[indycmc]

Inaugural Camaro Mustang Challenge Series event at BeaveRun.

The May 10th and 11th BeaveRun event marked the first races of the season for the OH/IN and Virginia Camaro Mustang Challenge (CMC) Series. Don Trask made the long trek from sunny California to participate – OK, he really only had to drive from North Carolina, which was still a 10 hour drive. Don brought the infamous number 21 “Musturd” Mustang for the weekend. Tim Laplante, hailing from Indianapolis, was the other CMC participant. This weekend was the debut of Tim’s new number 7 Mustang.

The weekend did not have the best of starts, with a massive twenty-minute downpour turning the pits into a massive, muddy river. Thanks to hard work by the track crew, the track was quickly cleaned and in was in great shape for the entire weekend.

In Saturday’s race Don started in the middle of the massive twenty-four car AI/AIX field. Because he missed the qualifying session, Tim was relegated to the back of the pack. Don went on to an easy victory, as Tim had to pull into the pits with 4 laps left in the race to investigate some odd noises emanating from beneath the car. Turns out the drive shaft was rubbing against the drive shaft safety loop. Sunday’s race had Don in the eighteenth qualifying spot and Tim just behind in the twenty-first spot. The start of Sunday’s race provided some of the best excitement of the weekend, as the entire big bore race field was tightly packed when the green flag dropped. There were cars two and three abreast through the first five turns. Don and Tim made the most of the tightly bunched field, as they both picked up several spots in the initial post green flag chaos. Racing was tight and clean throughout the field – this is a real testament to the quality of the drivers in these series. It was Don’s turn to experience problems, as he cut a tire coming out of turn 11 and was forced to watch the rest of the race from the infield. Tim’s race was not without excitement. One of the bolts on Tim’s shifter had worked itself loose, causing a bit of excitement when Tim reached down to downshift from 5th to 4th and found the shifter lying on the transmission tunnel! Tim was able to finish the race by running in fourth gear.

A special thanks goes out to Lawrence Mansier for putting on a great event. The CMC series is looking forward to the next event, which is June 21-22 at Summit Point Raceway. Keep watching as we continue to grow this affordable and exciting race series. For more information on the CMC series, check out www.camaromustangchallenge.com.

-Tim Laplante
OH/IN NASA CMC Director

[Ron]

Nice write up Tim. Sounds like an exciting race.

[JAGOETL]

How does the 5.0 Mustang do against the 5.0 and 5.7 Camaros ?

[indycmc]

I am slightly biased, as I drive a 5.0 Mustang - I'd say we do quite well. The rule allow the Mustangs a slight weight advantage and penalize the 5.8 Camaros w/ even more weight.

In speaking with people who have driven both Camaros and Mustangs, the biggest difference is the Camaro is easier to drive - to be fast in the Mustang, you need to be much closer to the edge - which, IMHO, makes driving the Mustang fun.

If you take a look at the results for 2003 for the West Coast CMC series, you'll see the Mustangs are holding their own. Last year (2002) the Mustang team suffered a little as some of the stronger drivers either left the series or switched to the dark side (Chevy's - though both drivers that had switched to Chevy last year, switched back to Fords this year!)