Summit Point , WV August 12

Round 7 of the Mid Atlantic Road Racing Series commenced once again at Hankook Tires/Flatoutracing.net’s home track of Summit Point Raceway Park this past weekend. Hankook Tires/Flatoutracing’s Jon Kofod further narrowed the gap this weekend in the ITS championship standings with a dominant showing. Kofod sat on pole, set fastest lap for the race, and won the race by a large margin.

Saturday’s qualifying saw a 30 car field of ITR, ITS and ITA class cars start out in the blistering heat and a green track due to the rain the evening before. Running on the Hankook’s Ventus Z214’s, Kofod immediately set the bar high, with a blistering 1:27.102 lap time that was a full two seconds faster than the #00 Lucas Racing Datsun 240Z of Nathan Lucas.  Third and fourth place fell to the #16 VW Corrado of Nicholas Craft and the #5 BMW 325 of Charles Dehaven.  Lucas was separated by a dozen or so faster ITA cars from Craft and Dehaven so it appeared only Lucas would have any chance to challenge Kofod for the ITS victory.

Afternoon qualifying saw more hot and muggy conditions and Kofod pitted early after failing to improve on his lap times. The final qualifying grid for Sunday’s race would remain the same as none of the top ten driver’s in ITR, ITS and ITA would improve their times. “We made some tire pressure adjustments but the track had degraded significantly after lunch and we had quite a bit of understeer in fast corners, so we pitted early knowing we had pole position wrapped up, “ noted Kofod.

Sunday’s race saw two of the faster ITR class BMW 325’s on the front row with Kofod’s #44 ITS car lined up beside Chris Perra’s #01 ITA Integra. Lucas in his Datsun 240Z lined up in row three alongside 2006 ITA champion Kirk Dohne in the #11 Team Sisu Nissan 240SX.

As the green flag was thrown Kofod got a very good start and inched ahead of Perra’s Integra. Meanwhile Lucas was struggling with a bad start and was immediately passed by Dohne’s ITA 240SX. Dohne then bump drafted Kofod down the front straight and appeared to get by Perra’s Integra. The field bunched up in turn one as Kofod tucked in behind the two faster ITR BMW’s and Perra regained a position on Dohne who then lost another spot to the Lucas Racing 240Z.

For the next couple of laps Kofod widened his lead bit by bit over Perra’s ITA Integra, who was holding off the Lucas Racing 240Z. Eventually on lap 9 Lucas was able to draft Perra down the front straight and get the position. At this stage, however Kofod had opened up a substantial lead in ITS and was well on his way to victory. Although Lucas narrowed the gap each lap, Kofod was simply managing his tires and the gap to take the checkered flag on lap 16 by a margin of 5 seconds. Kofod would end the race with pole, fastest lap, and a win in ITS and a 3rd overall finish behind the two faster ITR BMW’s of Marshall Lytle and Dan Jones.

“We had a great weekend and I’d  like to thank Acura, Curry’s Auto, and Hankook Tires for their support. Even with temperatures in the mid 90’s today the Hankook Ventus Z214’s never lost any grip or performance. It was simply a matter of managing the gap between Nathan and I and staying out of trouble as we approached slower traffic in the closing laps,” noted Kofod.

Kofod leaves Summit Point in 2nd place in the MARRS ITS season point standings having narrowed the gap to only 20 points leading into the Labor Day Double Regional at Summit Point at the end of the month. With two races remaining the title chase is going to be close and likely may go down to the season ending race.