La Rocca Continues Dominance
Millville, NJ – Completing an easy day at New Jersey Motorsports Park, HP-Tech and Championship points leader Robert La Rocca took their sixth win in seven races in dominating fashion, leading from pole to win by a 14 second margin in just a 30-minute race. The No. 10 Van Diemen was followed by the Citation of Tim Minor and Kevin Kopp’s WISKO Van Diemen.
“That was a tough race due to the extreme heat,” said La Rocca, noting 100-plus degree temperatures in New Jersey. “HP-Tech gave me a great car yet again that was consistent to run quick the entire race.”
Minor notched another good result and podium for Ski Motorsports with his second place effort, also winning the Masters Class.
“We had a good car at the start but it went off near the end,” he noted, thanking engineer Eric Langbein, who also engineered a Citation to a third place finish in the F1600 race.
Kopp slotted into the final podium spot, driving Minor’s old Van Diemen, and improving his best result so far of the season with his first career F2000 podium.
“That was a great race, and we made good progress during the test day yesterday,” Kopp commented. “Following Minor was beneficial.”
La Rocca’s closest challenge in the points standings, Niki Coello, ran second early in the race as La Rocca checked out. But, Coello would fail to bring home significant points, retiring to the paddock with wing damage on his No. 81 RFR chassis.
“I got on the exit curbing and launched the car,” explained Coello. “The car was off the ground and when it came down it just ripped the front wing off.”
Finishing in fourth position was Colorado’s Zach Craigo, also in his best career finish to date, and with a new sponsor on the car for the weekend, Infrascan.
“This is the best I’ve ever done and it’s because of all the support from my family and Front Range Motorsports,” said Craigo. “I had an okay start but went off and the car was loose the rest of the race, turned out the front wing was barely attached after the off.”
Wyatt Gooden rounded out the top five with Tim Paul following in sixth, continuing his streak of all top ten finishes in the 2012 season for SMR/GTP Motorsports in the No. 06 Van Diemen.
“The car was perfect at the start of the race,” Paul said.”I had contact with Colin Daley and went off in turn three, but we rebounded for sixth. We need to get the long-run oversteer out of the car for tomorrow.”
Behind Paul in the results was Jason Rabe, in his first F2000 start ever for the WISKO team, Chris Livengood, Nick Palacio and Colin Daley, also in his first ever start for Group A Racing. Daley is out of the karting ranks and is just 15 years old.
A large storm overnight left the F2000 paddock a mess, with most awnings gone or severely damaged and teams racing to take the remaining ones down as more storms are predicted for Saturday night.
The weekend concludes at New Jersey Motorsports Park on Sunday, July 1 with race eight of the 2012 season at 8:00 local time. The grid will be set from fast laps in Saturday’s race with La Rocca leading the field to the green flag.
Race Results:
Pos No. Name Laps Total Tm Diff Gap Avg. Speed Best Tm Best Spd 1 10 Robert LaRocca 20 27:00.285 - - 99.982 1:19.425 101.983 2 88 Tim Minor/M 20 27:14.938 +14.653 +14.653 99.086 1:20.396 100.751 3 66 Kevin Kopp 20 27:15.400 +15.115 +0.462 99.058 1:20.525 100.590 4 18 Zach Craigo 20 27:19.397 +19.112 +3.997 98.817 1:20.899 100.125 5 6 Wyatt Gooden 20 27:20.715 +20.430 +1.318 98.737 1:20.329 100.835 6 06 Tim Paul 20 27:31.953 +31.668 +11.238 98.066 1:21.194 99.761 7 99 Jason Rabe 20 27:32.940 +32.655 +0.987 98.007 1:21.105 99.871 8 37 Chris Livengood 20 27:33.289 +33.004 +0.349 97.986 1:21.112 99.862 9 5 Nick Palacio 20 27:40.260 +39.975 +6.971 97.575 1:21.449 99.449 10 13 Collin Daley 20 27:47.128 +46.843 +6.868 97.173 1:21.404 99.504 11 19 John Brumder/M 20 28:04.769 +1:04.484 +17.641 96.156 1:22.051 98.719 12 67 Dave Weitzenhof/M 20 28:22.161 +1:21.876 +17.392 95.173 1:22.264 98.463 13 46 Doug Rocco 20 28:22.802 +1:22.517 +0.641 95.137 1:23.736 96.733 14 9 Jose Montiel 19 27:08.109 1 Lap 1 Lap 94.527 1:22.260 98.468 15 4 Dennis McCarthy 19 28:04.372 +56.263 +56.263 91.369 1:26.024 94.160 16 47 Chris Monteleone 19 28:05.537 +57.428 +1.165 91.306 1:23.186 97.372 17 39 Paul Alspach 18 27:17.570 2 Laps 1 Lap 89.034 1:21.431 99.471 18 61 Tom Drake/M 18 27:47.807 +30.237 +30.237 87.420 1:29.309 90.696 19 25 Jeff McCusker/M 18 28:01.271 +43.701 +13.464 86.720 1:22.486 98.198 20 90 Robert Wright/M 14 20:55.232 6 Laps 4 Laps 90.342 1:23.570 96.925 DNF 81 Niki Coello 9 13:11.529 11 Laps 5 Laps 92.100 1:20.623 100.468