This weekend combined the first race of the SCCA SM Challenge ProSM series along with our 8th regional weekend. Lots of local hot shoes came out to play for the SM Challenge event, such as Dobson, Courtney, Kirberg, etc. In total there were 8 World Challenge / ALMS experienced racers participating in the SM Challenge among the total of 69 SM drivers. Knowing the field would be ultra competitive, most drivers were out for Friday testing and doing some final tuning/prep work. The Infineon worker announcing the run groups over the PA felt compelled to repeatedly remind the group 3 rungroup (mostly comprised of SM's) that this "is only testing, behave yourselves" - we got a good chuckle out of this. :)

Saturday practice saw Off Camber Racing principal Justin Hall post fast time and personal best of 1:56:480, closely followed by Courtney, Dobson, Kirberg, and Olivier rounding out the top 5. Unfortunately this practice session was cut short on the first lap with OCR driver Peter Hsu finding trouble in t10 going hard head on into the tires ending his weekend. The car is a loss, but thankfully Peter walked away thanks in large part to the protection provided by his OCR sponsor TC Design cage (zero intrusion) and his HANS device. We will be seeing Peter out again soon!

Qualifying was held after lunch, with the remaining Off Camber boys Justin and Dave gridding in the front to ensure at least one flyer given the enormous class size. Dave lobbied the first 10 or so drivers on grid convincing everyone to work together and go out slow and bunch the field to ensure at least one clean lap. Everyone behaved well on the outlap with the group proceeding very slow until around turn 9 when we decided to get some heat in our tires for our first flyer. Sure enough, we were only able to get one lap before traffic started, but the first lap was good enough to give Justin Hall provisional pole at 1:57:702 with a tow from McAnaney. Justin went around Dave on the following lap to give Dave a tow in the draft and Justin was able to improve to a 1:57:692, with McAnaney going 1:58:590, which ended up being Dave's fastest time of the session. Two laps later Justin was able to use traffic to his advantage with a couple well timed drafts and improve to 1:57:492 which was his fastest lap and good enough to secure pole. Starting p2 and sharing paddock space with team OCR is Rod Nelson with a 1:57:744. Third on grid would be Ed Railton at 1:57:984, after qualifying graciously dropping off a couple of cold Coronas as thanks for the draft in qual! Rounding out the rest of the top 10 was Maki, Dobson, R. Evans, Baillie, McAnaney, Courtney, Olivier, and Kirberg.

Sunday's racing action would start and finish with SM, the first event being the SM Challenge and the final being the SM regional race. Justin was able to jump out to a quick lead with Rod Nelson settling into second, Railton third, and Maki forth. Justin's strategy was to put his head down and click off some flyers and extend to a comfortable lead while the others battled behind. Battling is exactly what was going on with OCR teammate Dave McAnaney facing immediate pressure both gaining and losing positions each lap as the battles were extremely intense in the upper pack. Up front, Dobson climbed from his 5th position on grid into p2 but by this time Justin had a 3 second lead and Dobson was not able to cut into this margin. With about 10 minutes left in the race, the dreaded double yellow emerged with a car stranded at the exit of t9. Two laps were required to clean this incident up, leaving enough time for 2 race laps, a sprint to the finish. Justin was able to get a clean jump on the restart, but Dobson had been quicker from t2-t4 with 1.8l torque and was able to get back on Justin's bumper. Fortunately Justin seemed a bit quicker through the esses into t11 and was able to hold off Dobson and collect the first checkered flag of the 2004 SM Challenge series. Thanks to Marshall Pruett for the steadying voice on the radio! Rounding out the top 10 were Dobson, Maki, Nelson, Kirberg, Olivier, R. Evans, T. McCarthy, Vodden, and McAnaney. Notable Mike Courtney's day ended early via contact w/Maki in t11.

The afternoon regional race would end up being an equally exciting race. The race had some difficulty getting off the ground with two starts waved off due to anxious competitors a few rows back. The race finally got underway with Ed Railton getting a nice start forcing Justin Hall to close the door a bit going up through t1. Ed was able to carry this momentum through t2 shuffling Rod Nelson back to p3. However, Rod would quickly reassume his position overtaking Ed in t4. Rick Maki would also find himself in a position to pass Ed quickly attaching himself to Rod's bumper. All the while Justin was attempting to extend a lead, but was only able to clear Rod by a second or so as Rod was intent to not loose sight of Justin in this race. This order would remain the same for quite a few laps with Maki applying intense pressure to Rod, often forcing Rod on a defensive line, but Rod kept his cool holding the position. Kevin Baillie was able to pass Rick Maki but shortly thereafter dropped a wheel exiting 8a and went into the tire barriers at t9 fortunately walking away from the incident well protected in yet another TC Design cage. Another 2 laps behind the pace car to clean this incident up and we are back to green in the order that would end up being our finishing order with Justin collecting another checkered flag with Rod Nelson second and Rick Maki rounding out the podium.

Written By: Justin Hall