Inge Passes Miller, Wins Race One at Summit Point

“This was an absolute team effort,” said Inge in victory lane. “I also have to thank my parents for all their support, the car St. Clair Motorsports prepared was totally awesome. I managed to get by Chris (Miller) going into one and then we caught Minor. He was sliding the car all over the place and eventually spun off. From there I just made sure to keep enough of a gap to make sure Miller couldn’t catch the air off my rear wing down the straight.”

Miller said: “We are doing exactly what we need to do for the points and Matt (Inge) was just perfect today. He drove a great race and never made a mistake. I just didn’t have anything for him at the end.”

In the points battle, Inge gains three points back on leader Chris Miller. Per F2000 rules, with the lowest two races dropped, Miller leads fellow American Inge by a slim 23 points in the championship with just three races to go.

Fabio Orsolon bags his third podium finish of the season as Alegra Motorsports continues to pick up the pace, teammate Victor Carbone came home in fifth. “We are coming,” Orsolon said. “The start was a little nuts and going into turn one I braked as late as I could, getting by at least one car. From there we just sort of followed the lead pack and near the end of the race the car developed some crazy understeer, so I was just hanging on.”

At the drop of the green outside pole sitter and 2008 Masters Class champion Tim Minor got around Chris Miller going into turn one. From there Minor stretched a lead to almost two seconds while Miller was busy with Matthew Inge, Inge eventually got by going into turn one and wasted no time in catching Minor. In three laps Minor’s almost two second lead was gone.

As Inge looked for a way by going into one, Minor lost control of his #88 Van Diemen, spinning. This gave the lead to Inge, who controlled the pace for the race of the race, taking his second win of the season by just a few tenths over Chris Miller.

“I just turned into turn one and I don’t know,” commented Minor. “I’m not sure if there was dirt on the track or I ran over something but there was a ton of grip and then there was no grip and I spun off and was stranded. The good news was that we didn’t damage the car and will be back at the front tomorrow.”

Benjamin Searcy came home fifth for Z-Sports, but was disqualified as his #10 Van Diemen failed post race technical inspection by being just three pounds underweight.

Rob Nicholas took his second straight Masters class win, coming home in sixth overall. Nicholas started eighth and was slowly working his way up the field before an incident with Keith McCrone cost them both valuable track position.

“I was trying to outbrake McCrone going into turn one and both of us just ran out of race track, I got back going again and just started picking off cars,” Nicholas said. “The car doesn’t really come in for five laps or so but then it just takes off.”

A mid-race tangle between Jonathan Scarallo, who was running a solid seventh, and the lapped car of Len Amato ended both their days prematurely.

Scarallo’s Group A teammate, Colin Alexander, also suffered a DNF when his gearbox failed. Alexander explained: “Things were going really well, I was right behind Johnny (Scarallo) in eighth and the coming out of turn one I went to shift into second and there was nothing there, no gears at all. I just pulled the car off into a safe spot but I am really happy with our pace up until that point, it shows we are going to be quick tomorrow.”

Follow the action on F2000ChampionshipSeries.com tomorrow as the F2000 Series starts with a 10:25am qualifying session followed by a 2:30pm green flag.

Race Results:

Pos No. Name Laps Total Tm Diff Gap Avg. Speed Best Tm Best Spd 1 02 Matthew Inge 22 26:31.497 - - 99.529 1:11.555 100.622 2 85 Chris Miller 22 26:32.192 +0.695 +0.695 99.485 1:11.460 100.756 3 26 Fabio Orsolon 22 26:37.912 +6.415 +5.720 99.129 1:11.755 100.341 4 21 Remy Audette 22 26:42.706 +11.209 +4.794 98.833 1:11.681 100.445 DQ 10 Benjamin Searcy 22 26:50.404 +18.907 +7.698 98.360 1:12.259 99.642 5 23 Victor Carbone 22 26:58.552 +27.055 +8.148 97.865 1:12.705 99.030 6 89 Rob Nicholas/M 22 26:58.607 +27.110 +0.055 97.862 1:11.955 100.063 7 70 Tom Fatur/M 22 27:06.608 +35.111 +8.001 97.381 1:12.958 98.687 8 5 Keith McCrone/M 22 27:09.993 +38.496 +3.385 97.178 1:12.000 100.000 9 25 Jeff McCusker/M 22 27:12.247 +40.750 +2.254 97.044 1:13.217 98.338 10 96 Alejandro Munoz 22 27:14.240 +42.743 +1.993 96.926 1:13.097 98.499 11 27 Craig Clawson/M 22 27:16.771 +45.274 +2.531 96.776 1:12.886 98.784 12 7 Brent Gilkes/M 22 27:31.329 +59.832 +14.558 95.923 1:13.019 98.604 13 90 Robert Wright/M 22 27:32.582 +1:01.085 +1.253 95.850 1:12.927 98.729 14 94 Blake Teeter 22 27:43.074 +1:11.577 +10.492 95.245 1:13.772 97.598 15 51 Dan Denison/M 21 26:17.439 1 Lap 1 Lap 95.852 1:13.429 98.054 16 22 Jonathon Scarallo 18 22:05.650 4 Laps 3 Laps 97.763 1:12.307 99.575 17 33 Len Amato 17 22:05.149 5 Laps 1 Lap 92.367 1:13.428 98.055 18 12 Colin Alexander 16 19:40.614 6 Laps 1 Lap 97.576 1:12.430 99.406 19 97 Chris Gumprecht 12 15:35.261 10 Laps 4 Laps 92.381 1:12.764 98.950 20 47 Scott Gesford 11 13:52.845 11 Laps 1 Lap 95.096 1:13.921 97.401 DNF 88 Tim Minor/M 10 12:08.736 12 Laps 1 Lap 98.801 1:11.523 100.667 DNF 80 Bobby Caldwell 5 6:27.258 17 Laps 5 Laps 92.961 1:14.107 97.157