Race Report: Race #2 May 2nd, 2009 Jim Russell Northern California Rotax Challenge

It was a rainy start for the second race of the Jim Russell Northern California Rotax Challenge on Saturday. The rain forecast may have put a damper for some, but it did not take away from a great turnout and some great racing.

Practice started with the forecasted light rain falling, yet 56 eager Rotax racers showed up to get in one of the few opportunities to race in the wet stuff. The rain cut the entries from April down by 10, yet the 56 racers was the second highest entry list for the Rotax Series ever at the Jim Russell International Karting Center track. By qualifying, the rain had lightened up and eventually stopped by the time the pre-mains started and the track eventually went dry by the time the racing was into the 3rd main of the day. The varying track wetness throughout the day gave the racers lots of challenges, as they had to make lots of set up changes to match the changing track conditions.

Rotax Masters and Masters Light - 14 entries took to the track with Reno's David Harwin taking the pole ahead of San Jose's Donald Durbin with the first Masters Light driver Andrea Delfanti in 3rd. In the wet conditions, the heavier Masters class drivers were actually faster than the Light karts since they had more weight to give them better traction in the corners on Infineon's Sprint track.

In the pre-main, Harwin continued his dominance of the day with an 8 second win over Durbin with Jack Arluck (Masters) in third and Lights leader Delfanti in 4th. But as the karts were preparing for the Main, the track was looking more like a dry track than a wet track, but who would be the first to gamble on changing over to the dry slicks? Durbin rolled the dice and went with slicks as did Defanti and one other racer. At the green flag for the main, Harwin took the lead while Durbin was trying to control his slippery kart. But as Durbin's tires heated up he starting reeling in Harwin and eventually overtook last month's class winner. Delfanti also started going faster than Harwin and took over 2nd place with Harwin leading the rest of the rain tire field. In the end, it was Durbin 1st in the race and in the Masters class, Delfanti 2nd and the winner of the Lights class, Harwin (Masters) 3rd, Andre Eriksen (Masters) a much improved 4th and Jack Arluck (Masters) in 5th. In their first Rotax race, David Oroshnik took 2nd in the Lights class with Dolores Mosqueda taking 3rd in Lights.

Mini-Max - 4 drivers braved the rain and had quite a day of hard racing. In the qualifying, JR Raczko won the pole over Harrison Mills, Drew Setzer and last month's winner Cole Davis. In the pre-main, each driver took the race lead only to spin in the rain and fall back. Eventually, Harrison Mills took control and won the pre-main over JR and Drew. In the main, the track was a mixture of mostly dry with some wet spots and JR and Drew took the chance and went with dry tires while Mills and Davis stayed on the rain tires. For the first couple of laps the rain tires won out with Mills taking the lead, but within a couple of laps JR got by and started to stretch out a lead. Setzer then got comfortable with the slicks on the dry/wet track and also got by Mills to take over second. Mills would eventually finish 3rd followed by Davis. This race was the turning point race for the next main with the whole field switching to slicks.

Senior Rotax - The 18 driver field qualified in the rain with last month's winner Nic LeDuc on pole followed by David Harwin and a surprise with Michael Garcia from Bakersfield in 3rd followed by Andrew Novich and Nikola Radosavljevich. The start of the Pre-Main was excellent as all the drivers got through turn one on the wet track and put on a great race of clean but hard racing throughout the field. LeDuc lost the handing on the semi-wet track and went backwards and finished 8th, Harwin took the lead and controlled the race to win his second pre-main of the day. Gregory Liefooghe came from 8th to take 2nd followed by Jake Mottaz, Nikola and Wes Phillips.

The Senior main followed the Mini-Max race and due to the developments of the Mini-Max race, the switch to dry tires was on in the pits and when it came to push off the 18 kart Senior Rotax field, all had their dry tires on. At the start, the first half of the field got through turn one OK, but then a spin in the middle of the field caused about 6 drivers to spin. Three drivers eventually had to pull off due to damage. In the race, Mottaz got shuffled back just after turn one and had to drive back through the field. Phillips worked his way past Harwin to take the early lead and never looked back. Liefooghe raced on to a comfortable second place with Harwin taking third but pushed hard by LeDuc who worked his way up into the top 5. Nikola was 5th for the second race in a row followed by a strong drive by Andrew Novich who had to start the Main in 18th place due to a DNF in the pre main. The best action in the race was for the 6th through 10 positions in the field with dicing between 5 or 6 drivers all race long.

Micro Max - Seven drivers took to the wet track in qualifying for this second race of the season. Wilson Skjerven took the pole over So Cal driver Nicky Hayes and Michael Michoff. In the pre-main, Skjerven took the lead over Hayes. Then Nicky spun and fell back. Michoff took over second followed by Sarah Setzer and Chloe St.George and that is how they took the checkered flag.

In the Main, all the karts took the green on dry tires and Skjerven drove off and hid from the rest of the field. Hayes came from 5th to take the second place spot. Michoff had some troubles and fell back to 6th by the end of the race. The best battle was for the third place spot with Sarah Setzer and Chloe St.George doing battle the entire race. In the end it was Sarah by less than a second over Chloe with 5th going to Annie Breidinger who was another 5 seconds back with her best performance of the year.

Junior Rotax - Six drivers showed up on this rainy morning to tackle Infineon's Sprint track layout. In qualifying, Dylan Lupton took the pole over Brody Zink and Kiel Spaulding. The 10 lap pre-main was run in drying conditions with Brody Zink becoming the first driver to put on the slicks and see if that was the way to go fast. Unfortunately for Brody, he was one race ahead of his time, for he went from 2nd to 6th by the end of the pre-main. Lupton took the lead at the flag but was passed early on by Spaulding who went on to a 3-second win. Conner Ford eventually made his way by the pole setter and took second followed by Lupton and Bryce Hylbert.

In the main, Spaulding lead from green to checkered to take his second main win in a row. Lupton got by Ford to settle into second place. Ford then spun and lost a lap and came home 5th. Bryce Hybert held onto 3rd at the end but was being pressured by a Brody Zink at the checkered flag.

Rotax DD2 - The 2 speed Rotax class had seven drivers for Race #2. In qualifying, last Race #1 winner Troy Castaneda took the pole over Kyle Gimple and David Arnstein. In the pre-main, one driver took to the track on slicks and this was the first race where the slicks worked. Troy took the initial lead in the DD2 pre-main with Tim Salveson starting in 5th on his dry tires. As the race wore on, Tim was able to get comfortable with the wet-dry track. Tim then picked off one kart at a time and near the end of the race drove by Troy to take the win. Gimple and Arnstein followed in the 3rd and 4th positions.

In the main, Castaneda won the drag race to the first turn to take the lead. Arnstein was able to get by Tim quickly and was able to pull out some space to allow him to cruise home in 2nd. The best racing was for 3rd/4th and for 5th/6th. Gimple worked on Salvelson for much of the race until he was able to get by the quick DD2 newcomer and finished in 3rd, one second in front of Salveson. Dave Moody was under pressure for the entire race from January Grove and held off the pressure to take 5th place by just one second.
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Race #3 for the Jim Russell Northern California Rotax Series is Saturday June 6. Normal dry sunny weather should return to the Infineon track so the good racing can continue. The track layout in June will be the very popular Reverse National track.