Phoenix Wins at Phoenix Again & Again

[Wright D]

We had an awesome weekend; we won both races, set a new track record, and had lots of fun doing it.
Everybody on the team deserves a big THANK YOU!
We will get a detailed debrief posted after a good night sleep.

[Richard Dziak]

Congratulations Dustin and Team Phoenix......I know it was a big field and there were some very good drivers. This weekend win bodes very well for the Phoenix race machines.

Excited to here the details.

[RussMcB]

Congratulations. Always good to hear about successful outings.

Does big field mean lots of FB cars? Was this a regional or national? Just wondering if it affected the average car count for FB at nationals.

[CSHAW]

Good show Dustin. Your product is working great. Good luck with your venture. C Shaw

[ghickman]

Congratulations. Always good to hear about successful outings.

Does big field mean lots of FB cars? Was this a regional or national? Just wondering if it affected the average car count for FB at nationals.

Russ
It was a large field....of Atlantics, FC, C/DSR...but still only 2 FB's. I got asked a hundred times why there aren't more FB's...it's the economy stupid!.

Jaremko dogged the lead FA most of the race...which clearly shows 2 things...The P.R.W. current chassis is nearly as quick on a short course as a well driven Atlantic, second is these cars will eventually be as fast maybe faster than a well driven Club Atlantic.

CONGRATS TO P.R.W. Dustin and Matt deserve a big pat on the back (I'm still including Matt in this because he started all this). Oh, and nice job getting Jaremko down here...dude could put a skate board on the front row...I gotta hang out with this guy more maybe I'll learn something.

Gary

[Matt Conrad]

Overall, the weekend was a huge success for the Phoenix Race Works team as Mark Jaremko took both National wins and set new track records in both races driving a 2007 Phoenix F1000. This was the first time Mark has driven the 1.51 Phoenix International Raceway road course and was also the first time piloting the Phoenix F1K.07. The car, crew, and driver performed flawlessly for the entire weekend.

The weather was “Chamber of Commerce” type-stuff as the mercury hovered in the high 70’s during the day and stayed above the mid-40’s in the mornings….about 10 degrees warmer than normal...almost perfect!

The first race was made fairly interesting by the Arizona Region SCCA’s decision to again place the FB cars in the FM, FF and FV grouping. From memory, I believe Mark’s lap times were around 20 seconds quicker than the slower FV’s. This made Mark’s qualifying time of 58.5 seconds even more impressive as he had to navigate through these “moving chicanes”. During the race, Mark began lapping cars on lap 4 and had to deal with the slower traffic on every lap. He managed a new track record of 58.9 seconds and lapped the entire field during the race…even a few of the fastest FM’s in the country (Russ Lindemann, Moses Smith and Jamie Slone).

Race 2 was made a little more sane for Mark as we successfully lobbied to have the FB’s moved to the FA, CSR, DSR, FC, S2 grouping. Qualifying was interesting as one of the S2’s dumped oil on about 1/3 of the track…several cars nearly found big trouble before the session went “Black Flag All” for a very lengthy clean-up. Mark stayed out after the delay, but the track had lost some grip and the 58.145 second lap he ran before the oil down would be his best. This put him second overall, only behind the overall track record holder of Dan Selznick in his Swift 014 FA.

Mark got a great start for the race and stayed in contact with the pole-sitter for several laps before the big tires, ground effects and 240hp of the Swift 014 FA started to show and Selznick started to create a gap. The next cars behind Mark were Ken Davis in his Ralt RT-40 FA, Kelly Gallant in his Swift 014 FA, and a fast charging John Burke (had to start from the back) in his Swift 014. Mark kept the other FA’s (and the DSR’s and CSR’s) at bay until mid-way when Gary Hickman blew his right rear tire in T1 in his FB. Ken Davis got by right as the yellow flew and stayed ahead of Mark for the rest of the way. No other car challenged Mark for the rest of the race and Mark managed to lower the track record again….unofficially at a 58.5. The official results were not available when we left the track as there was some Stewards Action or something holding up the program.

For some reference, the previous “official” FB track record at PIR was 1:00.324, set by Brandon Wagner (same car) back in December. Paul Marciano had run a 59.605 in a Regional race in September but the time was not allowed because the car was found to be underweight. The DSR track record is 56.419 by JR Osborne and the FA (and overall track) record is a 54.700 by Dan Selznick. Selznick only managed to get into the 56’s this weekend, and several others who run here frequently were a bit off their normal pace, so evidently the track might have been a bit slow.

Matt Conrad

[Matt Conrad]

...and as far as the Open-Wheel/SR car counts....

FA - 5
FB - 2
FC - 4
FM - 6
DSR - 2
CSR - 3
S2 - 5
FF - 6
FV - 8
F5 - 0

Not great overall...

Matt Conrad

[Wright D]

It was cool the get Mark into the car, because he is a good development driver, having had lots of experience doing just that. He can dissect the car’s performance corner by corner, lap by lap. Darrell Soppe, an IRL engineer, was impressed with Mark’s ability to communicate exactly what the car was doing. Darrel and Mark really hit it off, both are obviously crazy about racing, developing the car, and getting faster every weekend. Phoenix Race Works and I are happy to have both of these extremely talented people wanting to be a part of our team.

Gary, Thanks for the congratulations. However, Phoenix Race Works is far more then just me or Matt or Mark. Phoenix is a team, built of extremely talented people working together. Cam Mulder, Darrell Soppe, Rob Mutinho, George Dean, Mark Jaremko, Matt Conrad, and a few others are all contributing to our success. And all deserve a big THANK YOU from me.

I think it’s obvious we are mounting a serious effort, but at the same time, it does not take an engineer to run a Phoenix F1000. Both Paul Marciano and Richard Dziak have successfully raced their cars without track support. Richard even won a regional championship!

[Peterdsr]

Very happy to here about your success. We understand how hard all of you work to obtain it.

Peter Dozeman
Peter D Motorsports, Inc.
Peterdmotorsports.com
Americanmodlites.com

[mjaremko]

What a great weekend !

Dustin kept apoligizing for not having his new car done and I'm sure after looking at progress on it, it will be a force to be reckoned with, but I really couldent find much wrong with the old car. Dustin and Darrel Shoppe ( A four time Indy 500 winning crew chief for team Penske ) have been working hard on the first gen car and have done a wonderfull job. Once I finished learning the Phoenix road course ( which I found a bit intimidating ) we got busy making some small adjustments during four 25 minute test sessions, the car felt good and I needed that confidence on a track that wasnt narrow, but appeared so at better than 100mph with concrete walls on both sides. We quickly got our times into the high 58's when we could get a semi clear lap, we were gouped with the FV's, FF's and FM's and the V's were making it a bit scary at times.
The first race went down w/out a hitch, managed a 58.9 and set a new race reacord. The thing that stuck out the most about that race was the consistency of the package, even on an 80 degree day. O.k now lets push it a bit harder for qauly #2. Qauly for the 2nd race was looking like one of those early morning sessions where if you have new tires you just know your going to click a good one off, and thats the way it started, in traffic we quickly turned a 58.44 and the track was looking clear ahead, well not too far ahead, an S2 had blown its engine starting down the front straight and into the scary fast turn one. The clean up took some time and Darrel kept me in the pits until the other cars had cleaned up the track a bit, at the last 5 minutes he sent me out and I managed two identical 58.14 laps before the checker. Not the 57 we were hoping for, but a good job by the PRW crew nonetheless.
Race two was a bit faster as we were moved to gorup #3 by the stewards of the meet (thank you !) This put us in the normal wings and things group. Again the car proved very consistent in 80 degree temps, we managed a long string of 58's and reset the race lap record at 58.5. the last lap was a 59 flat. Nice job PRW !!
It was a pleasure to finally meet the Phoenix crew, I hope they invite me to race with them again soon. It was also nice to meet Gary Hickman and his friend Tony, I had the chance to look at their new F1000 and I was quite impressed with the attention to detail and craftsmanship on their new car, and there nice guys too! Oh and no thank you list could be complete w/out mentioning George Dean, although we dident need him he was there for us and everyone else.

mj

[RussMcB]

Good report. It's easy to imagine the next Phoenix being very quick.

Q: Do we know for sure that there is only one George Dean? I'm beginning to think he's like Santa Clause, he's at so many places.

[mjaremko]

Russ,
Dustin's new car is completly new and very nice, it will be faster than the current car. I'm thinking the old car is a poduim contender at the A.R.R.C the way it sits, time will tell.

Does anyone have a link to the Sunday race results ??

mj

p.s. there might be two George's

[Wright D]

For those who may not know; Darrell Soppe has served some of the top racing teams in Indy Racing, including Newman-Haas, Hemelgarm and Menard. Drivers that Darrell Soppe has worked with include Mario Andretti, Tom Sneva, Scott Brayton, amongst others. We are pleased that Darrell joined our team. It is defiantly a big deal when some one of his caliber and experience chooses to get involved.

[Matt Conrad]

I agree with Mark...the 2007 car (Mark was driving the prototype which I drove for the last year or so) is very fast and the 2009 car will be even quicker.

FYI.....A few other interesting points that should be stated is that the car Mark drove this weekend was still sporting an older 2006 GSXR motor and we had the car outfitted with the original bump shifter...no paddles or no-lift shift sytem.

Russ,

George does get around doesn't he....

George is very committed to his customers (and even those who aren't) and I really appreciate everything he has done for me and for Phoenix Race Works. He's a great guy, an excellent motorcycle engine builder, and a title sponsor of the F1000 Championship. I hope when anyone involved in FB needs an engine prepped for racing, they'll send it to George.

Matt Conrad

[skl48]

Was fun to escape the Iowa weather and see a couple F1000's in action. Hope I didn't ask too many questions Dustin...

Hope to see your project in the flesh before I have to go back to the snow and salt and cold...

Stu

[Wright D]

I love to talk about race cars and am always happy to answer any questions. I look forward to showing you my new car and talking more about race cars.

[Matt Conrad]

Here's a link to the results (finally) from Sunday's race.

http://www.mylaps.com/results/showrun.jsp?id=1038109

Mark Jaremko second overall and officially sets the new PIR FB track record at 58.583.

Matt Conrad

[Mike B]

Matt or Mark or Gary,
I'm looking at the results for the Saturday race and don't see any FBs listed. Did you and Gary only run on Sunday?
http://www.mylaps.com/results/showru...107&perclass=1

Am I missing something?

[mjaremko]

Mike,
Gary and Tony arrived late and missed the first race.

mj

[Wright D]

I know for sure that we ran in every sessions all weekend long, I don't know why our results are missing form Saturday. We were the only F1000 running Saturday, so maybe we got over looked.

[TimW]

I think Mark is listed in Group 1 results for Saturday, no? With the Fords...

http://www.mylaps.com/results/showru...097&perclass=1

[Wright D]

That's right, I forgot that we switched run groups.