Well sportsfans there is no doubt who the best of the best is in CFC in the South East.
Marshall Aiken is a true champion and he showed it in every way this past weekend at Roebling Road.
For a kid that just did driver's school eight months ago he has had a banner year. The frog predicted last week that if he didn't break he would win. But, Marshall had to keep all of us on the edge of our seats right up to the end. Two hours before the race, Marshall's crew was changing heads on his motor because the cam bearings spun in his qualifying motor during the morning warmup. For a minute there the other three old men thought there may be a glimmer of hope.
Not only did Marshall do what needed to be done, but he left no doubt. In practice he and his bright red Swift were turning laps over 2 full seconds under the existing CFC lap record. As his motor started to weaken he could only settle for being 1.75 seconds under the record in qualifying. In the race as he ran off and left to other three old guys, he only managed to break the official lap record by a few tenths. That was done with a cobbled together motor, and a conservative race plan to insure the win.
Back in the pack Rich LaTerra in his Swift had qualified almost a second ahead of both Court Dowis and Mike Eakin. Yet Rich was 2 full seconds behind Aiken, and Rich was the current lap record holder! The two Reynard pilots had qualified in a dead tie down to the thousandth of a second.
At the start LaTerra tried to chase Aiken, while Dowis and Eakin played leap frog in the back. Finally Dowis had enough and hooked onto a FA the left Eakin to drive around in mop up mode. Luckily, Marshall Aiken had enough respect for his old teacher not to lap him in the end.
The SARRC season ends with Marshall Aiken as an undisputed champion, followed by Court Dowis, Rich LaTerra in third, and Mike Eakin in fourth.
It was a blast. But if anybody doesn't know it by now, Marshall Aiken will tell you for sure this morning, "If it was easy, everybody would be doing it."
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