2012 S2K Challenge Series # 1 at Buttonwillow [w/ video]

With the advent of the new year, the 2012 S2K Challenge series is off to a great start. The first event was staged at Buttonwillow Raceway Park using the 13CW layout. Our member Dipstick reported on the event and his account follows past the bump. It may also interest you to know that our very own ScandinavianFlick is planning to participate in the series and we are looking forward to his coverage as the season progresses. In the meanwhile click through and read Dipstick’s account of the inaugural 2012 S2K Challenge Series event.

The Premier round of the 2012 Speed Ventures S2K Challenge Series was held Sunday Jan. 29 at Buttonwillow Raceway Park’s 13CW course.

The track itself was a no-go at 8am with the corner stations unable to see each other through the dense morning fog. The mist needed some “encouragement”, so a 20 minute parade lap session was organized to stir the soup.

After the fog started to lift, conditions were cool and the track dried quickly – ideal weather for some quick laps. The 2012 rules allow incrementally more modifications so many drivers were working with refined or completely new setups and many would be moving into new classes. A total of 24 S2000’s and drivers would take part in the day’s Challenge with a few more “sidelined” S2000’s spying from the paddock.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmKLLxFvwdY]

STOCK CLASS

With 2011’s Stock Class Champ, Douglas Chan, moving up to STREET class, the field was wide open for anyone to take the first round.
Veterans like Albert Castro (bullwings), Travis Wong (gen2gsr), and John Reikes (The Reverend) returned, joined by newcomers Kenji Watabe, Lorenzo Tan, Ryan DelGrosso, and Michael Furst.

Travis Wong placed 3rd in last year at BW with a 2:13.416 but this year scored his premier 1st place finish with a 2:07.351 in Green 3.
Albert Castro was also picking up the pace, bringing his BW times down another 3 seconds from last September with a 2:12.949, good for 2nd place.
The Reverend rounded out the podium with a 3rd place finish with a 2:13.369 in Green 3. John was stretching the legs on his ’04 acquired only a week ago…

Congratulations STOCK Class drivers!

 STREET Class

Newcomers Joseph Jafry, Jason Woan, and Vince Dessero joined Challenge veterans Douglas Chan (exquattro), Anthony Schifano, Eric Boyke (Silver9k) and Jeff Ringer (Living in the redline) in the popular STREET class.

While Jeff participated in two Streets of Willows events last year, he was just learning BW at this event. He turned his quickest time later in the day Red 4 with a 2:02.784, good for 3rd place.

Douglas Chan was adjusting to his new Voltex wing and Eibach suspension setup and despite some difficulty getting the car to rotate at speed, was able to clock his quickest time in Lap 2 of Red 2, a 2:02.275, edging out Jeff Ringer by half a second.

Anthony Schifano also clocked his quickest time in Lap 2 of Red 2 with a 2:01.988 for his first ever top spot podium. Later in the day, Anthony had a bit of a scare going off at the Sweeper with a “small brake issue”

Great times, STREET Class drivers!

MOD Class

Along with Nam Yoon (VitaRenovatio), Albert Gavieres (albertg) and Dustin Dessero (ddess) would also make the move from STREET to MOD for 2012. Other drivers came from 2011’s MOD-S/MOD-R including Justin Taylor (the s2k dude), Andrew McKelvey (Shadow36), Chris Elders (f20kills), and Mike Tsay (dipstick) as well as newcomers Walter Chen (pointa-b-c) and David Lara.

With the cool AM temps, 6 of the 9 MOD drivers ran their fastest times in Red 2 or 3 and the top three podiums all pulled their FTD’s in Red 2.

However, while Red 1 doesn’t “count”, it does set the grid order for Red 2 (which does count). With the times from Red 1, the order would be Mike, Nam, Chris, Alex and Albert.

In Lap 1 of Red 2, Nam ran an impressive 1:59.511 straight out of the box, good for 3rd place. Chris also ran his quickest in Lap 1, chasing down Nam to the tune of a 1:58.789, not bad for Chris’ first day on street tires.

With the sure-footed grip of a new set of RS-3’s, combined with cool temps and a certain “non-participating” S2000 gridded in front of me with “maxrev.net” on the trunk, I ran a 1:58.361 in Lap 3 of Red 2, just edging out Chris by 0.428s.

Congrats MOD class drivers!

SUPER MODIFIED

Alex Peng (momofoolio) in SUPER MOD ran into a few mechanical issues later in the day but registered his fastest time in Lap 1 of Red 2 with a 2:00.857 on ancient street tires.

Join us for ROUND 2 of the 2012 Speed Ventures S2K Challenge Series: Saturday, February 25 at Autoclub Speedway Roval Course, Fontana, CA.

–Dipstick

Based on an original write-up by Dipstick

Images courtesy of Dipstick. Video courtesy of VitaRenovatio

RELATED LINKS:

S2KI: Racing and Competition-2012 S2K Challenge Series #1