July 28-29, 2001 -- Chattanooga Region sent down three Rivergate race cars for this event: Vesa Silegren's ITC Civic, Roy Yother's ITC CRX and Bill Perry's newly done (but not quite completed) ITB Honda Accord Lxi.

Crew consisted of Vesa's brother Heikki Silegren and his family - Tarja, Johnny, Harry and Anne. Also Gail Perry, John Perry, Chris Yother, Ann Bajenski and Carl Blevins. Sias Reyneke came down from Chattanooga as guest/crew.

In qualifying, Vesa beat the ITC field by 2.5 seconds with his best ever lap of 1:52.21. Roy and Bill qualified back in the pack. Race day weather changed irregularly from Sun to Rain. Vesa had to choose between Dry, Wet or Intermediate tires and chose Dry. Roy chose between Dry and Wet and went with Wet. Bill had no complications to his choice as the Accord only had one set of tires - whether they were Dry tires, or Wet tires depended only upon whether he drove through puddles.
 

2001 Races

November
   ARRC
October
   VIR SARRC/ECR/ECR
September
   Roebling SIC
   Road Atlanta SARRC/SARRC
July
   Road Atlanta ECR/SARRC
April
   Roebling Double SARRC
March
    Memphis Mid-Am/IT Tour
    VIR SARRC
    Atlanta SARRC/ECR/ProIT
February
     Memphis Regional
     Roebling School

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At the start of the 15-lap race, it looked as though Vesa had the ITC field covered. But a few laps into the race, it began sprinkling on the back part of the track - not enough to slow anyone - just worrisome. But the rain increased. While we still had a damp track, part-time Rivergate driver, Eric Alimena ran Vesa down, going side-by-side thru turns 6 & 7. The VW Scirocco out pulled the Honda to the first place - very temporarily. Exiting the damp turn 12, Eric spun, whacking the inside wall hard. The VW (which placed 4th overall in Tarmac Express I ClubRally) was hurt badly, but Eric was fine.

As the rain continued to increase, it appeared Vesa had made the third best choice of the tires he had available. Debby Anderson ran him down on her intermediate tires. Debby 1, Vesa 2 in ITC.

Bill ran near the back of the ITB field until the track got well soaked, then passed about 10 cars to finish fifth in class and 11th overall, just behind Vesa.

Roy also ran well back in the dry but moved forward quickly in the wet. He finished fourth in ITC, but he was DQ'd for not reporting to impound. In the rainy confusion of spinning cars no one realized he had passed so many cars to place that well.

Art Thompson qualified Roy's CRX for the Endurance Championship Race and did the first half of the race. At the pit stop, Johnny Silegren dumped in 5 gallons of fuel and John Perry a half-quart of oil. Roy hopped in to finish in a clean race. They finished third in ITC.

-- Bill Perry