Round Seven of the American Iron West Championship Series took place at Buttonwillow Raceway Park in Buttonwillow, CA on October 18-19, 2003.
The weeks before the race were filled with tension as the two leading AIX teams were burning pure high-grade midnight oil to prepare their cars for the grid. The Perfectly Legal team was attempting to straighten a seriously bent car from a mishap at Thunderhill while the Griggs Racing team was thrashing to assemble a new engine to replace a mill blown on the dyno just weeks before the Saturday morning call to grid. Both cars arrived Saturday morning, with the "White Lightning" #22 wearing a fresh coat of paint on new body panels and the "Tijuana Taxi" #40 smoking the tires with 342 inches of freshly baked aluminum peeking out through a hole in the hood. Unfortunately, the #22 car suffered head gasket problems on Saturday morning that sidelined the car when a top-end disassembly after two laps of qualifying uncovered cylinder and piston damage that was unrecoverable.
When the dust settled from qualifying, Ross Murray took the overall and top AIX time with a blistering time of 2:04 two seconds ahead of the nearest competitor. Guy Cunningham took the AI pole and the second position on the grid. The race began with Murray pulling away from the field and charging out to a nearly twenty-second lead by mid-race. Cunningham led the AI field with Keith Videtto chasing him down. As the race went on, an excellent battle formed up between Ernesto Roco and rookie Ryan Walton for the third position in AI as the newcomer tried to make the podium in his first weekend out. When the checker flew, Murray had checked out to a twenty two second lead over the rest of the field to take the AIX win. Bruce Griggs secured the second place finish in AIX with Paul Mashouf in third. Cunningham won AI with Videtto and Roco in the next two spots.
Sunday qualifying saw Murray again take the overall and AIX pole, but by a smaller margin over the rest of the field. Ernesto Roco stepped up his program and secured the AI pole with the fastest AI lap for the entire weekend. The race began with the thunder of over four thousand combined horsepower tearing up the asphalt into the first turn. Griggs managed to take Murray into the first corner, but Murray immediately took back the lead with an inside move exiting the corner that allowed him to shoot into the esses ahead of the pack. Murray and Griggs pulled out to a nearly fifteen second lead over the pack with only a few car lengths between them at every corner. As the race went on, Murray began to pull out ahead of Griggs and sliced through lap traffic like a hot knife through butter. Guy Cunningham, who started at the back when he missed qualifying chasing parts, managed to work through the field to come within seconds of Griggs. Murray continued his crusade and ended up finishing ahead by a whopping twenty-eight seconds. Griggs was up next in AIX with Paul Mashouf again in third. Keith Videtto secured second in AI with Christine Knight in third. Christine also raced in Super Unlimited all weekend, so she went home with a trailer loaded with plaques and the Woman of Iron Award.
The weekend's finish saw the AIX crown still undecided despite the failure of the Perfectly Legal effort in this round and Guy Cunningham clinching another AI title for 2003 with Christine Knight moving into the second spot. The final round of the series will take place at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway on November 8-9, 2003 after the conclusion of the SEMA show
__________________ -Peder Beckman-
Technical Director
American Iron West
www.americanironwest.com | 
