Washingt DC SCCA Drivers School March 19th, 2010 at Summit Point Raceway

The Washington DC region’s SCCA 2010 drivers school is quickly approaching. This year the spring school is a double event allowing you to obtain your race license in a single weekend (March 19th).

Do not under-estimate how busy you will be throughout the weekend! We can offer you full crew support along with lunch and drinks, all you need is your own car and gas. We can also put you in one of our rental Miatas so you have even less to worry about.

You may think about crewing for yourself, but it is not worth the risk… Missing just a single track session might cause you to fail your license as there is a miniminal amount of track time that is required. This year’s double event reduces the extra track time even further allowing for a tiny margin of error.

You have enough to worry about during your school, let us take care of your car and make sure you get all of your track time. Call us at (304) 728-6794 or send us an email rpperformance1@aol.com to get your race career started!

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…

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 Spec Miata race on Saturday yielded a 2nd and 3rd place finish (results) for Ken and Brian respectively. Ken’s performance during the weekend gave him both the pole and the win (results) in the Sunday race while Brian finished 4th on Sunday.

The SSM race on Sunday (results) gave Scott Brunk a 3rd place podium finish to continue his steady collection of points for the season.

Kevin Hutchens fought his way up to 4th place in the SRX7 race (results) after the RP guys cleaned out his carb yielding an extra 3 seconds of lap time to bring him up to competition speed. You can watch the whole Group 4 race in HD on viemo.

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.

RP picked up where we left off last year and the first race weekend gives us a strong start to the 2009 Season. On Saturday, Ken was fighting with transmissions problems and got caught up with another car under the bridge into turn 10. Brian finished 5th after struggling with mechanical issues as well. The RP team worked hard to get both cars in working order for the Sunday race and it paid off: Ken started in 3rd and Brian in 6th and they finished in 2nd and 4th respectively. Ken was running 3rd but passed Mike with one lap to go to take 2nd while laying down a hot lap of 1:27.6. In SSM: Scott had a great finish in 2nd on Saturday. In Sunday’s race he started in 4th and battled with Ed York in a two car race for 2nd place until his far fell off pace with mechanical issues. He kept it together and finished a respectable 19th in a 54 car field.
Race Results: SM Race SSM Race