Rookie Connery Wins at Road Atlanta
Braselton, GA – Kyle Connery notched his first F2000 Championship Series win, taking the lead from his second place starting position at the drop of the green flag at Road Atlanta and leading all 18 laps in his second ever F2000 start. Remy Audette, the Championship points leader, recovered from a bad start, and running as low as seventh, to finish second with Tim Minor, Robert La Rocca and Nathan Morcom rounding out the top five.
“It was a great race, I got a clean start and once I realized I was leading I just put my head down,” said Connery, who sat on pole at the season opener but failed to start the race after a massive qualifying crash.
Connery added two bonus points to his day’s take as he set fastest lap around the 12-turn, 2.54 mile race track, and missed out on taking pole by just eight thousandths of a second.
The aspiring American driver added: “I was able to open up a gap when the guys behind me were dicing. It’s a great comeback from VIR.”
On the subject of comebacks, Audette fell back to seventh early in the race and somehow managed to finish second and stretch his points lead to 24 over La Rocca.
“I lost a ton of positions at the start by going to the outside,” explained the Canadian. “But we were able to recover, there were some parts of the track the car was just much faster than everyone else.”
Tim Minor completed the podium and took his second straight Masters Class victory, and almost finished second overall.
“Remy just had a good line on me going into turn one and I want to race clean,” Minor commented. “The car was okay but didn’t have the overall grip we needed.”
Robert La Rocca finished fourth for HP-Tech, his third straight top five, and the third straight race he has been the highest placed RFR chassis in his third ever F2000 start.
La Rocca said: “It was alright. We had a good start and went around a couple of cars but just didn’t have the speed to run with the leaders. Hopefully we start developing the speed, but for now we will salvage all the points we can.”
Australian rookie Nathan Morcom rounded out the top five while Primus Racing teammate Jonathan Scarallo, who started from pole and ran strong, held on for sixth with a damaged #13 Van Diemen.
“The supports for the front wing just broke,” Scarallo said. “We had a decent start but Livengood had a better one, making it three wide, and Connery managed to get around me. We fell back a bit but were running strong and in second before the wing failed. It was probably a $10 part that ruined a potential second place finish.”
Chris Livengood looked to be set for a top five finish, after starting third. Livengood was running with the lead pack when an electrical issue with the Zetec powerplant in the #37 Van Diemen ended his day.
Gustavo Rizzo finished eighth for Alegra Motorsports, behind Thomas Schwietz in the Piper chassis. Joe Colasacco and Robert Wright were ninth and 10th. Fabio Orsolon brought the new Alegra RFR home in 11th.
Tim Paul took home the CellMark Paper Hard Charger award honors, finishing 12th after starting in 23rd. Paul didn’t turn a lap this weekend until qualifying, having to arrive a full day late due to a creative writing final exam.
Front Range Motorsports’ Zach Craigo saw a potential strong finish evaporate following a terrific start when a half shaft on the #9 car failed.
Angel Benitez did not make the start following damage sustained to his #26 Alegra Motorsports Van Diemen during a qualifying crash.
Brendan Puderbach has withdrawn from the rest of the weekend following mechanical issues during morning practice in his back-up Van Diemen after other teething issues with the new RFR chassis in Thursday testing.
Fans can follow live qualifying and race updates from Road Atlanta on F2000Series.com or @F2000 on Twitter. Saturday continues with an early, 8:00 am practice, 10:30 am qualifying, and 1:00 pm race. All times are eastern.
Race Results:
Pos No. Name Laps Total Tm Diff Gap Avg. Speed Best Tm 1 91 Kyle Connery 18 28:45.056 - - 95.413 1:25.575 2 21 Remy Audette 18 28:49.347 +4.291 +4.291 95.176 1:25.623 3 88 Tim Minor/M 18 28:50.703 +5.647 +1.356 95.101 1:25.969 4 10 Robert La Rocca 18 28:53.829 +8.773 +3.126 94.930 1:26.352 5 2 Nathan Morcom 18 28:58.762 +13.706 +4.933 94.660 1:26.681 6 13 Jonathan Scarallo 18 28:59.738 +14.682 +0.976 94.607 1:25.823 7 72 Thomas Schwietz/M 18 29:01.649 +16.593 +1.911 94.504 1:26.562 8 23 Gustavo Rizzo 18 29:08.153 +23.097 +6.504 94.152 1:27.147 9 3 Joe Colasacco/M 18 29:10.784 +25.728 +2.631 94.010 1:26.783 10 90 Robert Wright/M 18 29:11.260 +26.204 +0.476 93.985 1:27.318 11 24 Fabio Orsolon 18 29:12.720 +27.664 +1.460 93.907 1:27.690 12 06 Tim Paul 18 29:21.861 +36.805 +9.141 93.419 1:28.057 13 42 Bill Jordan/M 18 29:22.267 +37.211 +0.406 93.398 1:27.776 14 60 Dwight Rider/M 18 29:23.244 +38.188 +0.977 93.346 1:28.087 15 51 Dan Denison/M 18 29:24.026 +38.970 +0.782 93.305 1:27.975 16 67 Dave Weitzenhof/M 18 29:31.985 +46.929 +7.959 92.886 1:28.383 17 22 Enzo Potolicchio/M 18 29:37.350 +52.294 +5.365 92.605 1:27.416 18 14 Jose Gerardo 18 29:37.530 +52.474 +0.180 92.596 1:27.914 19 7 Brent Gilkes/M 13 22:31.824 5 Laps 5 Laps 87.935 1:28.758 20 1 Ethan Ringel 12 21:03.546 6 Laps 1 Lap 86.841 1:28.376 21 96 Brian Tomasi 11 19:29.487 7 Laps 1 Lap 86.007 1:28.183 DNF 37 Chris Livengood 8 14:27.192 10 Laps 3 Laps 84.355 1:26.097 DNF 29 Ardie Greenamyer/M 6 11:35.696 12 Laps 2 Laps 78.862 1:29.338 DNF 8 Mark Defer/M 2 3:14.835 16 Laps 4 Laps 93.864 1:30.864 DNF 9 Zach Craigo 0 4.053 18 Laps 2 Laps - -.--- DNS 26 Angel Benitez 0 -.--- - - - -.--- DNS 83 Brendan Puderbach 0 -.--- - - - -.---