Minor Cruises to Lime Rock Victory in the Rain
Lakeville, CT – Five races, five wins, and this time it was in a full wet race at Lime Rock Park for Tim Minor and the No. 88 Ski Motorsports Citation. Minor held onto the lead the entire race, which ran to a time window because of multiple full-course-cautions, and won ahead of Kevin Kopp and Roberto Lorena in what turned out to be a game of survival for most of the field.
Minor, a Masters Class driver, leaps out to an even bigger Championship lead with extra points for pole position and the fastest race lap.
“Five for five, that was a handful,” said Minor, stepping out of his car in the pouring rain in Connecticut. “All I could do was try to stay out front where I could see. The conditions were certainly treacherous and I was able to gap the field enough to win.”
That margin of victory was over 20 seconds, with Minor incurring a 10 second penalty for passing the pace car as confusion was the name of the game on an early-race restart.
Kopp would return his WISKO F2000 team to the podium for the first time since VIR in April, and his first podium since New Jersey in 2012.
“I am happy with this,” said Kopp. “It was a battle of attrition in the cold and wet.”
With temperatures not getting out of the forties for the race, Roberto Lorena also survived, climbing from tenth to a podium finish for his HP-Tech Motorsport team.
John McCusker continued his strong wet-weather pace, staying out of trouble and finishing fourth in the rain-happy RFR chassis.
David Grant completed the top five after missing qualifying and starting last for Polestar Racing Group. Grant also notched the CellMark Paper Hard Charger dicing through the field and avoiding trouble in the No. 29 Van Diemen.
Dean Baker was sixth, ahead of Matt McDonough in the first of the Radons – who was running as high as fourth before going off and clawing his way back through the field.
Federico Mosconi, Robert Wright and Aaron Pettipas completed the top ten.
As for other challengers – Steve Bamford got close to taking the lead from Minor, but ended up going off to recover to finish 12th.
Then there was Kyle Connery, who nearly spun on the overall start and was able to hunt down Minor, and nearly got past before going off to end his race in the No. 91 Van Diemen.
Race two’s grid will be set by fast laps, putting Minor on pole and Connery next to him, and rain is predicted the rest of the day.
Race Results
PosNo.NameLapsBest TmMake/ModelDiff 1 88 Tim Minor/M 23 1:07.048 Citation Zetec - 2 22 Kevin Kopp 23 1:08.127 Van Diemen Zetec +12.634 3 9 Roberto Lorena 23 1:09.477 Van Diemen Zetec +18.844 4 01 John McCusker 23 1:09.509 RFR Zetec +24.898 5 29 David Grant 23 1:09.648 Van Diemen Zetec +32.280 6 52 Dean Baker/M 23 1:09.590 Van Diemen Zetec +33.123 7 69 Matt McDonough 23 1:08.128 Radon Zetec +35.849 8 99 Federico Mosconi 23 1:11.120 Van Diemen Zetec +42.075 9 17 Robert Wright/M 23 1:10.378 Radon Zetec +47.676 10 15 Aaron Pettipas 23 1:10.981 Van Diemen Zetec +48.685 11 70 Tom Fatur/M 23 1:08.641 Van Diemen Zetec +49.104 12 71 Steve Bamford/M 23 1:08.181 Van Diemen Zetec +50.322 13 42 Bill Jordan/M 22 1:10.765 Van Diemen Zetec 1 Lap 14 12 Bob Reid/M 22 1:12.949 RFR Zetec +30.057 15 47 Chris Monteleone 22 1:14.796 Van Diemen Pinto +38.697 16 1 Kem Lall/M 22 1:15.075 Van Diemen Zetec +58.091 17 98 Jim Libecco 17 1:10.670 Van Diemen Zetec 6 Laps 18 91 Kyle Connery 15 1:07.148 Van Diemen Zetec 8 Laps 19 68 Steve Jenks/M 15 1:11.187 Van Diemen Zetec +9:34.611 20 23 Sergio Pasian 14 1:16.002 Van Diemen Zetec 9 Laps 21 7 Brent Gilkes/M 13 1:13.098 Van Diemen Zetec 10 Laps DNF 57 Scott Baroody 5 1:20.606 Van Diemen Zetec 18 Laps DNS 67 Dave Weitzenhof/M 0 -.--- Citation Zetec - DNS 86 Jim Hanrahan/M 0 -.--- Radon Zetec - DNS 16 Peter Gonzalez/M 0 -.--- Radon Zetec - DNS 61 Tom Drake/M 0 -.--- Van Diemen Zetec - DNS 08 Hilton Tallman 0 -.--- Mygale Zetec - DNS 35 Eric Presbrey/M 0 -.--- Van Diemen Zetec -