Homestead National
Almost everyone that ran at Sebring made the trek to Homestead. Matthew Inge and Tom Green didn't.
Matthew Mair again sat on the pole for both races with Wally Osinga, Chris Eveland and Phil Di Pippo trading the next 3 places over Saturday and Sunday.
Joe Wolf holed a radiator Friday and decided not to have Motion Dynamics put in another engine. It's a long Winter yet, so he didn't want to rush.
That left 6 cars to race, as Ron Inge had kidney stones on Wed night and decided not to come out and play. While I thought that was bad, you gotta hear Phil Di Pippo's hysterical story of his battles with the stones! Like 3 times!!
Saturday's race had the Robinson Motor Sports prepped car of Mair out front, Osinga was 15 seconds back after 6 laps, with the next 4 cars pretty darn close tohether with no one in between them, Eveland, Feghali, Di Pippo and Patrick Linn. The 4 were split by less than 2 seconds.
Eveland broke away from the battling duo of Di Pippo and Feghali as those two really went at it going into turn one for 3 laps..
Feghali had a small off, which got Phil running down Eveland, and Phil made it close with 10 to go. All the while, those two were running down Wally Osinga, who was cruising in second place well behind Matthew Mair.
Linn retired with 9 more to go, with square tires after a huge spin in turn one. Lots of tire smoke and he didn't hit anything in the spin.
Wally had an off with 7 laps to go, allowing Eveland and Di Pippo to get by. Feghali smelled blood in the water and climbed up Osinga's tail pipe, but Wally put his head down and worked out a gap staying in 4th place.
Di Pippo got right on Eveland for 2nd, but then with 5 to go, Phil didn't come by. His car stalled on course. "The engine just shut off" a dejected Phil said.
At the flag it was Mair with a front straight lead, Eveland second, Osinga was leading Feghali by 6 seconds.
Sunday, Mair took off again on an aggressive start that caught the eye in the sky. Some officials felt that he jumped the start, but Mark Eaton was right by the starter and called the flag as soon as the arm of the starter moved. After the race, the officials had issued the penalty of one position. More on that later.
This time, Chris Eveland kept Mair in sight. Chris and Mark went over the data and video from yesterday's race and made some changes that they thought would help Chris drive the car better. (Robinson Motor Sports does the prep on Chris' car, he does the trackside) We saw a glimpse of that as Eveland was only 1.1 seconds off Mair's qualifying time, first time someone has been within 2 seconds of Mair!
For the first 4 laps, Chris was slightly falling back, 5 seconds after the first 4 laps. Osinga, Feghali, Di Pippo and Linn all were within touch of each other until Di Pippo stopped on course again.
On the 5th lap, Osinga got close to Eveland and was within striking distance a lap later. With 12 to go, an FC got in between the 2 and cost Wally .7 seconds a lap. Wally finally got around the FC, but the damage was done.
With 6 to go, Osinga made great strides on Eveland and closed the gap until 3 to go, when Eveland laid down his fastest laps of the weekend, pulling away from Wally.
At the checker, it was Mair, Eveland, Wally, Feghali and Linn. (say that group 4 times fast..)
However, the stewards penalized Mair a lap for jumping the start. A Stewards Request for Action was made and there is no appealing this type of action. Hummm, that didn't seem fair. However, the official made time to hear Eaton and Mair's side of the event. How's this for sportsmanship, both Osinga and Eveland brought video evidence to the meeting. If over turned, Eveland would loose the win and Wally would be moved back too.
After the meeting, the Steward's decided to change their Request for Action and restored the win to Mair. My hats off to Chris and Wally for their involvement in the meeting and the Stewards who didn't need to attend a meeting at all, but wanted to be fair.
So, there ends the Palm Tree Winter National Tour, now we start heading north for the remainder of the National Races, with Roebling Road next on the schedule on march 5th and 6th, followed by the Double National at Road Atlanta the 18th - 20th of March.
Hope to see you there!!
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