Minor Sweeps Summit Point Finale
Summit Point, WV – 2013 F2000 Champion Tim Minor fell to third on an early race restart, but was back in front a few laps later and took his ninth win of the season to close his Championship campaign in the season-ending race at Summit Point. Minor passed Kyle Connery and Santino Ferrucci and pulled a large gap to take the top step of the podium. Ferrucci took second place ahead of HP-Tech teammate Roberto Lorena.
With a sweep of the weekend, Minor closes an F2000 season he totally dominated, sweeping three of seven doubleheader weekends and winning races at every track on the schedule in his Ski Motorsports No. 88 Citation.
“I missed a shift on that restart,” explained Minor, who started the season the way he ended it, with a weekend sweep. “Santino did an awesome job; I would race with him any day. This win and weekend are icing on the cake and I look forward to defending the title in 2014.”
Ferrucci took another podium medal with a second place drive, getting past Connery in the late stages of the race.
“That was awesome,” said Ferrucci. “I love racing here and it was a great couple of laps battling with Tim. The HP-Tech team did a phenomenal job.”
Lorena, in another white HP-Tech Van Diemen, completed the podium solidifying his fourth place points position on the season.
“There’s no better way to end the season than with a podium,” added the 18-year-old Brazilian.
For Connery, despite early laps led, he fell to third as the race developed and went off in the closing laps while battling with Ferrucci.
CellMark Paper Hard Charger honors for the race went to Chris Livengood, who drove his backup RFR car from 23rd to fourth in an impressive performance in just his fourth start of the season.
Dean Baker followed in fifth position, ahead of Steve Bamford, Nick Palacio and Eric Presbrey. Dave Weitzenhof and Dan Denison were ninth and tenth, even after Denison’s Polestar team changed a cut tire during an early race red flag and was sent to the back of the field.
Season-long Hard Charger honors from CellMark were awarded to Weitzenhof, who improved a total of 54 places on the season, with Keith McCrone second with 53 spots improved in the Metrik chassis for R-Sport.
It was a rough day for Jim Libecco, who dropped from fifth to 19th with two laps to go. If Libecco had held fifth, after starting, ironically, 19th, he would have taken the season-long Hard Charger honors.
The race got off to a rocky start, with a red flag after an opening lap incident that claimed a number of cars, including contender David Grant. The race was restarted with the original grid order, and went green from there on out to the finish.
Sunday’s race at Summit Point marked the final round in the 14-race 2013 F2000 season. With Tim Minor the 2013 champion, teams and drivers will head to the Series banquet for trophies, checks and more. 2014 announcements will be posted on www.f2000series.com in the coming months.
Race Results
PosNo.NameLapsBest TmMake/ModelDiff 1 88 Tim Minor/M 21 1:10.805 Citation Zetec - 2 10 Santino Ferrucci 21 1:11.627 Van Diemen Zetec +13.555 3 9 Roberto Lorena 21 1:12.273 Van Diemen Zetec +25.535 4 37 Chris Livengood 21 1:11.943 RFR Zetec +27.358 5 52 Dean Baker/M 21 1:13.223 Van Diemen Zetec +46.055 6 71 Steve Bamford/M 21 1:13.327 Van Diemen Zetec +48.113 7 25 Nick Palacio 21 1:13.749 Van Diemen Zetec +52.752 8 35 Eric Presbrey/M 21 1:13.481 Van Diemen Zetec +53.020 9 67 Dave Weitzenhof/M 21 1:13.893 Citation Zetec +1:04.203 10 51 Dan Denison/M 21 1:13.208 Van Diemen Zetec +1:11.883 11 0 Keith McCrone/M 21 1:14.133 Metrik Zetec +1:11.980 12 70 Tom Fatur/M 20 1:13.133 Van Diemen Zetec 1 Lap 13 16 Peter Gonzalez/M 20 1:14.898 Radon Zetec +1.106 14 4 Davy D'Addario 20 1:14.862 RFR Zetec +1.726 15 8 Jose Montiel 20 1:14.498 Van Dieman Zetec +3.996 16 47 Chris Monteleone 20 1:14.775 Van Diemen Pinto +5.496 17 12 Bob Reid/M 20 1:15.773 RFR Zetec +10.293 18 26 Alain Matra/M 20 1:18.541 Van Diemen Zetec +59.485 19 98 Jim Libecco 19 1:12.356 Van Diemen Zetec 2 Laps 20 91 Kyle Connery 18 1:11.670 Van Diemen Zetec 3 Laps 21 99 Federico Mosconi 18 1:16.133 Van Diemen Zetec +3:53.783 22 89 Rob Nicholas/M 10 1:12.379 Van Diemen Zetec 11 Laps DNF 90 Robert Wright/M 3 1:29.620 Radon Zetec 18 Laps DNF 00 Tim Dunn/M 2 2:09.113 Metrik Zetec 19 Laps DNF 29 David Grant 0 -.--- Van Diemen Zetec 21 Laps DNF 22 Kevin Kopp 0 -.--- Van Diemen Zetec +0.201 DNF 7 Brent Gilkes/M 0 -.--- Van Diemen Zetec +2.163 DNF 01 John McCusker 0 -.--- RFR Zetec +2.325