April Mayhem

The first event for NASA Norcal at the famous Thunderhill Raceway promised to be full of the unknown, with a full week of rain leading up to the event, and the 39 drivers with points on the board for the season more more accustomed to Infineon Raceway at Sears Point where the last 4 race weekends had been held. As everyone was soon to find out, expectations for pure chaos were far behind. Team BTM Motorwerks looked to be in great shape for the year, with Chittum and McClure heading up the season points standings with two 1 - 2 finishes at the last event. As the teams converged on Willows California, the weather cleared, and spirits ran high at a typical Casa Ramos evening the night before racing began. Saturday Qualifying began normally for the racers, and when the smoke cleared Brad had a credible 3rd place in qualifying behind Paul Blickman and the ever-speedy #10 car usually driven by Loren Trefethen. While Loren was unable to make the race Saturday, Tim Barber stepped in and put the car on the front row . Ray Zanatto slipped in right behind Brad, and, after some minor difficulty with setup for this new track, Chittum qualified fifth next to a fired-up Steve Ferrario. The hallmark standing start and blastoff was fantastic - completely the crack cocaine equivalent that racers spend long nights polishing a washer to achieve. Blickman, Zanatto and Ferrario got fantastic launches, and Brad’s was good as well. Chittum’s was okay, but Ferrario stormed ahead of him in 2nd gear. Barber’s launch from the front row consisted of a long smoky burnout, very impressive, but not the fastest way off the line.

As the pack hit 3rd gear and stuffed three-wide into Thunderhill’s T1, Blickman led Zanatto and McClure with a good margin, and Barber, right behind him dove to the inside, with Ferrario right behind. Chittum had better momentum, and dove back to the outside, neatly passing both Barber and Ferrario on the outside the long T2, and securing 4th by the exit of T3. The racers lined up looking for advantages through 4, 5 and 6. The line bombed through T8, but Blickman appeared to slow slightly heading up the hill for T9. Zanatto took a flying dive up the inside, and the two went side by side into T9. But out on the marbles, Blickman wasn’t able to keep his car from going nearly sideways, and he went off on the well-worn dirt on the outside of T9, later to rejoin in 11th. The Zanatto - McClure - Chittum - Barber then rounded T14 and T15 onto the front straight - and found a yellow flag. Unfortunately, the Miata field that started behind the Spec e30s had several cars crash, and it took most of the remaining time in the session to clean up the mess. NASA officials granted points for the race based on qualifying, and set up the grid for the Sunday 50 minute race as well. Sunday’s race took off in the same order, with Trefethen and McClure on the front row, with Chittum and Zanatto 3rd and 4th. At the drop of the green, all 4 cars got decent launches, with Trefethen edging out McClure, and Zanatto getting ahead of Chittum. Once again, the pack ended up nose to tail and for the first few laps, none of the front runners could seem to get an advantage on any of others.

But, up in front, Trefethen seemed to be having problems. McClure, King of the T5 Rodeo got a good run on him going into T6, but Trefethen ran wide, taking McClure right off the outside. Next Zanatto caught up to the canny racer, and made a credible pass attempt on the outside of Thunderhill’s super fast T1. He ended up on the outside of T1 in the marbles, and got a rough ride on the grass before rejoining the race. That left Chittum in 2nd behind Trefethen, with only a little breathing room before Greg Petersen and Steve Ferrario caught up and made his life difficult. But noticing Trefethen seemed to have the most problem with right hand turns on the predominantly left-turning track, Chittum set up for an undercut going into T14, and sure enough, Trefethen went wide, barely able to keep the car on the track. Later, Trefethen would pit, and return to the fray with a new rear tire - he’d somehow managed to get a slow leak, and his car’s handling had suffered progressively in the race.

This left Chittum with a few lengths of lead that he slowly stretched into just about a full straightaway by late in the race. In fact, he looked set to clinch another win, but the mayhem was not yet played out. First, an incident in T9 that affected several cars including McClure on his way back to the front that left a car stranded on the outside of the turn. NASA officials initially ran a full-course yellow that bunched the field up while they towed a few other suck cars, then later had a yellow in T7 through T9 to finish the cleanup. Chittum got a good gap on the restart, but got caught behind a lapped car in T1. Unable to begin passing until just after T9, Zanatto was able to keep more speed through the yellow area and pass both cars going into T10. In one last surreal moment, the #12 A-1 Autowerks car caught and passed Chittum going into T1 with the white flag flying. So hard was the car pushing, that it went right back off the track again in T5, to finish back off the podium.

Finally, at some point during the race, the entire timing system conked out, so while unofficially it looked like Zanatto, Chittum and Peterson finally made the podium, we will update this space once the official Sunday results are published. Team BTM Motowerks will return to Thunderhill Raceway May 19th and 20th to contest Rounds 7 and 8 of the 16 round NASA Norcal Spec e30 Championship.