Greg Brandeau and Rick Lofgren put on a show as they battle door to door for rounds 3 & 4 of NorCal's 944-Spec Championship at Thunderhill March 8th, 9th 2008.

It's 12 days before the first day of spring but you can't tell from the sunshine and green grass that spring hasn't already started at Thunderhill.  NorCal NASA saw large growth in 2008 not just with our 944-Spec class but with all classes and is a victum of it's own success.  NASA was now trying to combine run groups in practice and qualifying.  We had 80 cars in Saturday's combined group A (PT, ST, 944-Spec, Spec E30), group C (Legends, Thunder roadsters) and group E (Spec Miata) which was WILD!   They were going to combine groups A and C for qualifying and race.  I been offered to run with group D, the PRC (Porsche Racing Challenge) earlier in the week but declined. After the 80 car warmup session I spoke to Jerry Kunzman to take him up on his offer and went to Timing/Scoring to move us to run with the PRC.

I been a little leary of running with the PRC because of the power difference between their top cars and our spec class but found my concerns unwarranted.  They can move around us with ease and watching one of those GT3's go by sure makes me wish I had more money.   We see the GT1-3 class cars maybe twice per race and they go by so quick and the lead GTS (911SC) class cars once so we're  pretty much by ourselves which was great!   The PRC uses the Turn 5 "Cyclone" vs. the  "Bypass" so there will be a new 944-Spec record for this configuration.

We have another new 944-Spec driver Ron Dale who's joining us in his first 944-Spec race.  Running with 80 cars in the warm-up and then having a GT3 barreling down on you is a true test for any rookie. Great job Ron for staying alert, out of trouble and getting two races signed off of your provisional license!

I was running my silver #89 for the first time since I got it back from the body shop after my hit with the tire wall at Infineon last June.  Special thanks to Bill Pennock for giving me the body panels from his parts car to repair my car.  That's what I like about the 944-Spec community, folks always helping each other out.  The car looks better than new with its fresh Carrera GT metallic paint job and handled great.  The engine is a little tired and burning about a 1/3 quart of oil per race.  I'll have Art at AutoPoint rebuild the engine at the end of the season.

The feature story has to be the battle between Greg and Rick.  Rick started with us in the last race of 2007 and split a 1st/2nd place win with Greg in October.  Rick also was one of our drivers for the 25 Hours of Thunderhill and had the fastest lap time in the Thunderbolt car.  Rick took the pole Saturday, edging Greg by a few hundreds of a second.  As soon as the green flag dropped Rick and Greg were locked in a non-stop battle with at least four lead changes.  Most of the time they were bumper to bumper or door to door.

Rick had the lead on the last lap with just six turns left when he spun coming out of Turn 9 which gave Greg the 1st place win.

Sunday's race  was more of the same, Rick again took pole and traded leads with Greg through out the race.  They push each other harder and was harassing the back of GTS class.  They both put in amazing laps times in the 2:11's.  This is with the Turn 5 "Cyclone" configuration which is generally  about 1-2 seconds slower than our normal "Bypass" configuration.

Greg and the Dinoco Blue managed to hold off Rick for another 1st place win.

Congratulations to Greg for two 1st place wins and Rick for two 2nd place wins.   Sid also did a great job and took 3rd for both days.

A great racing weekend and a great start to a competitve 2008 season!

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