R A C E  R E P O R T

Willow Springs, CA
March 8-9, 2003

Tom Neely held off the always hard charging C.J. Bonura to win the season opener and in the process and take the early points lead for the series.  Neely, driving the impeccably prepared 510 of Don Halliday, was smooth and fast and this combination produced a new lap record around Willow with a blistering 1:34.637.   However it wasn’t an easy weekend for Neely, he had electrical problems in the qualifying race on Saturday but was able to have everything ready for Sunday’s final race.  Neely is a regular with NASPORT in his GT3 Nissan and has competed in a few 2.5 Challenge events. This was the first win for him and the Halliday 510 in the VSRG 2.5 Challenge series.

Perfect weather, and a great turn out of cars greeted the competitors of the VSRG 2.5 Challenge presented by iRPM, G2 Graphics, Alfa Parts, Performance Motors, and BSedan.com at Willow Springs for the opener.  John Morton was on hand to drive what has become the premier sedan race series on the West Coast. Also on hand to watch the event was Silva Wilkerson, author of the book the “Stainless Steel Carrot” that chronicled the original 2.5 Challenge.  During the course of Sunday’s final race, Morton and Wilkerson watched as the pack of small sedans, that included three 510’s running side-by-side, screamed down the front straight when Wilkerson was overheard to say; “this is better than the original series… closer racing and more cars”.

At the drop of the green on Sunday, pole qualifier C.J. Bonura led the twenty car field into turn one with Mckee, Cohen, Link, and Neely close behind.  It didn’t take long however for Neely to move through the front runners and show them the fast way around Willow Springs. Bonura held to the bumper of Neely with his usual determination and Link slipped passed the ill-handling Alfa of Mckee and the hard charging 510 of Cohen. Although Bonura stayed on the tail of Neely’s 510 he was not able to get the lead back and settled for a second;  “I had high hopes of a win to at the start the season but the red brick just couldn’t catch Tom” said Bonura.  Steve Link spun in turn three leaving McKee and Cohen to battle it out for third.  Cohen made a desperate attempt for the final podium spot with an attempted pass on McKee in the final turn but ended his chances with a spectacular spin into the dirt outside of turn nine.  Cohen recovered quickly and took a fourth place finish.

Just behind the lead group of cars was another epic battle happening between Rookie Richard Beard, Bob Wass, Dirk Stoehr, Marrisa Clay, and Jim McAdory.  Due to a loose throttle cable in Saturday’s qualifier, McAdory had to start from the back of the pack. He was able to close the gap on the Wass, Stoehr, Clay group but for most of the race watched while the Alfas and BMW went at it.   With only two laps to go, Clay spun giving McAdory another top ten finish. Stoehr was steady and had his best 2.5 Challenge finish to date and Bob Wass finished a credible sixth behind what could be this years “Rookie of the Year” Richard Beard. Beard ran times that would have placed him among the top cars just two years ago but this year it was good only for fifth.

Don Forrester’s yellow Alfa and Robert Turney’s yellow 510 seemed hooked together all weekend with Al (“wrong way”) Bourdet nipping at their heels the entire race.  It was good to see Turney and Forrester return to the 2.5 Challenge with such good results.  Also “Wrong Way” kept his Alfa pointed in the right direction all weekend!  Kidding aside Bourdet has pulled many an all-nighter getting his car ready to race has proven to be a serious competitor in the series. 

Two new comers Gianfranco Masdea (Alfa GTV) and Allen Denson (Ford Capri) had beautifully prepared cars. Masdea car was out for the first time on a racetrack for it’s shake down weekend but he is a veteran competitor and expect to hear more from this very capable driver and car. Denson has the distinction of racing the first Capri in the series and we expect to see him near the front soon. We wish them both good luck and hope to see the drivers and cars at future events.

John Morton who was there to race Les Cannaday’s Datsun 1200 but unfortunately the clutch burned up early on much to the disappointment of everyone. We all wanted to see how the little Datsun could go, maybe next time John? John did however do some laps in Steve Links 510 Sunday morning, many drivers were on the pit wall with stop watches to see the veteran in a 510 having fun as he blew by quite a few surprised pony car drivers.

For you KBR fans, the Kattchee brothers were missing Ted but Chris did make the race. As a one man team Chris struggled with a transmission problem but did get in quite a bit of good track time.

-O-