2004 New England Challenge Wrap-Up

[Bob Lutz DB-1 #54]

The second season of the New England Challenge (NEC) series for Formula Ford came to a successful close at Watkins Glen in September. The series, run in conjunction with scheduled SCCA Regional race weekends, featured three classes: FF, CF (Club Ford with no tire specification ) and NCF (Club Ford with the NARRC tire rule). The three class format was adopted for the NEC to encourage fuller participation because the Club Ford tire rule varies from track to track in NEDiv.

Sixty-one different Formula Ford drivers took part in one or more of the seven event weekends in the series with 32 in FF, 21 in NCF and 9 in CF. The average entry for an NEC event was 16 cars, compared to less than 10 cars for non-NEC Regional events in NEDiv. The largest field was 32 cars at the May 31st “RACER Magazine 35 years of Formula Ford presented by RedMist” at Lime Rock Park, which was part of the Mohegan Sun Grand Prix weekend there. The season finale at Watkins Glen in September also had a large 19 car field. Only the event at BeaveRun, which is at the extreme western boundary of NEDiv drew less than 10 entries for an NEC event.

NEC race winners in the FF class were Tom Raber, Davey D’Addario, Mike Rand, Arthur Foster, Don Drislane, Bob Lutz and David Petzko (2). In NCF, winners were Chuck Van Nostrand, J. D. King (3), Rob Weiner, Rod Kendall, and Rich Droller. In CF, Steve Roux (2) and Dan Pyanowski (2) claimed victories.

All of the 2003 NEC series Champions, Bob Lutz (FF), J. D. King (NCF), and Steve Roux (CF), successfully defended their titles for 2004. Ray Boyer (FF), Rod Kendall (NCF) and Dan Pyanowski (CF) earned series runner-up awards while Davey D’Addario (FF), Rich Droller (NCF) and Don Costa (CF) were third place series finishers.

The series sponsors (in alphabetical order) deserve a huge note of appreciation: Justice Racing Engines, Moroso Performance, Quicksilver RacEngines, Racing Flow Development, “Roz” Rosintoski Motorsports Photography, Snapdragon Engineering, and SRP Engineering. These sponsors posted over $13,000 in contingency awards which were claimed by twenty of the twenty-six drivers registered for the NEC series.

For more information on any of the events or the final series standgins, please go to:

http://www.users.fast.net/~nescca/nechallenge.htm

[Roux]

I would like to thank Bob Lutz for his hard work to make NEC happen again this year. I am sure some other folks helped out too, like John Merriman. Who did I miss other than the great sponsors!! The awards are great and I like the fact that this covers a few regions. So it is not 'national', but it does require some adventure away from the usual one or two venues that are so convenient and comfortable for the average regional warrior.

Thanks again. I will be back for the 2005 NEC season!

[J.D. King]

Congratulations to Bob Lutz, his wife Gayle, and to John Merriman for putting on the NEC. A thanks to the sponsors for their great contributions too.
I think the NEC at the Glen was great, Pocono was fun, and anytime you get a group to go south to Summit there is fun to be had. The 35th at LimeRock was awesome too, thanks to Mr. Rand on that one.

Great job guys!!

Let's keep this going and I'm ever hopeful that we can get the FF ball rolling with this "club level" series full of great, clean(driving style at least) and fair playing drivers.

[EACIII]

Thanks for a great series. Next year I promise to try and make it out to Beaver Run.

EAC III