The Road Atlanta March National was held on the newly repaved surface. Six F500's were entered. The race group included FE, FF, FV and F500 with at total of 41 cars entered of which 37 took qualifying times and 35 started the race. The F500 field was 100% complete from entry to race.
The race was eventful, even before the start as Jim Lyle managed to enter the spin cycle in the Esses during the Pace Lap. Clint McMahan's F500 pole of 1:31.784 equated to being 17th in the combined grid. The ragged field was given the Green Flag as the rear of the field was still approaching the Bridge. The first incident of the race was when FE #31 crashed heavily on the exit of Turn 7 on the back straight. Between the FE's and FF's there were a number of incident in various locations. While Clint McMahan had jumped out to an early F500 lead and set the New F500 Track Record at 1:32.898, the mechanical gremlins were at work and Clint had to slow his pace and ultimately pitted after 14 laps with a small fire on the car. Eric Hellerstedt's nose cone was seen in the gravel trap at the end of the back straight and must have had some insights into Eric's retirement after completing 9 laps. Rusty Cook ended up in the gravel trap in Turn 1, along with what appeared to be an FF, Rusty was able to get out of the trap and continued. Provisional Results 1. Jim Lyle 2. Jack Walbran 3. Rusty Cook 4. Chuck McAbee 5. Clint McMahan 6. Eric Hellerstedt I want to take this opportunity to thank both Dan and Clint McMahan, for the loan of an engine and most of the wrenching to get it installed in my car after my own engine feasted on a piston pin circlip, with the obvious indigestion and stoppage of motion. Without the McMahan's offering up a loaner, I would have been on my way home Saturday afternoon....These are the kinds of things that will keep me in F500 for as long as I race.....Racer's helping Racer's. Let's get all the cars on the track if it is humanly possible. THANK YOU DAN & CLINT! Chuck McAbee SEDIV #16 ----------------------------------------- This email transmission and any accompanying attachments may contain CSX privileged and confidential information intended only for the use of the intended addressee. Any dissemination, distribution, copying or action taken in reliance on the contents of this email by anyone other than the intended recipient is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error please immediately delete it and notify sender at the above CSX email address. Sender and CSX accept no liability for any damage caused directly or indirectly by receipt of this email. [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type image/gif which had a name of Blank Bkgrd.gif] ________________________________ FormulaCar Magazine - A Proud Supporter of Formula 500 The Official Publication of Junior Formula Car Racing Subscribe Today! www.formulacarmag.com or 519-624-2003 _________________________________ _______________________________________________ F500 mailing list - [email protected] To unsubscribe or change options please visit: http://f500.org/mailman/listinfo/f500 *** Please, DO NOT send unsubscribe requests to the mailing list! ***
