There were 8 F500's entered - three MC's and five 2 strokes - in a race group of 30 cars.
It took three different rental cars but Clint McMahan has won both races in F500 class and winning overall in the Sunday rain race. Clint drove the grey Scorpion in the first qualifying session on Friday morning with an overall pole time of 1:31.110 but he had to pull over due to a major knock in the motor. So, it was decision time - swap motors yet again in the jinxed Scorpion (3rd motor in 2 races) or pull out the spare rental car, the KBS Mk.8 that Matt Strand drove the previous season. Clint chose to drive the Mk.8, so he spent all his remaining time re-doing the car to his setup and ran the afternoon qualifying session with a lap slightly slower at 1:31.996. Clint was still faster by over four seconds to the rest of the F5 field. But Clint was still not happy as the car did not have the top end he felt that he needed to get down to his track record of about 1:30.7 (IIRC). So he took the Scorpion back to the race shop and prepared his recently acquired NovaKBS of Chris Ross with data acquisition and his setup. Back the next morning for the last qualifying session, Clint ran just a few laps when the water pressure warning light came on and Clint parked it as a precaution - we later found out that the switch was grounding and the cooling system was just fine. Now remember that every time that you change a car during the weekend you have to go thru BOTH Tech AND T&S to make the change so it was very busy for the F6R team. Finally, after all this drama, Clint was happy with the ex-Ross NovaKBS F600. Now comes the Saturday race and Clint is gridded 4th, no, is it 7th? - we did not know for sure due to all the car changes. It really did not matter where he ended up on the grid because he made a huge inside charge at the start, four wide at Turn #1 with Clint popping out in front going up the hill. He stayed there until mid race, when Clint spun going up the hill from Turn #1 (he downshifted and it went one gear too low causing the rear to break loose). Clint finished 7th overall but with a much desired lap time of 1:30.649 - he really likes the ex-Ross NovaKBS as it has good top end, quoting Clint. The next two podium finishers were Tom Edwards, 2nd, and Jack Walbran, 3rd. Whew!! That was a crazy two days and we still have the Sunday race with a 70% chance of rain!! We get the grid sheet for Sunday and they have Clint in BOTH 4th and 7th grid position - sheesh!! Whatever, it does not matter - it is Clint and he will be up front anyway. Come Sunday morning and the weather radar is really ominous looking. 10 minutes before going to grid, Clint decides to go with rain tires. Both Fred and Tom Edwards decide to go with slicks as they will come in rather than mess up their cars (Tom had blown a motor and Fred was finding/fixing more bugs in his car). As the cars left the grid it started raining, not hard but enough where all the cars had rooster tails. Again, at the start, Clint jumps to the inside (right side of track) and is in front by turn#1. That is where he stayed, except where he exchanged positions with FF winner, John Benson, during the last two laps - John motioned Clint by on the last lap and Clint took the overall win. By the end of the race the rain had mostly stopped. Coming in 2nd, on slicks no less, was Chris Smith and 3rd was Brian Heun.
Next up is the VIR Pro race in May.
