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.

MARRS8 brings us back up to the brand new NJMP, this time at their primary track. Unlike Lightning, Thunderbolt has full facilities and was designed as a professional caliber course. The RP team will be heading up Thursday afternoon to claim our spot in the paddock. If you need directions, they are available on the NJMP website. Make sure to check them before you leave since the track’s address is not yet in most GPS or online map systems. You can use this link to open google maps to the address that is best for directions.

The track map is available on the NJMP website as well. The 2.25 mile track has 14 turns and a 1/2 mile straightway. A version of the track map with the turn by turn description formatted for printing is available from RP at this link.

If you want to read a turn-by-turn description of the track you can visit this site for a non-racer’s perspective on it or read a more detailed discussion at the same site. Lastly, watch some videos at a high quality video site like vimeo to get ready for your race. See you all there!

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.

It is always exciting to visit a new track and the RP team showed everyone how to learn and race fast. After a busy day of testing, the Zs hit the track running on Saturday giving Ken a 1st place finish and the pole for Sunday’s race with Brian fighting it out to the last second for a photo finish at the line to take 3rd place.

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.

Team RP demonstrated skill of quickly learning new tracks by earning 4 wins and 3 poles in SM and SSM.  A full race report will follow shortly, but here is some NJMP and Lightning information to keep you occupied in the mean time.

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.

Team RP is heading up to NJMP to claim our spot in the paddock and get ready for the test of the team. Make sure you look at this page: http://njmp.com/directions.html for directions since the track address isn’t on ANY of the map websites and probably isn’t in your GPS either. Use this address instead:

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!

With the launch of our new website, we will be posting news and information about SCCA and NASA race events throughout the season. Make sure to come back and visit our site often to read the latest news.

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.