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