Kamikawa, Shea, Fitzlaff Enjoy Deckertring Victoriesby John Wiedemann
6/24/2010
West Allis, WI - John Shea, Everet Kamikawa and Mike Fitzlaff visited victory lane in the Duel at The Deckertring F1/GT/LMP event on Thursday evening. Shea outdueled F1 competitor Mark Walczak in a thrilling victory while Kamikawa drove to a two lap win over Shea in the GT race. Fitzlaff's Nissan won the LMP division uncontested.
The F1 race started off with all of the competitors running on the option tire. Kamikawa struggled early in the race with a wheel rub, slowing his car down and causing handling problems. Even with the wheel issues and a couple pit stops to try and correct the issue, Kamikawa only found himself down by five laps when the field pitted to put on the preferred sticky tires. At the halfway break, Shea led Walczak by a half lap with Mike Lack three laps behind.
With the race resuming for the second half Shea would need to maintain the lead on one of the difficult outside lanes while Walczak ran quick laps on the inside groove. Off track excursions proved to be the undoing for Walczak as he was brought in to serve a twenty second penalty. More "offs" for Walczak added up and with just over two minutes left in the race, the next deslot would put him out of the race. Going for broke, Walczak was able to reel in Shea to get back on the lead lap. A wreck with one minute left in the race was the unreeling for Walczak and his race was over allowing Shea to cruise to the win. Walczak maintained second followed by Lack and Kamikawa.
In the companion class Fitzlaff found himself the only driver running the LMP type car, securing the winning points and a spot in the final. Joining Fitzlaff in the feature race was the Camaro of Walczak, the Corvette of Shea and Kamikawa in the Ferrari. Handling issues plagued Walczak from the start of the race and with fourty-five laps run in the race, he parked the Camaro in the wall. Shea also battled deslots which allowed Kamikawa to cruise to a five lap lead by the halfway point. In the second half, Shea came back as Kamikawa now battled the handling gremlin. With time running out Shea worked his way to two laps behind Kamikawa but time was not on his side. Kamikawa held on for the win, his second in the Ferrari 575-GT.
6/24/2010
West Allis, WI - John Shea, Everet Kamikawa and Mike Fitzlaff visited victory lane in the Duel at The Deckertring F1/GT/LMP event on Thursday evening. Shea outdueled F1 competitor Mark Walczak in a thrilling victory while Kamikawa drove to a two lap win over Shea in the GT race. Fitzlaff's Nissan won the LMP division uncontested.
The F1 race started off with all of the competitors running on the option tire. Kamikawa struggled early in the race with a wheel rub, slowing his car down and causing handling problems. Even with the wheel issues and a couple pit stops to try and correct the issue, Kamikawa only found himself down by five laps when the field pitted to put on the preferred sticky tires. At the halfway break, Shea led Walczak by a half lap with Mike Lack three laps behind.
With the race resuming for the second half Shea would need to maintain the lead on one of the difficult outside lanes while Walczak ran quick laps on the inside groove. Off track excursions proved to be the undoing for Walczak as he was brought in to serve a twenty second penalty. More "offs" for Walczak added up and with just over two minutes left in the race, the next deslot would put him out of the race. Going for broke, Walczak was able to reel in Shea to get back on the lead lap. A wreck with one minute left in the race was the unreeling for Walczak and his race was over allowing Shea to cruise to the win. Walczak maintained second followed by Lack and Kamikawa.
In the companion class Fitzlaff found himself the only driver running the LMP type car, securing the winning points and a spot in the final. Joining Fitzlaff in the feature race was the Camaro of Walczak, the Corvette of Shea and Kamikawa in the Ferrari. Handling issues plagued Walczak from the start of the race and with fourty-five laps run in the race, he parked the Camaro in the wall. Shea also battled deslots which allowed Kamikawa to cruise to a five lap lead by the halfway point. In the second half, Shea came back as Kamikawa now battled the handling gremlin. With time running out Shea worked his way to two laps behind Kamikawa but time was not on his side. Kamikawa held on for the win, his second in the Ferrari 575-GT.
Everet Kamikawa took home the GT victory at The Deckertring.