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LONG POND, PA (22 August 2007) Behind the wheel of a six-year-old backup car, iRacing.com driver Don Knowles collected sufficient points at the Sports Car Club of America's double-national race at Pocono International Raceway to qualify for the 2007 SCCA National Runoffs. A blown engine in the first practice session put Knowles's usual Pontiac Solstice GXP on the trailer, so he jumped into the Phoenix Performance team's backup 2001 Firebird Formula and scored second- and fifth-place finishes in the T2 class races this past weekend.
"It wasn't pretty," Knowles admitted afterwards. "This is what they call in the NCAA basketball championships, 'Survive and Advance.' We didn't need to win these races, but we had to finish both of them in the points. And that's what we did."
Knowles will be back in his iRacing.com Solstice GXP in October for the Runoffs. The blown engine was attributed by Phoenix Performance team owner Joe Aquilante to a miscue in the shop during routine maintenance following the car's maiden victory at Virginia International Raceway the weekend before. "There's a precise procedure for purging the cooling system," Aquilante said. "We thought we'd gotten it right, but apparently we didn't. Don's car ran pretty hot during that first practice session and it turned out the engine was damaged. We always have a backup car available, and Don made the best of it."
Under sunny skies Aquilante finished fourth in Saturday's race in the team's second Solstice GXP, with Knowles behind him in the six-year-old Firebird.
But Sunday's race was run under rainy conditions and Knowles, who lists a couple of years of ice racing on his résumé as well as three national club-racing championships, demonstrated his mastery of slippery surfaces while piloting a rear-drive car against all-wheel-drive Subaru WRXs and Mitsubishi Evos. Knowles led more than half the race, once yielding to one of the all-wheel-drivers that promptly spun off the course and then on the race's penultimate lap finally surrendering the lead to Bryan Viviani's WRX Sti.
"At least I made him work for it," Knowles said. "It got wetter as the race went on, but there was no standing water. We were on slicks, and accelerating on the banking sometimes you'd get a wiggle. But if you weren't too antsy, and just kept your composure, it wasn't too bad."
Knowles was philosophical about the preparation problem that kept him out of the iRacing.com Solstice GXP for the weekend. "We know what we have to do to with the car over the next two months," he said with a smile. "We'll be doing quite a lot of testing between now and the Runoffs, and I think by October we'll be ready."
The 44th annual SCCA National Championship Runoffs will be held at Heartland Park Topeka from October 814.
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