ACRL: Portland Race Report

American City Racing League

Portland, OR June 25, 2000 - For the second race in a row, Peter Zarcades of Team Las Vegas shattered a track qualifying record, turning a time of 1:14.613 to eclipse Tom Kreger's year-old Super Sports 2000 mark of 1:15.316. Equally impressive was the qualifying performance of teammate Michael Scully, who eclipsed Spencer Trenery's year-old Sports 2000 qualifying mark of 1:19.947 with a 1:19.021. Zarcades also won the race going away, but Scully wasn't so lucky, succumbing to a miss in the engine and pitting short of the checker. Zarcades showed his heels to the field at the green flag, opening up a huge lead over pursuers Steve Romak (Fresno), Tom Kreger (Portland), Dennis Pavlina, (Fresno), John Ostlund (Fresno), Margie Smith-Haas (San Diego) and Sandra Popescu (Salinas) . When the leaders got into lapped traffic, Romak closed the gap dramatically, but a spin in Turn 12 on lap 10 dropped him back to third behind Kreger. Pavlina had suffered a mechanical problem on lap 7 and parked it. Fiorenzo Tirinnanzi (Team Hollywood) overcame an 11th place qualifying performance (due to a bad fuel pump), and moved up to fifth, also on lap 7. Zarcades kept Kreger several seconds back for the rest of the race, which ended in a rather bizarre fashion. Graham Fotheringham's car spun and stalled on course in the Festival Turns bringing out a full course yellow, but the pace car missed Zarcades and Kreger, instead pulling out in front of Romak. With the race bumping up against the time limit, there was no chance to straighten things out, so the checker flew at the end of lap 17. Zarcades took the well-deserved victory, followed by Kreger, Romak, Ostlund and Tirinnanzi. Team Fresno's third and fourth place, coupled with an 11th contributed by Fresno S2 driver Ernie Spada Jr., handed Fresno the team win with 233 points over San Diego's 194. Spada, a former ACRL driver, came back to the series in a newly rebuilt Swift DB5 and captured second in the S2 class.

An elated David Ferguson of Team Salinas captured his first ACRL Aerocell Sports 2000 win on a greasy track that caught out several competitors. John Bachofner spun off in Turn 11 on the second lap while challenging for the lead, and Scully developed his mysterious miss on lap 3. Spada led the second S2000 pack comprised of Jeff Littrell (Denver), Erik Giroski (Vancouver), Joe Moran (Hollywood), Leo Giroski (Vancouver) and Doug Ota (Denver). Sports 1600 leader Mike Anderson (Tampa) also mixed it up with this group for much of the race. Ferguson finished 10th overall and the only Sports 2000 on the lead lap due to the pace car mixup.

Sports 1600 winner Anderson, in his Bazillion-sponsored SVC, spent his whole race battling with S2 cars, and never saw second place Steve Knight (Portland), who came from last place. Graham Fotheringham (Tampa) took third in his first ACRL outing by virtue of finishing more laps than Portland's Mel Hawkins, who retired after 8 laps with mechanical problems.

The American City Racing League Western Division, using a unique team racing concept, races Cosworth-powered Super Sports 2000, Aerocell-sponsored Sports 2000, and Toyota-powered Sports 1600 cars, with drivers required to run Hoosier ACRL-stamped R-45 compound tires and Union 76 Racing Fuel.