Summit Point : Weekend Notebook

Miller Docked 10 Points
On Monday following race two at Summit Point series officials docked championship leader Chris Miller 10 points for “avoidable contact” with Remy Audette.

Miller’s left front wing made contact with Audette’s right-rear tire, slashing the Hoosier slick, on the turn-in into turn one. Audette was less than pleased after the race; he rebounded to finish a distant 16th.

JDC’s Miller was already on probation for aggressive driving in the second race at Watkins Glen.

Anders Krohn and Cole Morgan, who won the last two F2000 titles, were also on probation when they locked up the championship.

Matthew Inge, who was following closely behind Miller and Audette as they traded second back and forth, was forced to lock-up to avoid the incident, flat spotting his Hoosiers. Inge is now only 24 points behind Miller with drops calculated, or 17 without drops.

Before the incident with Chris Miller left Audette with a cut tire, the Canadian had not finished outside the top four at all this year.

Pace Car
A mix up between the track and F2000 left the series without a pace car for the weekend. On Saturday morning, just hours before the first race of the weekend, a Volvo rental car belonging to one of the teams was nominated. A few minutes later it was ready to go with slight change to the turbo-charger, a bunch of F2000 and Hoosier stickers and driver coach Tommy Byrne behind the wheel.

Besides fulfilling pace car duties for the weekend, Byrne also worked closely with driver Chris Gumprecht, who logged his best F2000 finish to date with a sixth place in the second race.

Starts
The F2000 field had two perfect starts yet again this past weekend at Summit Point. While other series who enjoy network TV can barely manage to get two rows aligned, the F2000 field has had perfect starts with the entire field bunched up at every race this year. And no major first turn incidents, either.

Wheel Tethers
In response to the tragic accident that took the life of Henry Surtees, the F2000 Championship Series is already looking into adopting wheel tethers for the 2010 season. The series has tabbed an engineering firm to design and produce the tethers.

Wing of the Month Club
The wing of the month club was out in force again at Summit Point. New development rear wings were seen on the ADSA/Wright cars of Blake Teeter and Robert Wright, along with GTP’s Tom Fatur. Fatur, who is leading the Masters Class championship, tested the wing during practice but reverted to the stock Van Diemen wing for the races while the ADSA/Wright guys ran them all weekend long.

The new rear wing sits a full six inches lower than the stock Van Diemen wing, and features a new lower element and wing assembly.