August weather at Thunderhill can be hot and Saturday was no exception.
Keeping cool inside the car was the order of the day for Saturday as the action on the track was setting up to be hot! 

My homemade cool shirt wasn't finished so I would have to tough it out from my third spot on grid behind pole sitter Rick and second place Greg. Dan and Ken qualified a close fourth and fifth to set the field for the green flag.  At the start we stayed side by side through turn one with Rick inching ahead of Greg and Dan pulling ahead of me.

Entering Turn 3 the running order had settled into qualifying order but the excitement was far from over. Greg kept the pressure on Rick, who's new car was having teething issues and I had a ring side seat on Greg's bumper.

Rick doesn't make too many mistakes, but when his engine stumbled coming out of Turn 11 Greg took full advantage and jumped to the lead. I drove as hard as I thought possible just to stay a car length back.

Rick showed why he is the Norcal 944 champion driving a car with an ailing engine and stayed glued to Greg's bumper.  Traffic and exhaustion got to me as I lost a little time to the leaders and could match their pace but not cut into the gap which had widened to about 50 yards.

All this time Dan and Ken were keeping a steady pace and as I started to fade I looked up and saw a red 944 bumper filling my mirrors.  Dan had come back and was putting the pressure on me late in the race.  I mustered my last bit of energy and picked the pace up and was able to hold him off for what I thought was a third place finish followed by Dan and Ken.

However Rick came back to the paddock on the back of a tow truck.

His motor had finally let him down and he pulled off when nobody was looking which made the final finishing order; Greg with another well deserved win followed in order by me, Dan, Ken, and Rick.