Round 7 at California Speedway

Finally a track we are all familiar with. Up until now, practice sessions have been sorting out which way the track goes. Most all the drivers have some time under their belts at California Speedway, so Friday practice was more of a test & tune than learning the line. California Speedway is the fastest track in the series with the quick cars averaging over 100mph. Top speed is the goal so all the downforce was trimmed to as little as possible. The fastest top speeds recorded over the weekend were:
SR8: 164 mph
PR06: 159 mph
SR3: 142 mph

It was another beautiful Southern California weekend. The only concern was the heat would be a problem for the side cooling cars. It ended up working out as the breeze kept the air temp reasonable. We got right to it Saturday morning with qualifying. The grid had 25 cars and 17 of them were Radicals which meant clear laps were easy to come by. Here's the result.

Saturday afternoon was a Qualifying race. This was a heat race that set the grid for the main race Sunday afternoon. Most of the Radicals started in front of the Historic Sports Racers, which was impressive to be quicker than 750 hp GTP cars!

At the start Brian Johnson sailed away in his SR8. Don's PR06 was no match for the V8 power on such a fast track. Matt Maddox looked to easily have the field covered in the SR3 class running over a second faster than the competition every session. Pete Fowler showed a lot of speed out of his 1300cc Prosport. He ran up toward the front of the SR3 group all weekend.

A yellow flag came out for a crash at the exit of turn one. Several cars were involved, none of which were Radicals. It took 3 caution laps to clean up the (very expensive) mess. It was a green / white / checkered finish with most cars holding their positions.

The race on Sunday proved to be one of the biggest upset races to date. First Cyrus broke a drive axle pulling away from the grid putting him out of the race. Brian Johnson was running in the lead way ahead of the rest of the field. If he had entered to F1 class he would have finished 2^nd. On lap 6 just after running his fastest lap of the weekend a right rear tire blew out going into turn one. This was the worst possible spot going 160 mph into the banking with the concrete wall staring him in the face. He did a great job keeping the car under control and didn't hit anything. The car (photo below) sustained damage to the right rear corner from the exploding tire. The yellow flag to clean up all debris from Brian's car took several laps.

Once again it was a green / white / checkered to the finish. The next upset came just after the green flag. Matt Maddox ran laps all weekend a second faster than anyone in his class. Going into turn 7 with 2 laps to go Matt missed the braking zone and went off the road. That allowed Bob Majorino and Tim Day to go at it for the win. Going into turn 3 they were passing a lap car and made contact with each other. Tim spun and Bob went on to win the race. Craig Oka had one of his best finished of year with 2^nd. Dave Tweedlie is turning into Mr. Consistent with a 3rd place finish moving him past Tim Day in the points.

Congratulations to the 3 new Radical owners in their first event. Bart Carter finished 2nd in the Invitational Class with his new SR8, Mike Halverson ran exceptional for his first time in his SR3 and Len Krick kept out of trouble to go quicker every session. Great job guys!!!

Thank you to everyone for making the event such a success. The next Radical Cup race is at Miller Motorsports Park on Aug. 3 — 5. If you have never been to Miller don't pass up this opportunity. It's one of the nicest Road Racing Facilities in the U.S.

See you all very soon,
Jeff Shafer

Radical Ventures, Inc.

©Crago Racing 1991 — 2007
14926 Calvert Street Van Nuys, CA 91411 — (818) 780-9144 cragojeff@aol.com