Minor Out Front in Road Atlanta Victory
Braselton, GA – Tim Minor took a win at Road Atlanta to close the F2000 Series doubleheader opening weekend of the 2014 season after taking the lead from Skylar Robinson in the opening stages of the race. Minor started from pole, and dueled with Robinson for a few laps before passing the 18-year-old and pulling a safe gap to win over Robinson, who took Saturday’s victory. Thomas McGregor was third for Exclusive Autosport in his debut F2000 Series weekend.
“It’s good to be here. Skylar raced me clean, we are teammates, and the goal here is to win a Championship,” said Minor, the 2013 F2000 Champion, who has been at the front of the time sheets all weekend, but missed out on a Saturday race win and had to settle for third. “There are 14 races this year and now it’s onto Watkins Glen.”
Robinson made it a banner rookie weekend for himself and Eric Langbein Racing, and moves into the points lead after the first two races of the 14-race/seven-weekend 2014 season.
“It was a bit of a tough race for us,” noted Robinson, from Augusta, GA. “Tim got by early and I couldn’t quite keep him at bay. As the race went on I was able to wheel him in but I wasn’t quite close enough.”
Thomas McGregor picked up his pace as the Spectrum F2000 car is still in its early stages of development, grabbing the position on the first lap and holding steady for the entire green-flag 18-lap race.
“It’s a new car and we will get there,” McGregor said. “The team worked hard all weekend and it paid off.”
Steve Bamford was fourth while John McCusker put in his career-best race to finish fifth in the Dotworks RFR. Tim Paul was sixth ahead of GTP Motorsports teammate Eric Presbrey.
Sergio Pasian challenged for the lead on the race’s initial start, but ended up spinning on the front straight a lap later. Luckily, the Canadian was able to continue without contact, despite spinning from the top five in front of the entire field. Pasian recovered to move up to eighth.
Jason Rabe was ninth, while Charles Finelli moved up through the race from 26th on the grid to take the final spot in the top 10.
After a second-place run on Saturday, Kevin Kopp was solidly in fourth until mechanical problems in the closing stages of the race.
Following an incident in qualifying, Sam Beasley’s No. 44 Van Diemen did not race.
Cars that missed the start also included Al Guibord, with chassis problems, and Conner Kearby, who went off in Saturday’s race, but finished second in the day’s earlier Atlantic Championship Series race.
Robert Wright started the race but quickly pulled in with an issue on the No. 90 ADSA/Wright machine.
Full race results are on www.f2000series.com under the Results tab.
The debut weekend of the 2014 season proved a success with a 30-plus car entry coming into the weekend, good races, and temperatures in the 70s and 80s for most track sessions under sunny conditions throughout four days worth of track time.
The F2000 Championship Series 2014 season continues with rounds three and four, of 14, at Watkins Glen International, May 16-18.
Race Results
PosNo.NameLapsBest TmMake/ModelDiff 1 88 Tim Minor/M 18 1:24.638 Citation - 2 6 Skylar Robinson 18 1:24.951 Citation +1.667 3 93 Thomas McGregor 18 1:25.720 Spectrum 014Z +12.157 4 07 Steve Bamford/M 18 1:26.540 Van Diemen Rf08 +36.816 5 01 John McCusker 18 1:26.447 Rfr 12 +37.986 6 06 Timothy Paul 18 1:26.312 Van Diemen +38.032 7 35 Eric Presbrey/M 18 1:26.781 Van Diemen +42.453 8 23 Sergio Pasian 18 1:26.505 Van Diemen Rf +54.414 9 14 Jason Rabe 18 1:27.533 Van Diemen +55.452 10 83 Charles Finelli/M 18 1:27.215 Van Diemen RF01 +1:07.745 11 51 Dan Denison/M 18 1:26.813 Van Diemen RF05 +1:09.583 12 7 Brent Gilkes/M 18 1:27.518 Van Dieman Rf03 +1:09.890 13 76 Beau Borders 18 1:27.627 Van Diemen Rf-01 +1:09.984 14 19 Doug Stout/M 18 1:27.906 Van Diemen Rf05 +1:10.225 15 52 Dean Baker/M 18 1:28.255 Van Diemen Rf05 +1:14.935 16 1 Quinlan Lall 18 1:27.902 Radon Rn10 +1:15.875 17 67 Dave Weitzenhof/M 18 1:27.278 Citation 95Sfz +1:16.763 18 97 Christopher Gumprecht 18 1:28.254 Rfr +1:20.000 19 37 Davy D'addario 18 1:28.537 Rfr +1:23.100 20 11 Kem Lall/M 17 1:30.199 Van Dieman Rf05 1 Lap 21 12 Bob Reid/M 17 1:30.457 Rfr +1.085 22 98 James Libecco 15 1:26.533 Van Diemen Rf05 3 Laps 23 69 Paul Farmer/M 15 1:28.119 Radon Rn.10 +1:01.898 24 66 Kevin Kopp 13 1:25.786 1998 Vd 5 Laps 25 29 David Grant 10 1:25.626 Spectrum 014Z 8 Laps DNF 68 Steve Jenks/M 5 1:30.899 Van Diemen RF 00 13 Laps DNF 90 Robert Wright/M 2 1:40.680 Radon Rn10 16 Laps DNS 44 Sam Beasley 0 -.--- Van Diemen - DNS 18 James Belay/M 0 -.--- Van Diemen RF01 - DNS 56 Conner Kearby 0 -.--- Van Diemen Rf06 -