Summit Point, July 15

Blazing hot temperatures greeted Summit Point Raceway for the second consecutive race weekend. Temperatures were even hotter than the previous weekend’s Hyperfest activities. Flatoutracing/Team Hankook’s Jon Kofod was making his return back to SCCA for the fifth round of the MARRS Championship.

The only thing hotter than the 94+ degree temperature was Kofod’s Saturday afternoon qualifying lap of 1:29.1 which was nearly a second and a half faster than MARRS Championship leader Kirk Dohne in his Nissan 240SX. Kofod had qualified a 10th of a second off of Dohne’s time in the morning session but made some set up changes for the afternoon session. “We made some air pressure adjustments to compensate for the heat and the lack of grip in the morning session and it proved to work perfectly. The Hankook Ventus Z214’s seem to excel no matter what the conditions. All the other race groups were off the pace of their normal times by at least two seconds per lap based on the extreme heat but the Hankook’s were never fazed at all. On a cool day we would have had the lap record,” noted Kofod.

Sunday’s race proved to be a barnburner. Kofod got a good jump on Dohne at start finish and had two car lengths going into turn 1. Dohne, however braked very late on the outside and was able to get along side of Kofod in turn 2. Kofod attempted to squeeze Dohne wide but Dohne was having none of it and the two cars had slight contact exiting turn 2. Dohne’s superior torque would power him past Kofod into turn 3.

For the next seven laps the two cars were never separated by more than a few inches. Kofod continually tried to get past Dohne in the carousel section but was thwarted time and time again. Kofod’s then started making runs on Dohne on the front straight attempting to draft Dohne into turn 1 and getting inside of the 240SX in turn 2 but Dohne’s extra torque kept him ahead each time. Briefly Kofod was able to get side-by-side of Dohne’s 240SX into turn 3 but each time Dohne kept the lead.

With a few laps to go Dohne was able to open up a small gap in traffic to take the win by a few car lengths. Kofod finished second, setting fastest lap by a half second. Gregg Ginsbergg, who missed out on MARRS IV with engine troubles, finished a strong third place.

“Kirk didn’t have the fastest car today, but he had the fastest car in those parts of the track where it counted. After the third or fourth lap I was resigned to forcing him into a mistake similar to MARRS IV, but this time Kirk didn’t make a single mistake,” stated Kofod. “The Hankook Ventus Z214’s really proved their worth again this weekend with our second consecutive pole position in MARRS and the second consecutive fastest lap as well” noted Kofod.

Special thanks as always to Hankook Tires, Guident Technologies and Curry’s Auto Service.