Beautiful Weather, Big Turnout and Fantastic Racing for Round #3 of the 2009 Jim Russell Northern California Rotax Challenge

Dry weather returned to Northern California just in time for round three of the 2009 Jim Russell Northern California Rotax Challenge. The racers responded with 62 entries making it the second largest race day in series history.

The atmosphere in the pit area was great and with the full line up of Rotax classes now being run, racers from ages eight to sixty-plus came out to enjoy some strong, competitive racing on the popular Reverse National track layout at the Jim Russell International Karting Center at Infineon Raceway.

Rotax Masters and Masters Light

Seventeen karts took to the track for the first race of the day. Pole went to two time class winner Andrea Delfanti (Lights) with Jack Arluck (Masters) off pole. The winners of the two previous Masters class races filled the second row with Donald Durbin 3rd and David Harwin 4th. The third row consisted of the two women drivers in the field, Mary Beth Wilson (Lights) in 5th and newcomer Dolores Mosqueda (Lights) in 6th.

In the Pre-Main, Delfanti took the early lead and lead the entire twelve laps to take a 12 second win, but there was plenty of action was right behind. Arluck, Harwin and Durbin began the battle for the Masters class lead. Early on, Durbin overshot the turn two sweeper and had to take to the cut off road to avoid a collision. Arluck then had problems and dropped out on lap 10 leaving Harwin to cruise to a comfortable 2nd. Wilson and Mosqueda started their battle right from the green flag until Mosqueda spun in turn three. She would eventually rejoin the race one lap down. Wilson went on to finish a solid 3rd followed by Jerry Pretti (Masters) in 4th and Andre Eriksen (Masters) in 5th.

In the Main, Delfanti controlled the front of the race unchallenged and went on to a 3 second win to make it three class wins in a row. Harwin ran strong and fast but he knew that Durbin and Arluck were going to be coming through the field. Durbin made the best progress through the field and eventually finished 3rd, followed by Wilson in 4th overall and 2nd in the Lights class. This was an impressive drive by Mary Beth Wilson; maybe her best drive in the last two years. Jack Arluck worked his way up to 5th followed by Pretti, Eriksen, Jay Brosius (Masters), Steve Weiss (Lights) and Mert Solis (Lights).

Rotax Micro Max

The seven drivers in the Micro class had an action filled day. In Qualifying, Wilson Skjerven cracked the minute mark to take pole followed by Michael Michoff, Nicky Hayes and Sarah Setzer.

In the Pre-Main, after early battles, Nicky Hayes pulled away to take a 7 second win over Skjerven with Setzer narrowly beating out Nate Fleischli. Michoff had kart problems and went a lap down.

A great battle was in store for the Main. Skjerven and Hayes battled at the front, with Michoff charging through the field. Setzer pulled away from Fleischli to run a pretty uneventful race with the last three karts in the field battled all race long. Skjerven's race came to an end with a kart problem. Michoff then caught Hayes and they dueled for the remainder of the race. At the checked flag, Hayes pulled out the win by just over a second over Michoff with Setzer finishing a comfortable 3rd. The battle for 4th was a great one between Fleischli and the Breidinger sisters. Toni and Annie went into the tight turn two hairpin side-by-side late in the race and came together for a moment and that was all Fleischli needed to get by and take 4th place followed by Toni then Annie Breidinger.

Rotax Mini Max

Even though the class was only four karts, the best battle for a win came in Mini Max on this day. Drew Setzer took the pole over Harrison Mills, JR Raczko and new comer Camden Lile. In the twelve lap Pre-Main, Setzer and Raczko hooked up for a race long battle with Mills just behind. Setzer took the win by just .178 seconds. The fast front trio went at it again in the Main, but the battle now lasted eighteen laps. Setzer took the early lead with Raczko right behind, followed by Mills. Raczko went from one side of Setzer's rear bumper to the other looking for a way by.

In the mean time, Mills was sitting a couple seconds back waiting for a chance to take the win if Raczko and Setzer were to come together. In the end, Setzer withstood the pressure and took an even closer .170 second win over Raczko, with Mills finishing 3rd and Lile in 4th.

Junior Rotax

After the first two races, Kiel Spaulding with two wins has been in control of the Junior Rotax class. Was this the race when the field would catch up and be able to challenge Kiel?

In qualifying, Dylan Lupton gave some early indications that he had what it took by taking the pole by over a third of a second ahead Kiel who was off pole followed by Conner Ford and Brody Zink.


At the start of the Pre-Main, Dylan took the lead at the green and Kiel lost a couple spots coming out of turn one. Kiel made a couple of passes and got back to second, but he could never make a serious run for the lead. Lupton took the win with Kiel just over a second back followed by Ford, Zink and Austin Root.

In the Main, Spaulding got off the green well and took the race lead going into turn one. Spaulding opened up a good lead and held it steady for the remainder of the race to take his third win in a row. Lupton finished strong in 2nd making three 2nd place finishes in a row followed by a much improved performance from Conner Ford in 3rd. Brody Zink took 4th, but he was pressuring Ford the whole way and finished only .037 seconds back. Austin Root took the 5th place spot.

Senior Rotax

The Senior Rotax field was 17 strong and like the first two races, the field was very deep in talent.

In Qualifying, Jake Mottaz took the pole just barely over Nic LeDuc followed by Gregory Liefooghe, Nikola Radosavljevich, Troy Castenada and David Harwin.
In the Pre-Main, the field got through turn one cleanly, but the sparks started flying at turn two. The top six drivers were diving into corners and making passes at nearly every corner. Mottaz first would lead, then LeDuc with the next four drivers all shuffling positions. On lap four, Harwin went around a couple of drivers that were battling and came up the hill into the last turn side-by-side with Radosavljevich. Unfortunately, the two karts' front wheels touched and both karts went up in the air. Harwin got the worst of it when his kart flipped bringing out a red flag.

On the single file restart, minus Harwin, Mottaz took the lead and the mad dish racing continued. Mottaz and LeDuc continued to go back and forth for the lead. A great battle between Carlos Calderon, Matthew Powers, Jordan Jadallah and Donavon Wheeler raged on until the end of the twelve lap race. LeDuc came home first, but was underweight and thus would start the Main from the back. Mottaz was declared the winner followed by Radosavljevich, Castenada, Liefooghe and Calderon.

For the Main, the start was good for all except Radosavljevich who got muscled off the exit of turn one and fell back several positions. Mottaz was able to open up a lead and was never challenged. But, right behind there was constant passing going on. Liefooghe got by Castenada. Castenada then got passed by Jordan Jadallah who came up from the 7th spot. LeDuc was picking off one or two positions a lap and got by Castenada near the end of the race to come home 4th. Castenada held onto the 5th spot with a much improving Carlos Calderon taking the 6th spot.

In his real senior class debut race, Donavon Wheeler drove a strong race to take the 7th spot with Radosavljevich recovering to take 8th, followed by Harwin and Powers. The top eight positions all finished within 10 seconds of each other showing how competitive the Nor Cal Senior Rotax field is. With three races in the book, there have been three different winners so for in 2009.

Rotax DD2

For the past three years, the 2-speed Rotax DD2 class has been mostly a masters aged group with few, if any young drivers campaigning the series. That all changed as four senior age drivers ran this round #3 event. But, don't tell that to David Arnstein...Arnstein, last year's DD2 champion as well as the Jim Russell Grand Masters driver of the year, took the pole over Troy Castenada, winner of the first two races. Castenada was 2nd followed by seventeen year old Kyle Gimple, January Grove and Tim Salveson.

DD2 Class ready for battle (photo:NorCal Rotax)

In the Pre-Main, Castenada took the lead early in the race and went on to a 3 second win over Arnstein with Gimple coming back to take 3rd after a bad start. Grove and Salveson finished 4th and 5th.

In the Main, Troy once again took an early lead with Arnstein very close behind. Arnstein then made a pass and took the lead for much of the middle portion of the race. Meanwhile, behind the leading duo, Gimple had another slow start and had to work his way back through the field. Grove and Salveson were dueling back and forth until Salveson's kart started losing its brakes. Newcomer Bronson Eggert took over challenging for the 3rd and 4th positions. Late in the race, Castenada took back the race lead, but Arnstein was not going to give the race away too easily. Arnstein stayed close for the last few laps and came up .225 seconds behind Castenada at the checkered flag. Again, Gimple had to come from 6th and by race end had taken over 3rd, 8 seconds back of the winner. Grove came home 4th followed by the young Eggert in 5th and Bruce Weir in 6th.

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The Jim Russell Northern California Rotax Series will now take a six week break, returning to Jim Russell International Karting Center at Infineon Raceway on Saturday, July 18th, when the drivers will run the Sprint track layout again.

Full race results including MyLaps data posted on series website at http://results.norcalrotax.com.

Some snaps of the days events have been posted at http://www.norcalrotax.com/multimedia/.

2009 National points tables can be found at www.usrmaxnrd.com.

For more information about the Jim Russell Northern California Rotax Challenge, contact race director Ric Shaw at racedirector-ric@hotmail.com or go to the Nor Cal Rotax website at www.norcalrotax.com.

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