Qualifying order was:
1) Beran Peter
2) Bowie Gray (hey, that's me!)
3) Derek Luger
4) Rob McCabe
5) Trever Degioanni
6) Douglas Spencer
7) Chris Albin
8) Michael Reece
All 8 below Randy Pobst's lap record.
Beran brought us down to the flag at a slow and easy pace, and everyone seemed to get a clean run. He and I were side-by-side in 1, with Derek right on his bumper. I decided to tuck in behind Derek and work our prearranged plan to draft together and not battle for the first few laps. This seemed like it was going to work great, especially when Beran nearly spun in 5 and we went right by him. The next few laps are a bit of a blur, consisting of nothing but Derek's bumper, until I decided I wanted to lead the ARRC, dammit on about lap 7 or 8. I led for a couple of laps, feeling like an idiot for putting myself up there as a sitting duck, until Beran drove by both Derek and me on the back straight to take the lead.
Then he nearly spun in 5 again. I popped Derek pretty good in the bumper when we all scattered, and fortunately it pushed him back up into the lead! At this point Derek and I just put our heads down and drafted like crazy trying to get away from the rest of the pack. Behind me Beran and Trever were having a battle, in a MaddMax kind of way! We slowly pulled a bit of a lead over the next 5 or so laps, but then Beran and Trever caught us up. Somewhere in there Beran and I went side by side through 12, which was scary as hell but we didn't hit, and he tried to pass me going into 1 but couldn't get there another lap.
Then, I went for the pass on Derek in braking for 10a, and had it stuck cleanly until Beran AND Trever went for the pass on both of us at the same time. I don't know if we were 3 wide or 4, but with my line to the apex taken I nearly pushed Derek off (he bailed rather than make contact, even though it would have been my fault) and dropped to 4th, but still right on the lead pack.
This is when Trever and Beran had their coming together in 12 and I saw Trever's terrible impact into the wall on driver's right on the front straight, head on. I freaked out a little bit and was begging for an update: "tell me he's moving, tell me he's effing moving!!!" over the radio to my wife, and just about put myself out of the race in 3 before I got my head back in it.
Then I just put my head down and went as fast as I could, knowing if Beran caught me he would just drive right by on the back straight. I turned 2 of my fastest laps of the race, even without the draft, but on lap 20, sure enough, he caught me and drove by to beat me to the checker by about a tenth.
Then all the protest stuff went down, and about 2 hours later I got the news that we won and I was National Champion! We whooped and hollered for a while, then went to grid for the ITA race, where I promptly chucked my car into the concrete outside of 7 from 4th, but what are you gonna do?
It was an incredible race, I didn't put a single scratch on Pablo the VW, which is good since I borrowed him for the weekend and really didn't want to pay for any body work!
I really was just the nut behind the wheel this weekend. My wife Sarah called a great race on the radio, and I can't thank Kirk Knestis and Cameron Conover enough for building such an incredible car and trusting me enough to plug me into it for the weekend. If you want to build a VW IT car, or just make yours better, there is no one better in the country at it than Conover Motor Sports, that is for sure! (hey, if I type all this, I get a plug, right?)
Now to figure out how to bring it back next year... BETTER!
