. But a long front straightaway with a very tight turn one is what the tracks share. They are also both relatively flat with little to no elevation change. Reset the brake rotors and pads. Don't drag the brake but find solidity in the brake pedal. It looks like Lambros ran over a puddle. NOLA has been saturated because of the rain from yesterday.
Favorable forecast today however. Adam Gleason is driving the same BMW that Jacob Ruud won the title with last year. Jeff Ricca keeping pace with Gleason and Aust in the Hyundai Elantra N TC leading the TC class. The esses are a full throttle situation on new tires before the falloff. Then it becomes more difficult and more precise as the race goes on. Manage the grip levels and the speed as the tire degradation gets worse and worse. Kyle Loh has uncorked his best lap of the race thus far and is running half a second quicker now than race leader Dai Yoshihara. Halfway home. Who has tires left to fight with in the waning moments?
Many unanswered questions yet. This is the fourth race of the 2023 TC America season as Colin Garrett is being monstered by Luca Catania. Catania has regrouped and is beginning to go for it. He smells blood in the water and is the shark while Colin Garrett is the minnow. In TCX, the old and yet overused and sometimes senseless adage of horses for courses comes into play. I think the Honda may outshine the BMW but we shall see. Celso Neto still chasing Clay Williams. The Brazilian keeping pace with the Mini driver. Ricca is running in the class lead here in TC. Great to see these cars bicycling over the curbs. Maybe that is part of the deal.
Our pal Calvin Fish says he did run front wheel drive cars while teaching at the Skip Barber Racing School at Mid Ohio Sports Car Course but neve raced a front wheel drive car in his career. Celso Neto, five years ago, in 2018, became the youngest ever podium finisher in Brazilian Stock Cars at age 18. In TCA, Lambros is right on top of Bucknum now, these two Honda's stuck to each other like glue. L.A. Honda World and Skip Barber Racing School are two of the top teams. Mario Biundo and Ryan Eversley are really helping each other out. The same deal I think is with Spencer Bucknum.
Spencer Bucknum of course is a third generation racing driver after his dad Jeff and his grandfather Ronnie Bucknum who also drove for Honda, most significantly in Formula 1 in the late 1960s. Aust and Gleason running lockstep for the last ten minutes as we have 15 minutes of racing remaining before the checkered flag here today at NOLA. Gleason tries the power and sent it around Aust! Wow! These two are banking away knowledge at a rapid rate. This is Gleason's fourth professional race of his career. He will visit tracks with SRO America touring cars that he will know, later on in the year. Catania in the meantime is keeping the pressure on Colin Garrett for the final podium place in TCX.
Catania is solid and consistent and he will get a breakthrough win this year. I am sure of it having watched him race on these GTWorld broadcasts now for the last couple of years. At Fast Track Racing they have merchandise for Adam Gleason that says "Your Touring Car Heartthrob". Tee hee. Kyle Loh is making inroads and has cut the lead down to 2.8 seconds behind Yoshihara but time is of the essence. Is Yoshihara using up his Pirelli P Zero tires? Loh has found another half a second. The margin is now down to 2.1 seconds. Jeff Ricca is controlling all of it in TC and did the same yesterday until the late yellow before he did win but it was a tough nut to crack.
Some smoke out of another car on the road. Brake smoke? Something more nefarious? We're not sure. For Colin Garrett, he is pushing extremely hard and the tires are really beginning to squirm and beg for mercy. The esees are really high speed for these TCX cars. Catania knows his rival is vulnerable. He will keep applying the pressure for sure. Garrett is a former stock car driver and knows how to work the draft at the big NASCAR tracks like Daytona and Talladega. Catania is setting things up to maybe send it in the dying moments. Dai Yoshihara is pushign his way through traffic and Kyle Loh is reeling him in in a big hurry.
He goes inside of Lambros. Yoshihara has managed everything and so has Kyle Loh. Even a second place would work out for Loh's championship hopes. Yoshihara's result from yesterday of course is pending an appeal. The BMW's have not been able to match the Honda's in TCX just yet. Colin Garrett is the championship leader. Garrett is maximizing his results. He has not had the outright pace he had in 2022 but has won once so far with other solid results compared to the other drivers who have either upped their game or need to find the sweet spot in 2023. Yoshihara is maximizing what he has. Ditto for Colin Garrett in third. Dai Yoshihara is a native of Tokyo, Japan, but has lived in southern California for two decades now.
Yoshihara should have a panache in the driving style coming from drifting but needs to exercise restraint and car control as a touring car racer. Loh still has something to fight with but time is of the essence. The number of laps remaining depends on where Yoshihara is when the clock runs out. There is some tire squeal with these front wheel drive cars. Actually I believe the TCX cars are rear wheel drive. Catania keeping pressure on Garrett who has not cracked. Garrett is really pushing hard. For Garrett, the Rooster Hall team has done very well. Oh no! Dai Yoshihara is off the pace! Kyle Loh has come through to take the lead!
Yoshihara is now back on the button. What happened? Into turn one he lost power for just a second. Huh. That's odd. Did he lose a gear? That is really odd. Team boss Victor Gonzalez said that a part that went awry at Sonoma was not supposed to fail. Kyle Loh has taken the lead. White flag. One lap to go. Kyle Loh has 2 and 3/4 miles remaining. Yoshihara can nurse the car home. Garrett has his hands full now with Catania. Catania to the inside. Who is the last of the late brakers? Catania goes for it and passes. No recourse. Garrett coming back and has the inside line. Garrett tries the long way back to the isnide and takes the spot away.
Just barely enough room between these two for the final podium step in TCX. Great respect between the two drivers. They sparred many times in 2022. But Kyle Loh and L.A. Honda World wins from the back of the pack! Yoshihara still limping around. Spencer Bucknum wins the TC class as Yoshihara halts just shy of the finish line! Heartbreak for the Japanese drift king! Bucknum wins TCA ahead of Lambros and Anderson and in TC it is Jeff Ricca all the way, a perfect four for four to start 2023.
Overall/TCX: #73 Kyle Loh L.A. Honda World Racing Honda Civic Type R TCX
TC: #78 Jeff Ricca GenRacer/Ricca Autosport Hyundai Veloster N TC
TCA: #5 Spencer Bucknum L.A. Honda World Racing Honda Civic Si (FE1)
A clean sweep of the weekend here at NOLA for the same trio of drivers we saw win in yesterday's race. Clay Williams and Sally McNulty finish well. Fuel pickup problems for Dai Yoshihara. Wow. I wonder if he was light on fuel and running out. It was green to checkers with no yellows in today's race. Hence the fuel trouble. Spencer Bucknum jumpstarts his championship bid and Jeff Ricca is the man of the match in TC. A solid run too for Sally McNulty in another GenRacer Hyundai. She may very well have a best career finish. It is her best TCA finish as we cue the dance music for the results.
Spencer Bucknum wins again and Will Lambros has back to back runner up finishes this weekend at NOLA. Lambros is right between Bucknum and Anderson. Ricca, Neto, Williams, the top three in TC. Hyundai, Honda, and Mini and two different Hyundai platforms at GenRacer. Plenty more racing to check out here at NOLA on Sunday yet so stay with us. A great weekend of racing at NOLA Motorsports Park. Next up we go to Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. We'll see you for that one, soon. For now, au revoir from New Orleans. We'll see you next time. Bye bye.
No comments:
Post a Comment