|
BEDFORD, MA (27 August 2007) When Joe Aquilante found himself on the outside of the qualifier's listing for the 2007 Sports Car Club of America National Championship Runoffs at the end of the Northeast Division racing season, he pulled out all the stops and filed a last-minute entry for the season-ending Great Lakes Division race meet at Michigan's GingerMan Raceway this past weekend. The move paid off a second place finish in the T2 race aboard his iRacing.com Pontiac Solstice GXP vaulted the Pennsylvania race team owner onto the list of invitees for amateur sports-car racing's most prestigious event.
"We had to go into extra innings, but it all worked out for the best," Aquilante said following the race. "The car handled beautifully. I'd never seen the track before, but it has a lot of fast sweeping corners, and that's perfect for the Solstice."
Unfamiliarity with the track didn't prove to be a big handicap for Aquilante. In rainy conditions and with water streaming across the racing surface, he set the quick time in the first practice session. Eventually qualifying third, Aquilante had a tight race with John Buttermore, Jr., in a Cadillac CTS-V and Nissan 350 Z-mounted Jason Henderson. Buttermore's Cadillac won the race, but Aquilante bested Henderson for the runner-up spot.
Aquilante's Phoenix Racing teammate, Don Knowles, was the first to qualify an iRacing.com Pontiac Solstice GXP for the Runoffs, scoring fifth- and second-place points during a double national race weekend August 1819 at Pocono Raceway. At last year's Runoffs Knowles drove the normally aspirated iRacing.com Pontiac Solstice Z0K Club Sport to the SSB-class national championship.
Aquilante didn't actually make the decision to race at Gingerman until two days before the event. "We got home from Pocono and waited to see what the point situation was," he said. "I didn't want to go all the way out to Michigan if it didn't matter. But by Thursday the points were posted, and I saw that a good finish there would get us qualified. So we decided to load up and go."
Knowles, Aquilante and the rest of the Phoenix Performance team will be at Heartland Park Topeka October 814 to contest the 44th annual SCCA National Championship Runoffs.
|
