STWRWiedemann Spoils Kamikawa Hometown Payday
2014 Indyslotcar Rapids GP
Rapids – John Wiedemann came from behind to spoil Ev Kamikawa's chance to win the 49 thousand IndySlotCar bucks Pole-to-Win prize and take the Too Clean Laundry Grand Prix victory at Rapids International. Wiedemann's win, his second checkered flag of the IndySlotCar Series season, cut down Mike Lack's Walczakian sized championship lead by 15 points down to 66, with Lack finishing third on the night ahead of Dan Margetta.
Home town racer Kamikawa kicked off the night by grabbing the pole position away from defending race winner and last season's top qualifier Wiedemann in the last session of qualifying. Kamikawa's lap of 4.781 seconds bested Wiedemann by just 63 thousandths of a second and just missed the track record by four thousandths. The track was quick tonight, a little slick, and even called dangerous and scary by a number of drivers.
The opening heat race featured the top two in qualifying facing off along with the inaugural race for rookie Corey Galbraith facing off against series commissioner Mike Kristof. Penske HO driver Kamikawa set the pace throughout the race to the checkers to take the win and advance to his 119th final race, moving him into second place all-time in the series. JMM Racing's Wiedemann paced himself behind the race leader and held off the hard charging rookie to transfer to the feature. Galbraith, driving for Penske HO, finished third followed by D&D Racing's Kristof.
While it probably wasn't a very exciting heat race from Cha-Ching Motorsports Dan Margetta's perspective, heat number two produced a good amount of drama. Margetta ran off and left the field in his rear view mirror in winning the race. Behind Margetta was a great battle for the final transfer spot to the feature. D&D Racing's Matt Hayek held down the second spot for most of the race while series point leader Lack and Dean Strom struggled to keep up. A late caution changed all that. Holding a two lap lead over Lack, everything went downhill quickly for Hayek. As Hayek struggled to get his car back to race speed, Lack quickly made up those two laps and moved ahead in the running order. JMM Racing's Lack held on to the transfer spot with Hayek and Strom finishing just a lap behind.
The Too Clean Laundry Grand Prix featured track owner Kamikawa against the top three drivers in the point standings. As the early laps of the race sorted out, Kamikawa took the lead ahead of Wiedemann, Lack and Margetta. The field paced themselves throughout the opening half and Kamikawa built up a six lap cushion over Wiedemann by the halfway break.
Kamikawa's pitstop in the second half was the first bit of misfortune that the driver faced all event long. A penalty after a somewhat slow stop dictated that Kamikawa run the next ten laps with the opposite driving hand. The penalty, along with a routine pitstop by Wiedemann, ended up with Kamikawa giving back a couple laps to second place. Wiedemann picked up the pace with time running out just as the handling started to go away for leader Kamikawa. With only a minute to go, Wiedemann shot past Kamikawa to grab the lead. More handling issues plagued Kamikawa and allowed Wiedemann to coast to the victory and reclaim the Too Clean Laundry Grand Prix trophy.
Lack retains his point lead in the standings by 66 over teammate Wiedemann. Margetta holds down third place in the standings, just 27 points behind Wiedemann and 25 points ahead of Strom. Hayek rounds out the top five and is now only five points out of fourth.
The next round, number eleven in the sixteen race season, takes place in two weeks at another ultra fast track – the Deckertring for the Deckertring GP. Defending Deckertring race winner Wiedemann looks to climb the mountain that is Lack's point lead as the series races towards the three quarter mark of the season.
