Kirk qualified fourth
in wet conditions behind Michael
Tinis (VW), Tom Martin (VW),
and Gregg Ginsberg
(Honda) but solidly ahead of the rest of the 15-car field.
Saturday's qualifying
race ran in the wet as well. The lead four finished in the same order
as they started, as Tinis took full advantage of his 4-5 seconds-per-lap
advantage to run away from the ITB field.
The Sunday race started
with entrants gridded in the order of their fastest lap, leaving the front
two rows made up of Tinis, Ginsberg, Martin, then Knestis in that order.
At the green flag, Kirk got caught up behind the scuffling Ginsberg and
Tinis, who moved left enough to give Martin the inside into Turn 1.
Knestis and Tinis
staged an epic battle for 2nd, ahead of Ginsberg who would eventually
fall out after contact with the Alfa Romeo of Patrick
Pegues. The fun would end on lap 10, however, as Knestis's car
suffered an unusual failure. The oil drain plug left its assigned location
in the transmission case, draining all of the fluid along with Kirk's
chance at a podium finish. (See the 5:00 min. mark of the video to the
right.).
Martin continued to
a well-deserved first MARRS win. Tinis's transmission was found to be
noncompliant with the rules following a post-race protest, which elevated
Beth Burkhard (Honda CRX) to second
place.
Kirk Knestis teamed
up with Maximum Attack Motorsports and team principals Brandon
Lewis and Ed Werry for a half-day
blast on the Thunderbolt course at NJMP. Joined by fourth driver Rob
Foley, the team was victorious in ITB, beating Knestis's nemesis
Team Troxell VW Golf and the quick-but-fragile Mazda Protege of DTM Racing.
The weekend could
have ended much less happily - and way sooner - if Kirk's off-course excursion
in Friday night's qualifying had been more costly. Running wide out of
the back-straight "kink," Knestis discovered a ditch running
perpendicular to the track. His subsequent rally-style jump damaged the
oil pan and pump, broke a transmission mount, and cost his codrivers most
of their practice time as the car was rendered hors de combat
for the evening.
Thankfully, the team
was able to effect repairs in time for the race start at noon on Saturday.
Kirk avoided further theatrics, although his late stint was slowed by
an electrical glitch that was also fixed quickly. The blue Golf (a near
twin to Kirk's regular ride, Pablo) completed
359 laps and finished a solid 23rd overall.
Mid
Ohio Sports Car Course
Lexington , OH
29-31 July Sports
Car Club of America 5th Annual IT SPEC*tacular
Kirk
Knestis made
amends for his weak performance at his first visit to the IT SPEC*tacular
in 2008, with a solid third place in the multi-race festival format event.
He did so trailing RennGruppe Motorsports teammate Tristan
Herbert in his similar VW Golf III and local Rabbit GTI driver
Scott Hileman in some of the closest racing
of the weekend.
Much credit for this
success goes to Herbert and RGM team engineer Cameron
Conover, for their contributions during the Friday test session
before racing started. The "IT Fest" format, in which starting
positions for each session are determined by performance in the previous
on-track session, puts a premium on being fast "out of the trailer."
Doing the test sessions, chasing Brimtek
Motorsports World Challenge Touring Car driver Herbert, helped Knestis
be on pace for qualifying on Saturday morning. That first 15-minute session
would end with Knestis in 3rd, just four tenths of a second behind the
virtually tied Herbert and Hileman, and one second up on 4th-place qualifier
Dan Hardison in his Civic.
Saturday's 35-minute
race finished in the same order following some ferocious racing that included
contact with Herbert when Knestis misjudged a pass attempt in the Keyhole
turn. Herbert called them "even" because he was racing with
a pair of Knestis's tires on the front of the Brimtek Golf. When it was
done, these top three in ITB had finished with just over a second covering
them, with fast race laps of 1:46.2, 1:46.3, and 1:46.4, in order of finish.
Knestis improved one
spot by the end of Sunday morning's 15-minute "qualifying race"
(also a points-earner for festival medals), sneaking past Herbert after
he and Hileman were balked by a lapped car. Knestis's fast lap was just
a tick better than Hileman's and he was closing at the finish, but he
ran out of time before the checkered flag dropped.
The final race of
the weekend finished very much like that of the previous day, but with
Knestis coping with an overheating engine so nearly 10 seconds adrift
of the battle for first. The points system made it necessary for organizers
to break a tie between Herbert and Hileman by comparing the weekend's
fast laps, so after more than 1.5 hours of on-track fighting, the margin
between top two was just a few thousandths of a second.
That is good racing.
Update - A post
mortem on the cooling issue revealed a collapsed thermostat, which almost
completely blocked water flow. The entire system - including water pump
and radiator - was refreshed in anticipation of the ARRC.
Failing
again to secure enough codrivers with funding for the Charge of the
Headlight Brigade 13-hour enduro, Kirk decided to travel to VIR for
the Goblins Go regional racing weekend at the end of October. This event,
put on by North Carolina Region SCCA, would serve as a final tune-up prior
to the season-crowing ARRC by Grassroots Motorsports.
Kirk qualified and
finished first in the ECR enduro. The SARRC sprint was somewhat more competitive,
with Steve Strickland (in Jeff
Underwood's Honda Civic) qualifying on the pole, Kirk second, and
longtime ITB competitor (and Competition Cages tube guru) Chris
Schimmel in third. However, Kirk took advantage of traffic at the
start to gap Strickland, used traffic to his advantage, and went on to
the win and fastest lap of the race.
Knestis went to the
2011 ARRC determined to put in a good effort, having lucked
into a bronze medal in 2010. He committed to the pre-race test day
and entered the Pro IT race for additional track time, and had RennGruppe
Motorsports put a fresh alignment on Pablo the Golf. The Pro IT turned
out to be a success, with Knestis qualifying on the pole and taking the
class win, but the Grassroots Motorsports Championship sprint race was
the real prize.
Qualifying for the
main event went well, with Kirk sharing the front row, just half a second
off of Brimtek
Motorsports trailer-mate Tristan Herbert
in his Golf, thanks to some motivation and cooperative drafting from the
WC Touring driver. The pair were ahead of Chi Ho
(Mazda Protege), past ARRC champion Kevin
Ruck (Honda Civic) and four other ITB cars...
...and then came the
Worst Start Ever™.
Missing the third-to-fourth
upshift coming for the green flag (it's a long story why), Knestis was
swamped by five competitors and trailed Ryan Hall
(VW Golf III) into the first turn. Efforts to quickly make up
spots lasted until Turn 7 on the second lap, at which point a good run
on Hall coincided with Tom Martin (running
4th) getting crossed up at the apex. Knestis clobbered Hall's rear bumper
in the ensuing jam-up, resulting in ugly - but not performance-hurting
- damage to Pablo's left front fender, and damage to the rear quarter
from contact with a still-spinning Derek Lugar.
Knestis was now in 8th position (Brad Sellers
had sneaked past in the melee in his earlier-model Golf) and farther from
what was now a Herbert-Ruck battle for the lead.
After a number of
back-and-froth passes showed how fruitless a battle for 6th would be,
Knestis latched onto Hall's rear bumper in an attempt to push the pair
up the order. They passed Sellers and Ho's Mazda on the track, then Ruck
fell out with brake problems. On Lap 15, Knestis passed Hall, then Lugar
succumbed to mechanical issues, elevating the blue Golf to the bronze
step of the podium when the race ended.
VW Golfs fielded by
the Brimtek/RennGruppe cooperative swept the podium, with Herbert maintaining
his lead and Martin hanging on for second. Knestis's result was the same
as in 2010 but he was much happier this year, given the challenges overcome
to claw back to 3rd.
Seventh in
ITB on Lap 1 of the ARRC Championship sprint race, trailing Ryan Hall
into the Esses
Showing superficial
damage from contact on Lap 1; performance of the RennGruppe Motorsports
Golf was unaffected
Jumping the
curb at Road Atlanta's Turn 3, trying to make up for lost time
Images
by Perry
Bennett
All
text and photos protected by copyright
Use by permission only
Last
updated
February 6, 2012
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