Reston , VA June 1

The Flatoutracing.net team started the 2008 SCCA Mid Atlantic Road Racing Series with high hopes of success coming off the heals of their 2007 ITS Championship season a year prior. Principle driver and team owner Jon Kofod was hoping to avoid the early season problems that had dogged him in each of the two previous seasons.

Luck would have it otherwise though. The first two rounds of the MARRS series commenced at Summit Point Raceway Park on April 26th and May 31st. The first round of the MARRS series saw Kofod start the first race in second spot just slightly of the pace of pole sitter Steve Hoffman in his identical #25 95 Integra GSR. Hoffman beat Kofod in his only two appearances during the 2007 season at the MARRS Labor Day Double so Kofod was looking for payback.

The race started with Kofod getting a huge jump on Hoffman’s GSR and when Robert Powell in his ITR BMW took out Dan Jones in his ITR BMW, Kofod had moved to second place overall behind the overall ITR BMW of Marshall Lytle. Repeated attempts by Hoffman to pass Kofod on the first five laps were met with stiff resistance on the cold and damp Summit Point Racing surface. Finally on lap seven Kofod lost the back end of his Integra in turn three and spun off the track. Kofod quickly recovered and got back on track and slowly passed the ITS and ITA cars of Nathan Lucas (280Z), Gregg Ginsberg (CRX Si) and AJ Nealy (CRX Si) to continue the hunt for Hoffman.

On lap disaster struck as Robert Powell, who by now had caught back up after his lap two spin, blew the braking zone in turn one and t-boned Kofod off the track badly damaging the Integra’s rear suspension. Kofod attempted to limp back on the track to turn three and safety when the entire rear suspension collapsed and sent him spinning onto the turn 2/3 outside embankment. Kofod’s car was now badly damaged at both the front and rear.  Unable to finish the race Kofod protested to the race stewards who agreed and DNF’ed Powell and put him on probation.

Round 2 at Summit Point just a few weeks later proved a miracle effort for the team to rebuild nearly half the car and have it ready in time. In fact the team were still working on the car to finish it as the other MARRS competitors took to qualifying on Saturday afternoon.  Nathan Lucas would sit on pole for Sunday’s race as Kofod would start at the back of the field in 43 rd spot.

At the start Kofod made up huge gains passing 13 cars on the first lap alone and by lap two had passed 17 cars total. Slowly, Kofod made his way to the front and by lap 12 was 13th overall and 7th in ITS class when a long double yellow came out and bunched up the field. With only a few laps remaining Kofod was able to finish 4th in ITS and 8th overall for the race.

“I just want to thank my crew, who as usual never gave up. I especially want to thank Ryan and Brian Downey of Auto Expectations for their work on rebuilding the body of the car and my chief race mechanic Brian Curry’ of Curry’s Auto Service for his hard work, especially the last 24 hours before the race where he worked straight through qualifying back at the shop” noted Kofod.

The team hopes an improved showing at MARRS 3 in June can get them back into the title chase.