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!!!

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.

Saturday Ken had pole and I started 7th after a problem in qualifying with an air pocket in the cooling system necessitated ending my session after but only 4 laps… Ken finished 1st and I rallied back to a photo finish 3rd place finish…I missed 2nd place by .018… I lost at the loop but had it at the line, scoring is done at the loop.

Sunday Ken started from the pole…I started from 3rd….the accident involving Bret, Mike Collins and Brian Price resulted in a black flag all and the resetting of the field in original starting position. Bret was originally gridded second but since he couldn’t continue I assumed the 2nd place position for the regrid. Ken led every lap of the race and I had a hard fought battle with Kevin Kopp and pulled out the 2nd place finish at the end.

Both yellow RP Performance / Performance Auto works cars took top honors on Sunday in Spec Miata finishing 1st and 2nd. Sunday and 1st and 3rd Saturday.

The first NASA event at Summit Point this year was a hot 95+ degree 40 min race. Bret got back out on track for some fun in between supporting two customers (an SM and HPDE driver). He drove the #72 rental car through traffic to 1st place finish after qualifying 3rd. He almost missed his chance to hug the NASA trophy girls (who smelled good) after he misread the last lap flag and slowed down into turn 1 only to realize the two cars behind him were still racing hard. He figured it out quickly and got back into it to keep the lead for the final lap, managing to be one of the few that was not lapped by the PT class cars.