Rose Cup Race Report - June 2007

The grid for the National race settled in with Ken Sutherland in the Wyatt Fire Protection/Miatacage.com #94, Brian Towey in the Dent Devil #26, John Mefford from Nevada in the #87, Brad Rampelberg in #14 and Will Schraeder in the Midas #41.

The green flag waved and instantly you saw Miatas 4 wide, 2 to 3 rows deep on the front straight, heading for the chicane. Ken led them into the first turn with Brad right behind him. It didn’t look pretty but it was a clean start as everyone made it through T-1 and T-2 without incident. Fairly quickly, Ken and Brad pulled out from the rest of the pack and proceeded to have an intense battle, lap after lap. Brian, John, Will and Fenn Bourland in the Urbaca Salon #3 had a 4 car race with the all of them changing positions lap after lap. At one point Brian and John pulled away from the other 2 to have their own battle, leaving Will and Fenn to duke it out. Will seemed to be fighting a loose car which got the best of him halfway through the race. He was leading Fenn into T-12 and the car came around on him sending him spinning off the track. He was able to get back on the track but in 5th or 6th position and by this time Fenn was on his way down the straight, off to try and catch Ken and Brad.

At one point I realized that the #60 driven by Jonny Davies hadn’t been on track and I spotted him sitting in the hot pits. Jonny had been fighting a brake problem all weekend and I guessed that this meant the brakes had won (for now). I was excited to have Jonny back in the Miata group this weekend and a disappointment to see him retire early from the race.

Even though Brad was on Ken’s bumper most of the time, Ken was able to hold him off throughout much the race. Each lap when they came around to the front straight they looked like one car, not two. Brad did take the lead a couple of times but never was able to hold it for a whole lap. Ken’s car seemed to be handling really well and he was driving in the zone. I was very happy and relieved to see Ken come off of T-12 on the last lap with a 2 car gap over Brad and take that checkered flag. These 30 minute races are torture and I swear they age me.

There were other great races throughout the field. Bruce Wilson and Dan McKeever (from Utah), James Wetter and Chuck Hall to name a few. With the field being spread out fairly quickly, you never knew which part of the track to keep an eye on. You knew no matter where you looked you would see a good shoot-out.

With the intensity of this race, I am happy to report that everyone came out without any damage. There we some spins, a couple bumps and a tire off the track here and there but nothing a little rubbing compound, and a good cleaning won’t fix. The announcers kept saying during the race how much they enjoyed watching the Miatas and how they put on the best show of the weekend. I was hoping the officials couldn’t hear them call-out who was bumping who on the back stretch though.

Another National event was in the books and everyone headed back to their pits to prepare for Sunday’s regional race.

Sunday was the “regional” day during Rose Cups with qualifying in the morning for the SMs. Brian captured the pole, with Fenn taking 2nd, Ken 3rd, Geoff Cochran in the mazdaparts.com #60 starting 4th and James Wetter in 5th.

Before the race, Wyatt Fire Protection hosted a great SM BBQ for lunch. This would not have happened without Lori Wilson, Jodi Cochran and Jenny Wetter. Lori did all of the shopping and schlepping the stuff to the track, Jodi helped with the logistics and set-up and Jenny flipped the burgers and brats. Thank you guys for making this a success. Everyone loves the grub and the chance to sit down and visit (except for Jonny who continued to trouble shoot the #60 – sorry Jonny).

The good lunch came in handy because the guys needed the energy for what ended up being another competitive nail-bitter. Besides that it was terribly muggy and warm and the SM race was scheduled for the hottest part of the day – 4:30 PM.

The green flag waves and again 4 wide down the front stretch. The front row is Ken, Brian, Fenn and Geoff. Ken was able to take the lead going into T-1, with Brian and Geoff wanting the same piece of the track for 2nd place. Just a few feet behind them going in T-2 is Fenn and James, directly followed by Bruce and Dan making a Will sandwich. Looking at this all I could think was “This can’t result in anything good” but again they made it through.

The field shook out with Ken in the lead, Brian 2nd and Fenn 3rd and they swapped the lead back and forth a few times. John Mefford was liking what he was seeing because it enabled him to catch up to the pack, and Will took advantage of it too. Ken and Fenn had some great side-by-side racing into T-1 (which as the wife I didn’t care for), with Brian, John and Will right behind them. At one point, Will hit the nitris button and rocketed into 2nd place coming out of T-2. When they came back around to where we could see Will had the lead. Unfortunately at this point, Jim Graffey spun in T-1 and somehow brought a lot of dirt onto the track. This ended up being unfortunate for Will mostly. Ken and Will came into T-1 side by side with Will being on the inside (and on the side where most of the dirt was). Will spun and Ken drove off. This left Will back in 5th or 6th after being passed by the train of cars that were right behind them.

Brian and Fenn seemed to work together to reel Ken back in with Fenn eventually taking over the lead. Fenn, Brian and Ken had some awesome side-by-side racing in T-1 that sometimes continued over in T-5, 6 and 7. In the meantime, Will is driving the wheels off his car and making his way back up to the lead pack. He eventually took over the lead toward the end of the race, which we all couldn’t believe. The announcers said 2 laps to go so we knew we were getting close to the end. We were waiting for the one to go and we could see that Fenn and Ken were right on Will’s bumper as they came onto the front straight. Then I notice something waving at the start/finish which I come to realize is the checkered flag! Will wins the race! What the heck? No one to go? Dang, I would have loved to have seen how it would have ended if Fenn and Ken would have had one more lap.

I was taking pictures so I wasn’t able to see a lot of what was going on further back in the pack but from what I could see there was more great racing there too. From what I could see John Wymore and James Burke had a good battle, as did Bruce and Dan (again). There were some spins (several single car spins in the chicane) and scrapes but again another intense race with no major damage.

It was fun to have several new guys in our group and some veterans returning too (John Mefford, Mike Volk, Dan McKeever, James Burke, James Wetter, Robert Murillo, Richard Hindman, Jonny Davies). Congratulations to Dave Dunning for winning the free entry – hope you had a good time and that you’ll be back. I suspect they all had fun and will be back. The announcers said more than once that the Miatas put on the best show all weekend, and they could hardly contain their excitement waiting to see who would be leading as the cars popped out of T-11. I couldn’t agree more. Great job to everyone for another great Spec Miata race weekend!!