Falls Church, VA January 20

This past weekend saw the end to the 2006 SCCA MARRS season with the annual Mid Atlantic Road Racing banquet and awards ceremony held at the Marriot Fairmont in Falls Church Virginia. The event is held each January to recognize and honor the MARRS region’s outstanding racers and volunteers from the previous year.

This year saw the successful entry of the Flatoutracing.net/Hankook Tires team’s foray into the MARRS ITA class. Flatoutracing.net/Hankook Tires driver, Jon Kofod, battled all season long for the MARRS title, coming a few points shy of his third consecutive road racing championship. Kofod came away with four wins, four pole positions, and five fastest laps in the nine round MARRS championship. He eventually finished second in ITA class behind two time MARRS championship winner Kirk Dohne.

Kofod was honored this past Saturday and presented with the “Frank S. Pohanka Jr. Award” given annually for outstanding achievement for a racer in his first full season in production car racing. The honor has been awarded annually since 1958 to the driver and owner of a production class car with this highest point total in a given season.

In addition Kofod was awarded the runner up championship trophy for second place in the competitive ITA regional class, which regularly saw fields of 20-25 cars per race. Kofod was the only entrant this season competing on Hankook Tires new Ventus Z214 competition tire.

Kofod and primary sponsor Hankook Tires USA have had a long winning tradition with over 20 wins, 16 pole positions and two amateur road racing championships in the past three seasons of SCCA and NASA road racing. In 2007 Kofod and Hankook Tires will be aiming for their third title in four years.

“I really have to thank Hankook Motorsports and Jeffrey Koehler for their support over the past three seasons. I think the highlight this season was our three consecutive season ending wins in ITA. In addition I am delighted that other racers are starting to take notice that Hankook’s Ventus Z214 is now the class of the field in ITA in the MARRS region.”

Headquartered in Wayne, NJ, Hankook Tire America Corporation is a technology-focused, market-driven company that supports motorsports enthusiasts and racers at all levels. Hankook participates in various motorsports competitions including regional/national club racing sanctioned by SCCA and NASA; SCCA Pro Solo and SCCA Solo National Tour; NASA Time Trials; the United States Touring Car Championship; IMSA Lites for sports racer cars; Pacific F2000 and F2000 Championship Series for open-wheel formula cars; professional Rally events sanctioned by NASA Rally Sport and Rally America; and drifting events including Formula Drift, US Drift and DGTrials.