USTCC: Sears Point round 10 summary

Tom Lepper Wins USTCC at Infineon Raceway in Collision Craft Acura Integra

The Tenth round of the United States Touring car championship (USTCC) took place in sunny Sonoma California, at Infineon raceway. With over 17 cars turning out for the event this looked to be one of the best rounds of this season.

After the morning warm up and qualifying session Saturday it looked like the returning Subaru now piloted my rookie sensation Brian Lock, would pick up were it left off with almost a two second margin over the P2 car. The Subaru was fastest in every timed session. After Sunday's qualifying the Subaru still managed a healthy gap, over the second place Honda of Ali Arsham and Marc Kirberg, followed by Jeff Lepper in the third spot in the Accord.

The GOTO/DMS Subaru worked its usual magic with its all wheel drive at the standing start of the race, but was quickly caught by the rest of the field before turn one due to transmission problems. The second place Gogogear Honda Civic tried to make his way up front but spun at Turn 2. "The track temperature had cooled considerably by race time. It was completely my fault in not warming up the tires properly and the rear end just let go." Said Arsham afterwards. This and another incident further back lead to several caution laps that allowed the track to be cleaned. At the restart the Collision Craft Acura Integra Type R of Tom Lepper took the lead, followed closely by the Eagle Awards/ Impact Engineering Honda Accord driven by Jeff Lepper. The battle for third was between the P1 Motorsports Civic of Justin Elin and his teammate Charlie Frank, who took the third position at the restart. A few laps after the restart Lock's Subaru had to come in with a broken transmission, along with the Petmax Ford Contour SVT driven by Bob Porter who had over heating problems. The Jeff Lepper put pressure on the Tom Lepper's Integra, but Tom Lepper remained rock solid taking his car to win. You can see just how close the two were based on the fastest times of the race with Tom Lepper turning a 1:43.991 to Jeff Lepper's 1:44.003.

Farther back in the field the two P1 Motorsports cars battled it out, but Justin Elin regained the third sport and held it to the end despite the pressure from Charlie Frank's Civic. Niki Tam's Acutech Acura Integra Type R rounded out the fifth position. Elin also won the A'Pex Integration Top Rookie award.

USTCC will be returning to Infineon for the next round of the championship and it should prove to be even more exciting.

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