Palmer Motorsports Park-1 Competition Update [late]

[blindsidefive0]

This was posted on facebook, but I was delinquent in cross-posting on the forum...sorry about that. For those of you still hanging out on myspace, here you go:


Wow, what an event! Corvettes of Massachusetts Sports Car Club just ran its first event in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts since…I don’t know…historians? Palmer lived up the hype - fun and challenging with more elevation than any other track on the schedule (almost as much as a 20-story building). What’s even more amazing is that the premier of the new track was (almost) overshadowed by the insane competition…here are the highlights:

Super Unlimited – in the "no rules" class, Mark Stellato (1st) took his “Ford Focus” 1/2 second faster than Dan Darcy’s (2nd) Lotus. Could this be the SU battle we’ve been waiting for?

Super A – Michael Jacques laid down a screaming 1:42 that was good enough for a 2 second victory and Fastest Time of the Day. Father (3rd) and Son (2nd) Foosh rounded out the podium in their twin vettes.

Super B – congratulations to John French for picking up his first ever COMSCC podium and win!

Super C – our resident Chief Instructor earned the Most Consistent Award, but it was Gordon Andrade (1st) who evened the score with Will Martins (2nd) early in the season; Peter McParland made an appearance (3rd) and was not far behind. Look for Peter Fontana (4th) and Bruce Allen (5th) to poke their noses in the mix as they get more familiar with their relatively new rides.

Super D – Another father/son battle resulted in Greg Hosselbarth (1st) picking up his 3rd straight Super D win dating back to NHMS-4 last year. Bill Hosselbarth (2nd) beat out Mark Swinehart (3rd) who was back in his Sentra. We also had a Nick DeRosa (4th) sighting. Derosa almost drove a Lemons car to a sub 2-minute lap in the TT.

Touring 100 – Donald Piette (1st) is now 2 for 2 in the COMSCC supercar class, but don’t count on 2014 Class Champion Bob Cairns (2nd) to stay put. Dan Baldwin...Baldwin?...Bueller...?

Touring 90 – Laura Flemming (1st) has opened up 2015 in a big way with 2 big wins in T90, achieving her “real goal” both times.

Touring 80 – Nick Fontana (1st) led T80 with 1:43 pace, knocking on FTD with his 2nd win of the season.

Touring 70 – 3 COMSCC veterans battled, but in the end it was Jon Cowen (1st) over Stephen Tise Jr. (2nd) and DJ McArdle (3rd). Cowen and Tise each have a victory in what could be one of COMSCC’s more interesting classes in 2015.

Touring 60 – just like at NHMS-1, T60 is turning into a class to watch with a swath of competitors bunched towards the top of the class. New COMSCC Competition License holder Victor Laren picked up his first COMSCC class win over an already deep T60 field. Heath Speckman (2nd, NHMS-1 winner), Howard Roundy (3rd, 2014 Class Champion), and Roe Cole (4th) were all within 1.2s of 1st place.

Touring 50 – Jeff Wasilko put in the time, effort, and prep to earn his 2nd win of the year. With Chad Fox missing 2 events in a row, we will have a new T50 class champion in 2015. Again Dave David Wittmer (2nd) and Dave David Lemoine (3rd) rounded out the podium with Troy Velazquez (4th) not far behind. The highly anticipated T50 debut of Glenn L. Schattman and John Spain will have to wait a bit longer.

Touring 40 – this is THE class so far in 2015. 1st to 4th were within 1 second of each other, and we have a duel at the top that is now spanning multiple seasons. Scott Rosnick (1st) photo finished just ahead of Derek Tangard(2nd). However, momentum car ringer Robert Ready (3rd) was right there in a 42-point 1.6 Miata, and T40 new-comer Joe Ascoli (4th) is getting the hang of his new ride.

Touring 30 – 2014 Class Champion Stephen Hosker(2nd) made his 2015 debut, but it wasn’t enough to chase down Mikhael El-Bayeh (1st) who earned his first COMSCC victory.

edit - NHMS2 update forthcoming...