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| September 28, 2003 News |
| Rotax Grand Nationals – Saturday’s Heat Report |
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by Rhonda Mims-Brown
After three heat rounds divided into groups in yesterday’s Rotax Max Grand Nationals action, things will heat up today at North Texas Kartway in Denton, Texas for the last chance qualifiers, pre-finals and finals. All 15 heat races went off yesterday where promoters stayed on schedule up until the Junior Rotax’s third heat race that brought out a red flag situation and threw the schedule off about 40 minutes.
Many of the drivers on hand, now upped to 162 entries in five classes, are becoming familiar with the CIK-FIA format that is quite different from what most are accustom to in the US. The European format differs in several areas where drivers were divided into groups in each class and each group had the opportunity to race each other. Drivers were lined up in each heat not by their former heat’s finishing position, but their original qualifying times. Although complicated, this gave many drivers who had a bad run in one heat the opportunity to re-cover, unless, they constantly batted a bad qualifying time. In addition, the CIK-FIA format allows drivers to work on their kart during a red flag situation as was the case in the Jr. Rotax class where many were surprised to see a driver who caused an accident able to re-start the race in his previous lap position. This is quite unlike typical US rules where the driver causing an accident isn’t even allowed to restart a race or put to the back of the field on the restart.
The local drivers appear to be at an advantage where many are fairing quite well. Among those is the 2002 Rotax International class National Champion, Jordon Musser from College Station, Texas. Although total points from the heat races were not provided at the time of this news posting, our estimates show Musser will start the final today on outside pole position to Juan Ignasio Sanso from Puerto Rico. Sanso scored three wins in his mixture of heats as Musser accomplished dual wins and a second to Sanso in heat one. Another driver with lots of track time who will most likely start in third is Nathan Mauel, a 19 year old driver from Broken Arrow, Okla., who scored two seconds and a third. Mauel will be alongside of another local, Heinz Meyer, whose VMT chassis ran consistently up front with a fourth, third and fifth. By looking at the finishes these estimates are fairly safe to assume, but others who have consistently run well and stayed out of trouble are Ken Hurdle with a fourth, third and sixth and Mike Manning with eight and two fourths.
There are also a few drivers who have been very fast from the start but had a bad performance in a single heat. Among those are Mack McCormack from Athens, Ala., and Fleming Tranberg from San Diego. McCormack took his Birel to a win in the first heat, finished second to Musser in his second heat but fouled a spark plug during the pace laps of his third heat. Tranberg scored a third and second in heats one and three but a 23rd finish in heat two put him further down in points. McCormack and Tranberg and Musser all broke the 38 second barrier posting a 37.9 and were the only drivers able to reach that mark in a race. Sanso and Mauel’s best race laps were 38.2 and 38.1, respectively. Finally, another driver, who should start around fifth is Ken Hurdle who’s been consistent with a fourth, third and sixth but hidden out of the lime light up to this point.
In Junior Rotax competition David Holland has walked away with a clean sweep of all three of his heats as Jonathan Beason scored a first second and 15th. Other front runners today should be the aggressive local, Ansel Gaddy, with a fourth, second and third. Jonathan Summerton, second, third and 13th and Levi Roberts, a second, fifth and fourth. Justin Melton scored wins in two of his heats but experienced a DNF in heat one where he knocked out of the race.
Alan Fudge, another local runner, also swept his heats with triple wins in the Masters class as Rusty Lingle locked in a win and two seconds. Mike Mautner from California had good runs for heats one and two with a win and second, but a DNF in heat three (engine failure) will hamper his starting position for the day. Eric Vaughan has been consistent with a second and two fifths as Tom Gilmore with a fourth, second and third in his heats. Andy Seesemann has had his share of difficulty but managed an eighth, fourth and misfortune in his third round with a DNF after being crashed out in turn one.
The final two classes (RM1 and Mini Max) are exhibition races with local Chad Miller taking wins in all three of his heats.
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