2017 USTCC Round #1 Laguna Seca

[crash]

The Factory Five Racing Mendeola transaxles Champion car #4 had a pretty good start to the United States Touring Car Championship series at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca this weekend.

We fast qualified with a 1:34 lap time, which was 5 seconds faster than the 2nd fastest qualifier, we had the fastest race lap(in the rain), won the race by over a minute to second place, and lapped the entire field except for 2nd and 3rd place.

Oh, and then there was the fact that it was a standing start in the rain and the field was, for the most part, inverted with us and all the fast big horsepower cars starting at the back of the field. No wheel spin at the start for us, and by the end of the first lap we had passed 10 cars and were in first place overall!

It sounds like it was ridiculous, and it actually really was, but the reason was that no one put rain tires on except for us as they either didn't bring rain tires or made the decision that the track would dry out, which it actually did, but there was no making up for the start and early rain laps where we took full advantage of the full rain tires grip.

It was a good weekend, and now we get to see if we can redeem ourselves this coming weekend in the Western Endurance Racing Championship series, as we had a bearing go bad less than half way thru the first race of the season after fast qualifying at Willow Springs Raceway. This weekend is at Buttonwillow Raceway and is going to be a 3 hour race.

The USTCC races are regionally televised in the Los Angeles area and the videos are also available from their website...

http://ustcc.com/index.html