2007 Season Wrap Up
Although it was a bit of a designed “sleeper” season, CARVAL Motorsports managed to qualify for the NASA National Championship taking two wins, two 2nd place and two top ten finishes in the regular season. The number of events was by design, as my wife and I planned on other activities and responsibilities. Nonetheless, before the car rolled out this season, there were extensive changes to the running gear with major updates at the suspension level and a newly balanced Porsche twin cam motor in place of the prior single cam motor. All enhancements were immediately felt while in the driver’s seat, and data showed that we were attaining new top speeds and significantly better lap times. But, as we find out every year, most every top running operation will enhance their efforts as well, and this is what we found at the National Championships.
Mid Ohio Sports Car Course - Sept.13-16, 2007
NASA National Championships
Although we held the GTS-2 class race lap record (143.050) from last years Championship, first practices showed that we were eclipsing that mark by a full two seconds. But also, we were made aware that there was a full selection of competitors, at least ten, that were within a half second of each other and the competition was going to be fierce. The format was the same, a heat race on Friday and Saturday and a Championship race on Sunday. In both heats, we managed a close 3rd place in class, same winner, and same 2nd place in each race. Sundays Championship race was under blue skies, but chilly conditions, perfect for the cars.
Although we had higher goals, CARVAL managed to once again retain the same 3rd place finish after a furious nose to tail fight for the last 7-8 laps, often just inches, bumper to bumper around the entire 2.25 mile circuit. Our cars were split apart at the finish line by just .7 of a second! Jim Child of Ohio won the Championship; Jeff Curtis from North Carolina took second. I made sure on the Victory Podium celebration, that they both were drenched in cold Champagne! We did manage another race lap record, a 1.39.299!
Thanks to all of you that inquired as the summer passed as to what we were doing and how the racing was going. 2008 will return to a typical year, and work on complete sponsorship and assistance starts immediately, as is the case with racing.
Arrivaderci,
Carl and Valarie Picelle
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