Warren, OH July 1

Fresh off the heals of their first win at Summit Point two weeks earlier the Flatoutracing/Hankook Tires team made the seven hour tow to Ohio to compete in Rounds 5 and 6 of the Mid Atlantic Road Racing Series (MARRS) at Nelson Ledges for a double regional race weekend.

The team got in early Saturday morning and with no knowledge of the track or set up data managed to qualify second in the ITS field behind the Nissan 240SX of Joseph McGroarty.  Lead driver Kofod would start the race surrounded by several ITS car and ITA cars on the still unfamiliar track.

Saturday’s race got off to a good start and Kofod and McGroarty both got good starts but Kofod got stuck on lap two behind a few slower ITA cars. McGroarty then pulled a five car gap for the next few laps. On lap four a terrible wreck on the front straight claimed two ITS cars and one ITA car with two of them turned upside down. A black flag all sent the remainder of the field into the pits for a reshuffle of the lineup.

On the restart McGroatry seemed to push wide in the final turn before the front straight. Flatoutracing.net/Hankook Tires’ Kofod got a great start and drafted McGroarty down the front straight attempting a pass in turn one, but was unable to make his car stick. Repeated attempts by Kofod were met with stiff resistance as McGroarty took the checked flag ahead of Kofod by only a car length or two.

Sunday’s qualifying with two sessions under his belt and a new set of Hankook Ventus Z214’s saw Kofod chop nearly 7/10ths of a second of his fastest times from Saturday. But McGroarty in his www.trackitup.com 240SX responded with a fastest time of 1:17.8 chopping nearly 4/10ths of his fastest time to take a second consecutive pole of the weekend.

Sunday’s race saw McGroarty put Rick Jarrett’s ITA Honda Civic between him and Kofod. For five laps Kofod battled Jarrett’s ITA car unable to get by him until he made a daring outside pass on the back straight at over 110 mph to get the position. The next few laps saw Kofod setting faster and faster laps but not enough time was left. McGroarty took his second win of the weekend with Kofod coming in second for the race.

“Our goal was to win, but we had to be realistic considering we had never set foot on the track until first qualifying Saturday morning. If you look at our lap times we made progress throughout the weekend getting up to speed. Each session we were quicker and eventually we got our times down to what the front runner setting,” noted Kofod. “I’d like to thank Hankook Tires as always, the Z214’s performed beautifully and stayed consistent throughout the weekend.”

With a 1st place finish at Summit and two 2nds at Nelson Ledges the Flatoutracing.net/Hankook Tires team currently lie second in the ITS MARRS Championship and hopes to move into first place at Summit Point when Round 7 commences in August.