2003 Season Race #4 and #5
Buttonwillow 4/26/2003

Despite some threatening weather forecasts, an enthusiastic group of S2 competitors converged on Buttonwillow Raceway Park under ideal conditions for round 3 of the 2003 season. The event was the last SCCA Nationals of the year for the Southern Pacific Division, in the Central Division they would be holding their first National of the year this same weekend, while Northern Pacific has yet to start the National season.

Stalwart S2 Cup competitors were all on hand, including Joe Moran, Jeff Littrell, Bob Lovenson, Jeff Anderson, and Chris Keating. Bruce Allison was debuting his new Lola (gee, looks just like his old Lola since he installed the old body!). Rob Conrad, Paul Schroeder and Fred Michael ventured down from Northern California. New to the series was Jason Coulachas in his Swift DB-2. Oh yeah, there was another competitor -- SCCA multi-time National Champion John Fergus joined us from Ohio, piloting a Moran Motorsports Carbir CS-2.

Due to the large number of entrants (4 Flight races seem to increase the field for all the Sports Racers), the CSR/DSR and S2 cars were moved to group 1 (slower open-wheel racers, Formula Ford, Formula Vee, Formula 500). This certainly helped with traffic, but there were still a pretty large field.

Saturday Qualifying and Race

Qualifying showed us why John Fergus is the National Champion -- his first lap was good enough for the overall pole position in group 1, a blistering 1:48.1 lap around the configuration 25 course. It was no fluke, his second best lap was also a 1:48.1 A few DSRs were mixed in, but the top of the S2 field qualifying order was Fergus, Littrell, Moran, Conrad, and Lovenson.

At the start, Travis Duder in his Nissan powered DSR shot up the inside into the lead. Fergus was able to pass him back and hold onto the lead for a couple of laps, but eventually the DSR (who was running 1:47s slipped away). Jeff Littrell was able to run faster than his qualifying time and stay ahead of a struggling Joe Moran, whose soft compound tires were only good during the first few laps.

There were a few incidents at the first turn. Fred Michael was part of the meat in a 4 car sandwich -- Chris Keating, Bruce Allison and Jason Choulochas were the others. It seems as though Fred and Jason were the only ones to touch.

Forth place qualifier Rob Conrad, threw his car off the track at the end of the first lap -- he would push pretty hard from the very back to finish 9th

While there wasn’t much battling at the front, there was plenty of action back in the pack. Bob Lovenson and Jeff Anderson stayed close nearly the whole race, until Bob spun off the track at the "Off Ramp" turn.

Bruce Allison was able to get by Gary Holcomb, but Gary was expecting a classic Allison spin when he saw Bruce sliding all over the place, and bounding over the curbs in the esses. Bruce was able to catch up and have a good fight with Paul Schroeder (who was racing with a broken ARB link). When Gary Holcomb caught up, Paul pointed him around thinking it was race leader Fergus, since the cars are painted in the same yellow/blue paint scheme.

As for the DSRs that passed Fergus... they all began to fall out, and Fergus found himself catching the overall race leader with 3 laps to go. With plenty of car left under him, John was able to make a clean pass, and win the race overall! Along the way he lowered the track record for the #25 configuration to 1:49.420.

Car No	Driver		Make	Qual Time	Qual Pos	Finish
14	John	Fergus	Carbir	1:48.156	1	1
41	Jeff	Littrell	Swift	1:50.445	2	2
71	Joe	Moran	Carbir	1:51.737	3	3
4	Jeff	Anderson	Swift	1:55.352	7	4
11	Bob	Lovenson	Swift	1:53.239	5	5
84	Gary	Holcomb	Swift	1:56.353	8	6
53	Paul	Schroeder	Swift	1:55.070	6	7
87	Bruce	Allison	Lola	1:58.431	9	8
40	Rob	Conrad	Lola	1:52.660	4	9
81	Chris	Keating	Tiga	1:59.144	10	10
56	Fred	Michael	Reynard	2:02.564	12	11
29	Jason	Choulochas	Swift	2:01.473	11	12

Sunday Qualifying and Race

Sunday’s qualifying saw that the DSRs had learned something on Saturday, and two of them were now faster than Fergus. The qualifying order was basically the same, with Littrell and Moran behind Fergus but there was a real tight S2 clump in the middle with Holcomb, Anderson, Keating, Allison, Choulochas, and Schroeder all basically within one second of each other.

The start was a bit of a mess. Some of the field checked up just before the flag flew. Bob Lovenson found himself behind a car with smoke coming off its locked tires. Trying to avoid, a DSR knocked him off the pavement, and he watched as the entire field went by.

Once started, Sunday’s race was once again controlled completely by John Fergus. Jeff Littrell was able to stay closer during the first half, but the gap never was closer than about 6 seconds. Mid-way through, Jeff would suffer an unfortunate accident over the Lost Hills turn when a Formula Vee would veer into his path. The resulting collision caused serious damage to the right front of Jeff’s DB-2, and Jeff said he could feel the HANs straps holding his helmet back. Fortunately neither he nor the FV driver were injured.

Joe Moran once again had a rather lonely race, although he may have had some DSR/CSR folks to play with.

The real battle was for third. Rob Conrad and Jeff Anderson had a ferocious fight for the third podium spot. Rob caught and passed Jeff, then Jeff hounded and made feigns at several corners. Rob was steady and appeared to be on his way to a podium finish, when up from the distance came Bob Lovenson.

Bob was closing quickly and in the last two laps was able to pass Jeff Anderson. But it looked like Rob was going to prevail -- until they caught a couple of formula cars approaching the Talladega -- Both Rob and Bob were able to get by the first one before Lost Hills, they got by the second one on the other side, and as they approached the Star Mazda turn, Rob took a defensive line, but not defensive enough as Bob Lovenson was able to put the car nearly on the right edge of the track and make the pass as they reached the corner. Jeff Anderson never gave up, hoping these two would take each other out.

At the line, Fergus and Moran crossed the line in photo formation. Then came Bob Lovenson in third, with Rob and Jeff side by side just a few car lengths back. Bob certainly had the drive of the race coming from dead last to finish third.

Car No	Driver		Make	Qual Time	Qual Pos	Finish
14	John	Fergus	Carbir	1:48.052	1	1
71	Joe	Moran	Carbir	1:52.122	3	2
11	Bob	Lovenson	Swift	1:53.916	5	3
40	Rob	Conrad	Lola	1:53.860	4	4
4	Jeff	Anderson	Swift	1:56.465	7	5
84	Gary	Holcomb	Swift	1:56.021	6	6
29	Jason	Choulochas	Swift	1:56.846	10	7
81	Chris	Keating	Tiga	1:56.467	8	8
53	Paul	Schroeder	Swift	1:57.426	11	9
87	Bruce	Allison	Lola	1:56.564	9	10
56	Fred	Michael	Reynard	2:04.479	12	11
41	Jeff	Littrell	Swift	1:50.706	2	12

On the Podium, the special S2 Cup Champagne flowed, with Joe Moran "jumping the pop" to make sure John Fergus was seriously doused. John commented later that he really enjoyed the camaraderie of the 4/Flight S2 group, and it was great fun to run a new track in a different car He invited folks to get together with a big transporter and join them on the east coast for some racing -- his favorite track is Watkins Glen.

The 2003 4 Flight S2 Cup Season is about half over now. Joe Moran has shown great consistency and leads the overall points standings. Despite his shunt with the FV on Sunday, Jeff Littrell still holds onto second place but may miss races now that his car needs a new tub mid-season. Bob Lovenson used this past weekend to jump from 5th to 3rd, displacing Greg Clark who is out for the remainder of the season due to hip surgery. John Fergus was able to move from nowhere into 4th spot in just one weekend but he is unlikely to travel West for many more 4 Flight races so he probably won't be a factor at the end of the season. Lovenson will have to stay on his game to stay ahead of Gary Holcomb and Jeff Anderson. And don't forget that Rob Conrad is on the board now and looking forward to the NorCal races on his home turf. It should be great.

Overall Standings

		Driver		Race 1	Race 2	Race 3	Race 4	Race 5	Points
1	st	Joe	Moran	1st	2nd	2nd	3rd	2nd	46
2	nd	Jeff	Littrell	2nd	1st	3rd	2nd	12th	37
3	rd	Bob	Lovenson	3rd	5th	8th	5th	3rd	26
4	th	John	Fergus				1st	1st	24
5	th	Gary	Holcomb	4th	6th	5th	6th	6th	23
6	th	Jeff	Anderson	6th	3rd		4th	5th	22
7	th	Greg	Clark	5th	4th	6th			15
8	th	Chris	Tryon			1st			12
9	th	Rob	Conrad				9th	4th	7
10	th	John	Page			4th			6
11	th	Paul	Schroeder				7th	9th	4
12	th	Jason	Choulochas				12th	7th	3
12	th	Larry	Payton			7th			3
14	th	Chris	Keating				10th	8th	2
15	th	Bruce	Allison				9th	10th	1
16	th	Fred	Michael				12th	11th	0