Compass360 Racing takes the championship. Again.
Back to Back Champs
Sep 13th, 2010 // Article By: Skunk2 Staff // Photographer: Skunk2 Staff
Compass360 Racing and Skunk2 secured the Grand-Am Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge Street Tuner class championship for the second year in a row last weekend at Salt Lake City Utah’s Miller Motorsports Park.
Following a neck-and-neck season long battle against team Bimmerworld and then less than stellar finishes in New Jersey (transmission mechanical problems) and Montreal (late-race brake change), C360R/Skunk2 trailed by 19 points going into the final race of the year at Miller Motorsports Park. The C360R/Skunk2 Team would need to finish 18 positions ahead of Bimmerworld to win the championship and 17 positions to tie in points. With the consistently high finishes that the Bimmerworld team showed throughout the year, we knew the odds were against us. However, given the consistency of the C360R/S2 team, we knew that with a little luck another championship would not be impossible.
With both teams entering the final race at Miller Motorsports Park with two victories and two runner-up finishes apiece, the ST (Street Tuner) title chase took a dramatic turn on the second lap when Bill Heumann pitted with a broken differential on the No. 81 Performance Friction/Rays Engineering BMW 328i for BimmerWorld/GearWrench, which entered the race with a 19-point lead in the ST championship. The team took more than 30 minutes to replace the part, with Seth Thomas taking over after Heumann drove a lap to satisfy the 30-minute requirement needed to score points.
Compass360 driver Lawson Aschenbach fell back to Fourth late in the race, but when Andrew Carbonell lost an engine in the No. 26 Freedom Autosport Mazda MX-5, Compass360 Racing's No. 74 Skunk2/HPD Honda Civic Si started by David Thilenius moved to Third, which was good enough for a one-point lead. Thomas moved up one spot during the final two laps to 20th, giving the two driving pairs 274 points each. But Aschenbach's Third-Place finish proved to be the tiebreaker, earning Compass360 Racing and Skunk2 the championship title once again.
Following a neck-and-neck season long battle against team Bimmerworld and then less than stellar finishes in New Jersey (transmission mechanical problems) and Montreal (late-race brake change), C360R/Skunk2 trailed by 19 points going into the final race of the year at Miller Motorsports Park. The C360R/Skunk2 Team would need to finish 18 positions ahead of Bimmerworld to win the championship and 17 positions to tie in points. With the consistently high finishes that the Bimmerworld team showed throughout the year, we knew the odds were against us. However, given the consistency of the C360R/S2 team, we knew that with a little luck another championship would not be impossible.
With both teams entering the final race at Miller Motorsports Park with two victories and two runner-up finishes apiece, the ST (Street Tuner) title chase took a dramatic turn on the second lap when Bill Heumann pitted with a broken differential on the No. 81 Performance Friction/Rays Engineering BMW 328i for BimmerWorld/GearWrench, which entered the race with a 19-point lead in the ST championship. The team took more than 30 minutes to replace the part, with Seth Thomas taking over after Heumann drove a lap to satisfy the 30-minute requirement needed to score points.
Compass360 driver Lawson Aschenbach fell back to Fourth late in the race, but when Andrew Carbonell lost an engine in the No. 26 Freedom Autosport Mazda MX-5, Compass360 Racing's No. 74 Skunk2/HPD Honda Civic Si started by David Thilenius moved to Third, which was good enough for a one-point lead. Thomas moved up one spot during the final two laps to 20th, giving the two driving pairs 274 points each. But Aschenbach's Third-Place finish proved to be the tiebreaker, earning Compass360 Racing and Skunk2 the championship title once again.
