CART Track Day #1 Lime Rock Park: Smooth as silk by Liam Dwyer

Just three short days before Fathers Day the Connecticut Autocross and Rally Team held its first track day of the season. The genius weatherman called for a bright sunny day, but alas, they were wrong, who would have guessed? Instead, brief rain fell in the morning and cloud cover threatened us with rain all day. Fortunately the next round of showers held off until after the event was finished and over 60 drivers got to drive around the “Road Racing Center of the East.” Limerock is a tight circuit, with different style corners all over the track.

This was CARTs first time running at LRP in the dry since it was repaved. The concrete patches in Big Bend are now smooth asphalt along with the bumps down No-Name straight. These two changes plus numerous other fixes made LRP a fun smooth track. But the traps still remain….the downhill turn, all important to getting your run down the front straight, the Uphill Turn and the fast Westbend. Many challenges, tight circuit, great fun.

Fifty-seven drivers took their turn around the 1.53 mile traditional circuit. In Super Stock, Bill Evans piloted his z06 to the top time beating out Gerald Lane’s Porsche. Joe Solury was quickest in B Stock in his C4 Corvette beating out Warren Elliott’s Evo. John Margaritas was quickest in C stock in his Nismo 350z. Jim Duphiney gave it a try in E Stock in his Miata and lead the way with a 69.6. Jerry Jones brought out his new 2010 Mustang and ran it 100% stock and clocked a 67.2 second lap on street tires. Martin Hosek battled Joe Rathbun for top honors in G Stock and the Japanese Subaru ran quicker than the 4 banger Neon. Ted Dalenta earned the H Stock just by showing up and driving.

In BSP, Liam Dwyer through on the R comps and set a blistering lap of 60.0 seconds, just barely missing the sub 1 minute barrier. Jeff Guerrera was second in his school bus…..I mean Evo. Paul Omichinski was again your CSP winner, piloting his recently (midnight the night before) rebuilt Porsche 924S to the top spot. Robert Bath took the DSP win in his Spec Miata. Bath got to sit back and watch Charles Cantoni and Jeff Szmczyk battle it out. Szmczyk barely edged Cantoni for second, literally being just .001 seconds. German engineering lead the way in ESP as Steve Farley’s S4 took the class win of the “Goats” of Shaun Griffin and Rob Anderson. In XP, the battle of the Mazda’s took place, a wide body Miata vs over muffled Rx7. Mike Miller took the RX7 to the class in by almost four tenths of a second.

Nick Fandacone, winner of every FTD this season showed up at Limerock with fresh Hoosiers in hopes to continue that streak. Fandacone put down a tough lap of 61.3 almost 3 full seconds faster than he’s ever gone. It was enough to earn him the BP class win but not enough to take FTD. Yaro Taeger has his best friend back, Marc Boerma. Boerma tossed him the keys to his beautiful 65 Mustang. Taeger thanked him by taking the class win and beating the owner by 4.6 seconds. A pair of GTI’s earned class wins in EP and FP, Steve Ohlinger ran a 68.2 to win EP while Justin Baltrucki piloted his uber fast GTi to the FP with a 61.9 second lap.

CART's next event is an autocross at Rowley spring, Sunday June 27.

<