Racing news and driver profiles for the RP team

RP held onto their strong points standing after a long and wet weekend at NJMP Lightning for the MARRS6 race which was run by the SJR SCCA.

With a solid points lead in SSM, Scott Brunk took the weekend off to concentrate on the SM battle for points. His double podium weekend, 2nd place finish on Saturday and 1st place on Sunday, keeps him in the lead for points in the MARRS SM series. Ken finished 3rd on Saturday but had trouble in Sunday’s race.

Brian “Rowdy” Price grabbed both the poll position and the win for Saturdays race as well as started 1st in the race on Sunday during which his oil pump died early in the race forcing him to retire with a DNF.

After missing the first half of the year, Kevin Hutchens is back in his SRX7 for his debut in the 2010 season. He had trouble on Saturday racing on dry tires in the rain which put him in a bad starting position for the Sunday race. After a bad start and loosing a few positions, he fought his way through traffic, trying to catch Brian Hair in the lead. Although he was closing in at the rate of 1/2 second a lap, there just wasn’t enough laps to make up the time and he finished 2nd place. You can watch the video in HD here.

The SJR SCCA results for both Saturday and Sunday are published here while this link takes you to the MyLaps results.

Another seven first place finishes at MARRS5 for the RP team extends their lead in points across all classes.

Rowdy Price, Scott Brunk and Dave Ade all finish 1st on both Saturday and Sunday in their respective classes (ITA/SSM/SRX). Meanwhile in SM, Ken gets 1st on Saturday but finishes 6th on Sunday. Scott has the opposite luck and finished 7th on Saturday but has the 2nd place podium spot for the Sunday race.

Jump to the MyLaps or SCCA Saturday and Sunday race results here.

Back at Summit Point, MARRS4 gave the RP team another five 1st place and two 2nd place finishes adding to the points lead in each class.

Scott Brunk finished 1st place in both the Saturday and Sunday race for SSM furthering his points lead in the class. He also finished 2nd in the SM race on Sunday in which Ken had some car trouble and a DNF but finished on the podium in 3rd place for the Saturday race.

Rowdy seems unstoppable this year in his ITA Miata with another double 1st place weekend adding to his lead in the points race. Dave is also well situated in the SRX7 points standing and finished the weekend on the podium for both races with a 1st and 2nd place result for Sunday and Saturday respectively.

You can go directly to the MyLaps and SCCA Saturday and Sunday results here.

The double header at VIR added up to a lot of points for the RP team drivers with a total of 7 first place finishes with 6th poll position starts for the weekend.

In SSM, Scott Brunk grabbed the points lead in SSM as he qualified on poll and finished in 1st place for both Saturday’s and Sunday’s SSM races.

Meanwhile, in SM Ken Zalner moved up from a 5th place qualifying position to take the win on Saturday’s race and finished on the podium with a solid 3rd on Sunday. Scott Brunk had a 4th and 8th place finish in his SM races. Even Bret got a chance to go out and race earning himself a 3rd place qualifying position for the Saturday race.

In ITA, Brian “Rowdy” Price continued his domination from MARRS1 with 1st place across the board, starting from the poll position, for both races giving him a early lead in the ITA points.

In SRX7, Dave Ade continued his winning streak from the 2009 season with the same success, two poll positions and two 1st place finishes for long the weekend!

MyLaps results and SCCA Saturday and Sunday results are available on their respective links below:

MARRS2 Saturday: SCCA | MyLaps

MARRS3 Sunday: SCCA | MyLaps

After a great finish in the 2009 season, the RP team was ready for another fast year. The first race set the pace for the rest of the 2010 season.

In SM, Scott Brunk and Ken Zalner qualified 1st and 2nd for Sunday’s race with a 1:28.2 and 1:28.0 respectively and they finished as they started, at the top of the podium. This combined with their 1st and 3rd place finishes in the race on Saturday gives the RP team an early points lead in the Spec Miata series.

In SSM, Scott Brunk finished in 1st place after fightning his way up from a 5th place qualifying position in the Sunday race. In ITA, Rowdy Price qualified 1st and finished in 2nd place to round out the weekend.

You can view the MyLaps results here or jump directly to the WDCR results for Saturday and Sunday as PDFs.

After a dominating season, RP Performance and partners Performance Auto Works have locked up 4 championships in the Mid-Atlantic Road Racing Series for 2009. We conquered in SM, SSM, ITA and SRX7, bringing RP’s total up to 26 championships in 15 years of competition.

The Zalner brothers, Ken and Brian, finished in 1st and 2nd place respectively in SM giving Ken his 9th championship in 10 years. Scott Brunk claimed the championship in SSM and captured a new track record at Summit Point Raceway this weekend at the season finale with a blistering time of 1:28.052.

Phenom sophomore season driver Brian Price won the ITA championship in his SM Miata and capped off his season with a pair of wins on the weekend. As if the ITA championship was not enough, Brian also managed to bring it home in 4th place in the SM standings as well.

SRX-7 had a hotly contested battle between RP drivers “F1″ Al Gervais and Dave Ade. In the end, it was Dave Ade emerging victoriously as SRX-7’s newest champion. Al brought it home in 2nd place and rookie sensation Kevin Hutchens rounded out the top 3 for a total RP Performance podium sweep in the highly competitive SRX-7 class.

RP Performance would like to send out a special thank you to all of its drivers and fans for the continued support that our race team has received and continues to receive on an ongoing basis throughout the years.

Thank You!!!

RP Performance clinched SCCA MARRS Championships in 4 different classes this past weekend. Ken Zalner in SM, Scott Brunk in SSM and Brian Price in ITA. In SRX7, both Al Gervias and Dave Ade have a chance of being champions going into the last race, with only 50 points separating them. Congrats to all of our customers for a great season. More detailed news to follow later this week…

Weather was intense to say the least, buckets of water pored from the sky turning the dusty grassless infield to a pool of mud. Just look at below for the calm before the storm (Click image for a super-sized version...)

The weather forced set-up strategy with the Zalner's going from a dry set-up to wet set-up and back and forth a bunch of times before deciding on a wet set-up for Saturday's race. This decision yielded Brian and Ken with 6th and 8th place finishes respectively.

Sunday after an intense battle throughout the race, while leading on the last lap with 3 turns to go, a competitor got into me and spun us both... I managed to get it going again and salvage a 3rd place finish. With all of the changes in set-up throughout the weekend, Ken fought handling problems on Sunday but managed to bring it home in 8th...

The RP team is looking forward to an exciting double header weekend for Labor Day, back at the home track.

For those of you looking for a copy of the results for the Thunderbolt weekend, I tracked them down on the NeSCCA website are they are available here (PDF link). Here is also a link to the results from the previous race at Lightning.

It was quite a hot weekend at Summit Point but the RP team pulled through for a few wins and Bret even got the chance to get out there and race in an ITA Miata. Bret locked in the pole position and won the race on Saturday and finished 2nd on Sunday’s race. Ken and Brian had a 2-3 and 1-2 finish in their SM races while Scott Brunk missed out on Saturday’s SSM race after his transmission got stuck in 3rd gear on the 2nd lap. Drop in a new transmission and fast-forward to Sunday… Scott fought hard for the entire race making his way up to 1st place for the SSM win. Kevin Hutchens decided to try his hand at rally-cross in his qualifying session on Saturday and luckily suffered only sheet metal damage that the RP team quickly hammered back into place.

The results from MARRS6 at the NJMP Lighting track have been posted to mylaps.

Saturday started with Ken and Brian pulling off a 1st and 3rd finish in the SM race as group 1 which continued into Sunday as a 1st and 2nd place finish.

View Scott Brunk’s double win weekend in SSM on Saturday and Sunday.