Tim Russell Wins Governor's Cup

[Mark Keeler]

Tim Russell just took the checkered flag!

[cake]

All right! was it another battle between him and Wayne Anderson?

[bubba]

Not so much. Choquette and Rogers dominated the first half until pit stops. They looked like the cars to beat. Choquette came in first leaving Rogers out front - he pulled a big lead until his stop. When all cycled thru -Choquette was in the lead and Rogers seemed to struggle for a bit. Meanwhile Russell, Winchell and Anderson came on strong. On a restart Choquette appeared to break one of his now famous transmissions handing it to Russell. Great racing for second, third and fourth between Anderson, Winchell and Rogers. Real good showing for Winchell. Anderson tried hard in the closing laps but just didnt have enough.

[fred23]

The word in the pits is that Choquette had his RR tire going down....I have not seen any bombshells about anyone failing tech so I assume its official. When I left they were P&G ing and putting the "whistle" on Davids car...the only scuttlebutt was over the driveshafts of Anderson and Russell having Rivots instead of being welded. The thought was that they may have carbon fiber driveshafts with a really thin aluminum(sp?) cover. Evidently not!
Anyway, I thought it was a good race, definitely the best crowd for the cup in a few years, and car count for that matter. The biggest problem I had was having the lap down cars starting up front on the inside for the restarts. The reason I say that is that it kept a lot of cars from making passes on restarts because everytime someone would try to look under another car to pass, there would be a lap car on their way to the back in the way. I know lap cars are part of racing but they shouldn't be on restarts. They also caused two or three cautions because the faster cars were closing on them so fast. I know I saw the #7 (not sure of driver) take out Finney going into turn 3. They actually changed it and made them start in the back after about 75 laps or so, which I commend them for. ALso, there needs to be a track spotter in turn three. Clousers hood came off and broke apart and there was debris across the whole track for about 5 laps. Everyone in the stands up there were going nuts everytime the leaders came driving through the debris field.

I hope they change ALL the races next year to double file restarts. They should give the leader their choice of inside or outside and fill in accordingly. Or maybe even do the Delaware start with the leader up front by himself. IT just makes for great racing throughout the race.

The track has definitely changed with all of the NASCAR testing, It is almost impossible to pass on the inside and the outside is the fast way around. They also seem to have to Diamond the corners now. It almost looks like they are driving off turn 4 like you had to at St. Augustine. You have to "move" the outside car up the track to make a pass on the bottom. There were numerous times that cars would get up beside the car in front of them, even get a nose in front of them, and not be able to make it stick. Turn two seemed harder to keep the car down coming off the corner.

IT was fun to see a good race. I would have liked to see some of the Snowball regulars come down and try for the 10 grand that Mr. Sorgi put up. I wonder if Russell will even go. He usually doesn't. I think the only drivers that will be in Pensacola are Choquette, Colangelo, Rogers, Anderson and Drawdy. I know this is a pipe dream but how good would it be to see a triple crown of the Gov Cup, The Snowball and the Crown 300 (I forgot the title of it) over a 6 week period. Maybe they could find someone to put up 50k or so to win all three. I know, Iknow not a chance.

I had planned to try to get over to see the Karnacians and have a beverage but it took forever to get in the back gate. I did meet Andy on Friday during the autograph session. Speaking of Friday....the NSS regulars had the best car counts of the year in ALL classes and unfortunately there was no one there to see it. My family made up about 20 people or so and that might have been half the crowd. Another reason to move everything up a day and have a "Night of Champions" and the GOv Cup practice and maybe even qualifying on Sat night and have the Gov Cup on this Beautiful Sunday Fall Afternoon. I know the Villagers agree.

Overall it was a great night for NSS. It seemed to go off without a hitch. Robert, Kim and their people deserve a pat on the back. WELL DONE!!!!!

[fred23]

Andy Did you get that "P" fixed?????

Just looking for your report of the last two days....as detailed as you usually are it may have to have a new section on the board....

[Andy S]

Just looking for your report of the last two days....as detailed as you usually are it may have to have a new section on the board....

I really want to do you all proud on this one, so I actually set aside some time to write it up properly rather than blasting through it the minute I woke up this morning. I'm literally just sitting down to get typing (albeit on a new keyboard that I really don't like) and even made a quick trip to IHOP to fuel myself on their Pecan Pie pancakes to get through it in one go.

I'll try and split the report up into two days, just to make it a bit easier to get through for you all. Wish me luck...

Update - 4.15pm and Friday's report is now written. Just the main event to go...