MARRC News: WERA at Summit Point

WERA at Summit Point

July 30-August 1, 1999

WERA's 4-Hour Endurance Final Results

WERA's National Race Results

WERA's Sportsman Race Results

The WERA Endurance and National Series made its annual visit to Summit Point, bringing endurance teams from around the country to continue their tight battle for the Endurance championship. Local favorites Semoff Brothers Racing (SBR) came in with the series lead, followed by Army of Darkness (AOD), a surpise in 2nd place overall.

Summit Point has always favored those who have put in the most laps there, since the racing line is not very wide through most turns, so passing opportunities are few. This resulted in 3 local teams in the top 10. However, this in itself is misleading, since 2 of those teams are leading the entire series in points. Glen Szarek took his home-track advantage to the front of the pack, leading both restarts by a wide margin on the first lap.

The biggest loser in the points chase was Arclight Suzuki. The well-funded team continues to be hamstrung by bad luck, this time fighting electrical gremlins. The team's 'A' bike had been suffering from problems during practice on Friday, but ran smoothly Saturday morning. The team stayed with the bike until the mysterious problem returned at the start of the endurance race. Tray Batey returned to the pits, announced the bike was not working, and Arclight went to the 'B' bike, losing nearly 8 laps in the process. It was a defecit they could not make up in 4 hours. Arclight had to settle for 14th on the day, 8 laps down from SBR in first place.

One small cloud over the endurance race was caused by a malfunctioning group loop at start-finish. The wire that detects the transponders as they pass over the start-finish line had a small short, causing some bikes to fail to be detected as they went by. Therefore, some teams were not credited for completing a lap. This affected Team Clinton Cycles the most, dropping them to 6th overall when they should have been 3rd. Team MR went from 3rd all the way to 8th overall after the timing system fault was discovered. No word on whether Team MR returned the trophy or not.

The MARRC cornerworkers performed an outstanding job in the opressive weekend heat. Sunday ended in rain showers, forcing the cornerworkers to don raingear. The cornerworkers braved on, staying at their posts to finish the day's racing.

The sprint race that received the most attention on Sunday was the GPRA 125 GP event. Last year's WERA 125 champion, Mike Himmelsbach, was in attendance, but nursing a broken ankle. Himmelsbach left the riding to his teammate Chris Pyles, the 2nd place finisher in the series last year. Running against Pyles were the young phenoms of Jason DiSalvo and Ben Spies. Both have proven themselves capable racers, and DiSalvo came to Summit leading in points.

The race itself was a close event, with spectators shocked to see DiSalvo dip into the 1:19s, setting an unofficial 125 lap record at Summit. Pyles and Spies paced DiSalvo for several laps, then separated as Pyles took second and Spies landed the last podium spot.

Anyone who noticed the trailer at pit out with the professional photoagrapher, but didn't have a chance to look inside, contact David Newman of Digital Race Photos. Newman was there, photographing the action, and offers a digital CD of your photos for a fee. He can be reached at 610-264-5120, or at go4digital@aol.com.

Thanks to Glen Ouye and Will Astle for the action shots. Click on each photo to see the enlargement. Check back later in the week as we add more photos!

	The 1 board goes up and the front row of the endurance race gets ready to launch. From right to left, and in overall series points order, SBR, Army of Darkness, and Arclight Suzuki get ready for the first start of the 4-hour. Photo by Will Astle.
	Scott Brown, this year's addition to SBR, takes the lead opened by Glen Szarek, and extends it. Brown and Szarek rode a smart and consistent race, consistently fast that is. SBR won the 4-Hour event by over 2 laps. To say that SBR dominated the race is an understatement. Photo by Glen Ouye.
	Team Charm rider Brian Summers waits with some of his crew to grid for the restart. The race was red-flagged after a bike high-sided and blocked the exit of Turn 1. During the clean-up, no teams may work on their bikes, and are appropriately parked away from the pits. Here Summers approaches his bike to take the warm-up lap before gridding. Photo by Will Astle.
	Team Loudoun Motorsports highsides in Turn 5. The unnamed rider was not hurt, but killed the team's chances at a podium finish for Middleweight Superbike. The team maintained good lap times, but got into trouble with this crash and another with Nuts & Bolts Racing. Photo by Glen Ouye.
	Team Clinton Cycles (#15) does the unthinkable and makes it stick -- an outside pass on top-finisher Tapeworks Racing (#4) in Turn 1. The pass was pulled of by none other than David Yaakov, former Summit Point track record holder and all-around fast guy. Photo by Glen Ouye.
	Team Apex (#352) shows why it finished 12th overall by leading through the carousel on its Yamaha R6. Loudoun Motorsports (#168) follows closely ahead of MSS entry Revolution Racing. Revolution rode consistenly to finish 21st overall. Photo by Glen Ouye.
	MARRC members do more than just cornerwork. Here we see the weekend's cooks, getting ready to dish out a great meal to top off a long day's work. Kathy Moortgat (left), Mo Moortgat (middle) and Sandy Powers (right) performed minor miracles at the grill making Black Bean Chicken, corn on the cob, and meatball subs for lunch and dinner. Photo by Glen Ouye.
	Up and coming GP phenom Jason DiSalvo flies through Turn 1 on his way to a new 125 track record of 1:19.676 on his way to winning the GPRA event. DiSalvo has already made a successful trip to Europe to try his hand at racing 125s there, to good results. That even included an amazing 8th place finish in the European Championsip event in Czechoslovakia. While noting Jason's style, check out the cool Alien Racing knee-pucks. Photo by Glen Ouye.
	Don Fox (#42) executes a perfect outside pass on his Aprilia over Anthony White (#195) in Turn 3 during the Formula 2 Expert race on Saturday. Passes on the outside of Turn 3 take a great deal of timing and speed, and should not be attempted by anyone unprepared for a gravel trap mambo. Photo by Glen Ouye.
	Everybody Conga! Actually, this is the cleanup of an oil spill while waiting for the track's tractor broom to arrive. One racer, who will remain anonymous, tried to use a self-tapping oil drain plug with no safety wire. The attempt failed and the drain plug tapped out. The entire front straight got oiled, the racer oiled his rear tire, crashed in Turn 1 and created an oil slick the width of the turn. Photo by Glen Ouye.
	The cleanup in Turn 1 continues with the help of Roadrash, MARRC's equipment box van. Thanks to all the volunteers that assited with the cleanup. Photo by Glen Ouye.
	Team Nuts & Bolts rider John Knott gasses it through Turn 1 on his Kawasaki ZX-7R during the 4-Hour endurance race. The team finished 38th, a respectable finish considering the 25 minute delay for crashing at the 1st hour mark and repairing the bike. It also did not help that no one on the team had ridden the bike before the weekend. Photo by Glen Ouye.
	Cycle Pros rider Steve Keener trades in his SV650 for a GSXR600 for the endurace race. Cycle Pros finished 31st overall, not bad for a MSS entry. Photo by Glen Ouye.
	Team Charm rider Steve Harris leads Tapeworks Racing (#4) through the carousel. Followed closely behind is Army of Darkness (#99) who finished 7th overall, and 3rd in MSB. Photo by Glen Ouye.
	Race director George Mood takes his four-wheeler out for a spin through Turn 3 before Saturday's endurance race to check the track. Photo by Glen Ouye.

Got any pictures you'd like to share? MARRC is looking to post photos of racers, cornerworkers, and good race action to share with our members. Send your photos and descriptions to the Webmaster at