Another La Rocca F2000 Win
Lexington, OH – Robert La Rocca held off a very brief restart challenge and led all 18 laps from pole, taking his eighth win of 2012 with ease, and extending what is already a massive Championship points lead in the F2000 Series. La Rocca won round nine of the 2012, 14-race season, in the No. 10 HP-Tech Van Diemen, finishing ahead of John LaRue and Wyatt Gooden.
“It got a bit hairy there on the restart,” said La Rocca, who has also been driving F3 in Europe this summer. “I knew LaRue was going to be quick but I got through turns one, two and three okay and then just put my head down.”
La Rocca completes yet another points sweep, with bonus points for pole and fast lap during the race which saw a lengthy caution period when Kyle Connery spun on the first lap.
For LaRue, it was the best finish of the year in his Citation chassis, and the Masters class driver also notched the Masters win for the race.
“The balance on the car came in after a few laps, and this was really the first outing with a car we can work with,” said LaRue. “It has been tough to get it up to speed … Robert is awful fast here.”
Rookie Gooden completed the podium for Quantum Racing Services with a third place drive after starting fifth.
“That was old-fashioned racing with a lot of passing,” explained Gooden. “I was fortunate to get through the first lap, I saw Connery sidesways in front of the whole field and people were going every which way.”
Completing the top five were Kevin Kopp, for WISKO F2000, and Tim Paul, in the SMR/GTP Motorsports Van Diemen.
Paul was second after the restart and looked to briefly challenge La Rocca before his car become too loose to stay attached to the Championships leader.
An exciting three-wide pass in the middle of the race saw Gooden go around the outside of Paul and Kopp at the end of the back stretch.
Cesar LaPoint finished sixth in his debut race for HP-Tech Motorsport, picking up speed in every session of the weekend thus far in the No. 33 Van Diemen.
Completing the top ten where Chris Livengood, Tom Fatur, Tim Minor and Dave Weitzenhof, all representing three different chassis with Livengood in a RFR, Fatur in a Van Diemen, and Minor and Weitzenhof in Citation cars.
Dean Baker received the WISKO Best Start award, advancing eight positions on a chaotic opening lap.
The CellMark Paper Hard Charger award was given to Rob Allaer, picking up ten spots to finish 16th.
An opening lap incident led to a full course caution, with Kyle Connery among the cars collected. The incident also shuffled Niki Coello, in the thick of the points battle, back to 28th for the restart. Coello recovered to finish an impressive 14th with a broken suspension arm.
A similar performance on Sunday, with bad luck for his closest competitors, including Gooden, Minor, Paul and Coello, could give La Rocca an early Championship trophy with four races to go.
Sunday concludes the event with 8:40 qualifying and a 12:50 18-lap or 30-minute race. Updates and live audio for qualifying and races will be available on www.F2000Series.com.
Race Results
Pos No. Name Laps Total Tm Diff Gap Avg. Speed Best Tm Best Spd 1 10 Robert LaRocca 17 31:52.744 - - 72.247 1:24.538 96.156 2 17 John LaRue/M 17 31:55.950 +3.206 +3.206 72.126 1:24.822 95.834 3 6 Wyatt Gooden 17 31:58.576 +5.832 +2.626 72.027 1:24.972 95.664 4 66 Kevin Kopp 17 32:01.455 +8.711 +2.879 71.919 1:25.505 95.068 5 06 Tim Paul 17 32:03.470 +10.726 +2.015 71.844 1:25.787 94.756 6 33 Cesar LaPoint 17 32:07.976 +15.232 +4.506 71.676 1:25.896 94.635 7 37 Chris Livengood 17 32:08.325 +15.581 +0.349 71.663 1:25.961 94.564 8 70 Tom Fatur/M 17 32:09.318 +16.574 +0.993 71.626 1:26.077 94.436 9 88 Tim Minor/M 17 32:16.355 +23.611 +7.037 71.366 1:25.398 95.187 10 67 Dave Weitzenhof/M 17 32:17.307 +24.563 +0.952 71.331 1:26.504 93.970 11 42 Bill Jordan/M 17 32:17.794 +25.050 +0.487 71.313 1:26.651 93.811 12 18 Zach Craigo 17 32:18.682 +25.938 +0.888 71.280 1:26.284 94.210 13 52 Dean Baker/M 17 32:20.062 +27.318 +1.380 71.229 1:26.954 93.484 14 81 Niki Coello 17 32:20.192 +27.448 +0.130 71.225 1:25.591 94.973 15 90 Robert Wright/M 17 32:21.220 +28.476 +1.028 71.187 1:26.611 93.854 16 02 Rob Allaer 17 32:21.482 +28.738 +0.262 71.177 1:25.897 94.634 17 51 Dan Denison/M 17 32:22.068 +29.324 +0.586 71.156 1:26.243 94.255 18 9 Jose Montiel 17 32:31.045 +38.301 +8.977 70.829 1:27.105 93.322 19 59 Shaun Miller 17 32:31.628 +38.884 +0.583 70.807 1:27.383 93.025 20 23 Joey Selmants 17 32:32.205 +39.461 +0.577 70.786 1:26.566 93.903 21 16 Peter Gonzalez/M 17 32:33.591 +40.847 +1.386 70.736 1:27.329 93.082 22 15 Aaron Pettipas 17 32:33.954 +41.210 +0.363 70.723 1:27.012 93.422 23 73 Vaughn Horvath 17 32:34.091 +41.347 +0.137 70.718 1:26.720 93.736 24 35 Eric Presbrey 17 32:51.629 +58.885 +17.538 70.089 1:28.328 92.030 25 4 Dennis McCarthy/M 17 33:06.465 +1:13.721 +14.836 69.566 1:29.645 90.678 26 13 Barry Gilbert/M 16 31:55.204 1 Lap 1 Lap 67.910 1:31.385 88.951 27 94 Al Guibord, Sr. 16 32:27.261 +32.057 +32.057 66.792 1:33.762 86.696 28 61 Tom Drake/M 15 33:07.674 2 Laps 1 Lap 61.344 1:28.707 91.637 29 27 Craig Clawson/M 14 28:52.729 3 Laps 1 Lap 65.679 1:29.475 90.850 30 39 Paul Alspach 13 32:06.259 4 Laps 1 Lap 54.860 1:27.918 92.459 DNF 91 Kyle Connery 0 5.241 17 Laps 13 Laps - -.--- - DNF 19 John Brumder/M 0 15.119 +9.878 +9.878 - -.--- - DNF 46 Doug Rocco 0 26.529 +21.288 +11.410 - -.--- -