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.

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.

The NJ region rules dictate that your finishing position in Saturday’s race define your starting position for the Sunday race. With Ken on pole and Brian right behind him they pushed the entire race. Ken had 1st place locked down while Brian was racing hard all the way to the checkered flag to take 2nd in another photo finish.

Meanwhile, Scott Brunk raced hard in SSM on both Saturday and Sunday for a double win. After finally resolving his car’s ECU issues, he is able to remain strong throughout the race and take home the wins that he much deserves.

Finally in the SRX7 race, Kevin Hutchens battled Alexander Schafer all weekend with both races coming down to a photo finish. Kevin was able to grab 2nd on Saturday while dropping back to 3rd on Sunday (by only 0.032 seconds). You can watch the HD video here:

MARRS6 NJMP Lightning Group 7 Sunday Race July 19th, 2009 from SRX Kevin on Vimeo.

The facilities overall were nice (especially because they were new) but there are a few key things lacking from the Lightning side of NJMP.  First off, there is no WiFi at Lightning which is why this information wasn’t coming to you real-time from the track.  The showers (all 3 of them) were located at the other track (Thunderbolt) which was a long drive away, that’s right… no way to even walk, you had to drive or find a ride.  There were very few places to actually watch the race due to the kart track(s) taking up much of the infield.  Since only golf karts (no ATVs, etc) were allowed outside of the paddock, this made finding a place to watch even more difficult.  Lastly, the long road from the gate was narrow and hard to navigate while hauling a long trailer, something that should have been considered when building a race track!?

Now, onto the track.  The turns are not yet named and even the numbers provided don’t seem to make any sense so I will narrate from the start finish and you can follow along with the track map.  This track is FAST but has plenty of run off room, although you launch a huge cloud of dust into the air every time it happens (and it happens a lot).  Turn 1 is faster than it looks, the exit is blind but there is a little more room than you first realize.  Turns 2 and 3 are a complex sequence that should be negotiated as a double apex to set you up for the left hand at turn 4.  Turn 5 crests over the hill, causing your car to get a little light, making for some exciting racing.  Now you go under the bridge and brake hard for the other left hand turn, Turn 6, which leads you onto the only named turn on the track: the Lightbulb, and then back onto the straight.

Come back later this week to read the full race reports for SM, SSM and SRX7 and see some videos posted from the event.

8000 Dividing Creek Road
Millville, NJ 08332

Here is a direct link to the track map as a PDF which is kind of hard to print or you can download it converted to a JPG for easier viewing and printing.

Assuming that I can get WiFi at the track, we will be live blogging the race all weekend, hope to see you all there!