| Road Atlanta SARRC/SARRC |  |
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| Road Atlanta SARRC/SARRC | |
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September 1-2, 2001 -- The Chattanooga Region sent down three Rivergate Racing Pod cars for this event: Vesa Silegren's ITC Civic, Will Perry's ITC CRX and Bill Perry's ITB Accord. The long weekend ended up a game of rain tire roulette. Saturday was practice and qualifying all day. Rain - Dry - Rain - Dry all day! Again Sunday the rain was on/off. The rain tire roulette ended up with me with a bullet to the head. Vesa selected dry tires, I selected wet tires and Will flipped a quarter - which came up dry. At the five-minute whistle it looked like I had guessed right - it was raining harder by the minute. About 10 seconds after the one-minute whistle the sun came out! The track was full dry for the race. Will and Vesa finished second and third in ITC, behind an extraordinary VW driven by a former factory team driver. I understeered on the overheated rain tires to a ninth place in a 15 car ITB field. For Monday's race the tire situation was more clear - Wet. Will and Vesa finished a fine one-two. But Vesa had to battle for his position. The VW that won Sunday, with a different driver, fought with Vesa the whole race. Vesa took second at turn 12 on the last lap! I fooled away most of the race following Eric Alemina. He had bad tires so I finally passed him after he scared me two laps in a row. I finished seventh in ITB. Will, Vesa and I all qualified for the SARRC Invitational Championship in Savannah, so that is our next event. With four firsts and one second in SARRC races, Will has enough points to give him a chance at the championship. Vesa and I are just going to have fun. -- Bill Perry |
2001 Races November
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September 25, 2001
