|
A Thin but Successful Year
Battling
up and down the Atlantic coast |
Event Report 2010
Last
updated
8 May, 2011
|
Carolina
Motorsports Park
Kershaw, SC
29-30 May
Central
Carolinas Region Monster Memorial |
In
the 30-minute SARRC spring race, Knestis finished 2nd behind longtime
ITB racer Chris Schimmel. Schimmel,
owner of Competition
Cages, was instrumental in building
Kirk's blue Golf, so the two enjoy every opportunity to race one-another.
ITB was well represented, with additional finishers including Matt
Douglas (Honda), Derek Moore, Steve
Ulbrik (Toyota), and John Wilkins.
The
second race of the weekend was the 45-minute Carolina Cup pro race. Knestis
qualified second behind Jeff Joyce in Douglas'
Civic, but ahead of an improving Ulbrik. The race was run in wet conditions
- typically an advantage for Washington State native Knestis - but his
Golf suffered from terrible handling. The team attributed the problem
to rain tires that were past their prime but regardless of the cause,
Knestis struggled and was lucky to finish in the same position as he started.
The
final bout - a second 45-minute "enduro" with a mandatory pit
stop - was run in dry conditions the next day. Joyce suffered from mechanical
issues and dropped out after lap13, just prior to a full-course yellow
flag situation for an on-track incident. Knestis was left to cruise to
what looked like a win. Unfortunately, he was subsequently disqualified,
having fallen afoul of the pit stop rule requiring that entrants complete
a full lap at the race start prior to coming to pit lane.
|
Summit
Point Motorsports Park
Summit Point, WV
9-10 July
Regional Road Races
Knestis finished 14th
of 24 ITB cars on Saturday, in a stellar field of cars led to the checkered
flag by Tristan Herbert
(VW), Jeff Underwood (Honda), and
Dave Gran (Honda).
Knestis got serious
during Sunday's qualifying race for the "main event" to come,
improving substantially to 6th, just over a second behind Underwood's
pole time. He would follow the previous day's top
three plus Charlie
Broring (Volvo) and Bill Radford (BMW)
to the green flag, in what may have been the nation's largest ITB race
of the 2010 season.
At
the start of Monday's race, Underwood got bottled up at the start, delaying
several other cars and allowing Knestis to leap-frog into 3rd through
the first few corners. He found the RennGruppe
Motorsports Golf suffering from increasing understeer however, as
the race progressed, relegating him back to 6th behind Herbert, Underwood,
Radford, Tom Martin (BMW), and Broring.
NEW
- Video
of Monday's race, looking backward from Jeff
Underwood's civic. Watch Kirk's good start and fading performance
in the early laps. |
|
Virginia
International Raceway
Alton, VA
30-31 October
Sports Car Club of America
Charge of the Headlight Brigade
13-hour enduro |
Knestis
teamed up with longtime enduro codriver Greg Amy,
Tom Hoppe, and Tyler
Raatz, in the latter's ITA Mazda Miata, to take a class win at the
VIR 13-hour enduro. Late to the grid, Raatz started dead last but the team
worked over the first 12 hours to lead the nine ITA entries by a useful
margin. They were dealt a scare however, when charging system and battery
problems slowed them in the closing laps. Two quick stops to work on the
issues, including changing a battery, left them just barely ahead of everyone
else in ITA and a respectable 26th overall at the end. |
Road
Atlanta
Braselton, GA
4-7 November
Sports
Car Club of America
American
Road Race of Champions (ARRC)
Kirk Knestis made
his first ARRC sprint race start on a beautiful fall weekend at the historic
Road Atlanta.
Read
the full story here |
The start
of the 2010 ARRC sprint race (Photo courtesy of Joe Moser)
|
All
text and photos protected by copyright
Use by permission only
Last
updated
May 8, 2011
|
Project
GTI is headquartered at RennGruppe
Motorsports, Lexington, NC |
