Todd Imwold was the new target as he lead 23 944-SPEC cars to green flag. Quickly the field spread out to 5-6 or even 7 wide on the long front straight. Going into Turn 1 Dave Dirks was the surprise leader using a strong start to surge in front with Lofgren, Hamden and the rest of the pack close behind. Three Turns later Dirks went wide at one of the fast left handers and his lost momentum costing him spots going into the hairpin.

The front pack josseled for position in the next couple laps until a spin by a front runner in the final section of corners leading to front straight. Unfortunately while Foxx was able to avoid Him, Dirks and Imwold got collected. Dirks was able to continue and finish the race and work his way back up to a 6th place finish.   Imworld was forced to retire.

Unfortunatley this was not the only contact in Saturday’s race. In the close second pack numerous drivers were caught off guard by HEAVY braking by the front runners resulting in two spins in Turn 1 on the first lap . Thankfully nobody got hurt and even more amazing only one car was unable to compete on Sunday. It also represent the only contact of the weekend between 944’s.

The contact at the front of the filed took out two front runners and gave Paluch a chance to come back after a poor start. Paluch started in 5th but dropped 6 spots at the drop of green. He had set out to regain these spots and by the 3rd lap had made up nearly all those spots having passed nearly all the cars that got him on the start.

Two laps later he hard worked up to 3rd in class following only Hamden and Lofgen who at this point had set about their own personal battle.

The field was then closed up due to a double yellow situation caused by Imwold’s car as it damaged wheel/suspension did not allow the excellent tow crews to quickly clear the car. This closing of the field was almost the break Paluch needed to take the fight to Lofgren and Hamden, but out of class traffic at the start put the class leaders just out of reach.

The big winner from the double yellow turned out be Rick Lofgren as the slow laps allowed him time to cool his over heated worn out tires for a final push to the front. Two laps to the end Lofgren took the lead and was able to hold off Hamden to a one second victory. In the process he also set a new track record of 2:22.005 over one second faster than the next fastest lap set by Hamden. Top 5 finishing order Lofgen, Hamden, Paluch, Fox and Tim Comeau (SoC).