V8Stockcar Winter Heat 2010

The V8 StockCar Road Racing Series will kick off 2010 with its' Winter Heat, running on familiar ground at Sebring International Raceway with the Central Florida Region SCCA, February 20 & 21. Historically, this has been a well attended event and some thirty cars are expected to test the famous 12 hour course.

The following weekend the V8 Series will be at Palm Beach International Raceway as the support series to the ARCA series.
This will be an exciting weekend for competitors and fans alike as the 800 plus horsepower ARCA cars, with their stars of the future test the two mile circuit.
ARCA, well known as a training ground for NASCAR and other series, has always prided itself on being a series that challenges it drivers by scheduling races on short tracks, superspeedways, dirt and road courses. NASCAR stars like Mark Martin, Tim Richmond, Charlie Glotzbach, Davey Allison, Ernie Irvan, Michael Waltrip, Harry Gant, Kyle Petty, Joe Ruttman, Brett Bodine and many more spent time learning their craft in ARCA before moving on to success in Nascar and other forms of racing. Nothing has changed and you can look for big things from current and recent ARCA stars like Justin Allgaier, Justin Lofton, Parker Kligerman, Joey Coulter, Colin Braun, and Scott Lagasse Jr.


The V8 StockCar Road Racing Series is a points championship racing series that competes on North America's finest road courses including Daytona, Sebring, Road Atlanta, VIR, Barber Motorsports Park and more The V8 Series will bring its' four classes of ground pounding rockets with bigs field expected. Just some of the top competitors expected for the Winter Heat are former Grand Am Champ and two time V8 GT-1 Champ Dave Machavern, ten time race winner Charles Wicht, 2009 V8 GTA champ Randy Walker, 2008 V8 GTA Champ Tony Amico, former three time Nascar Dash Champ and 2009 V8 SPO champ Larry Hoopaugh, 2007 V8 GTA champ Jay Marshall, 2009 SCCA SARRC GT-1 champ Ray Webb and many more.

V8 StockCar's four classes are:

V8 GT-1: SCCA GT-1 Corvettes, Camaro's Mustang's' etc, plus Grand Am Rolex GT cars
V8 GT-2: SCCA World Challenge cars, Grand Am Koni Challenge SCCA GT-2 and the like

V8 SPO: ex Nascar Cup, Nationwide, Hooters Cup, Late model stock cars
V8 GTA: SCCA GTA stock cars, 500 hp

Be there this February when the V8 Series turns up the "Winter Heat."

Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida's Simon Gregg took both the six lap sprint race and the twenty lap feature race at the The American Road Race of Champions November 6 & 7 at Road Atlanta Raceway. The event was also the final round of the V8 StockCar Road Racing Series. Gregg, driving the number 59 Derhaag Motorsports Corvette started from the pole in both races after posting a quick 1:24.471 in qualifying with Bill Smith in his winged late model stock car and former Grand Am Series champ Dave Machavern in his Tommy Riggins Corvette right behind.  At the green in Friday's sprint race, Gregg got a great start and slipped away to a several second advantage as Smith and Machavern battled for second. Machavern held the number two slot the entire race, but was under constant attack from "Wild Bill" in the winged stock car that is painted and decaled up to look like a 1955 Chevy Bel Air.Gregg's margin of victory at the checker was nearly five seconds. With his second place finish, Machavern locked up the V8 StockCar Series V8 GT-1 title for the second straight year, taking home the Mo's Gold Championship Ring.

Gregg started Saturday's feature race from the pole again and used the big horsepower in his orange rocket to power away from Smith and
Machavern. Smith started second and pulled away from Machavern about one half second a lap. The race was pretty uneventful for the top three in the V8 GT-1 with Gregg finishing some twenty plus seconds ahead of Smith, with Machavern another five seconds or so behind. Bob Monette had a fine drive in his new Tony Ave built Mustang coming home fourth. Monette's daughter, Paige, demonstrated she can handle the big horsepower as well coming home seventh overall and fifth in V8 GT-1 in her Ave prepped Corvette. Paige was quickly adapting to her new ride and was running her best laps at the end.

In the V8 SPO class for the high horsepower stock cars, Paul Breehne drove his best race ever, holding off three time Nascar Dash Series champ Larry Hoopaugh and a very quick Grant Leadbetter. Breehne was running his best laps ever at Road Atlanta and was really liking the set up car chief Mike Breault gave him. Hoopaugh kept trying to make a move inside of Breehne lap after lap in the high speed turn one, but could never quite make it stick. On about lap fifteen Hoopaugh spun there nearly getting stuck in the gravel trap. Hoopaugh made it out of the trap and was able to soldier on for a third place class finish, giving him the Mo's Gold Class Championship Ring.

Everyone knew the V8 GTA race would be hotly contested with about ten cars less than two seconds a lap apart and with some of those still getting quicker as they were still learning North America's toughest race course. At the green Ron "Burr" Keith and Road Atlanta master Bob Stretch pulled out from the group and battled for all twenty laps. The pressure from Stretch on Keith was relentless, but the leader of the "Kansas Tornadoes" just wouldn't wilt. In one of the best big bore races ever at the ARRC Keith "manned up" and hung on to defeat Stretch, one of the most prolific drivers of Road Atlanta. Disappointingly, the race would be lost in the tech shed as Keith's racer turned up a fraction of an inch too low, handing Stretch the win. Kentucky's Randy Walker moved to second in the order, which coupled with Tony Amico's horrible luck gave him the V8 StockCar series V8 GTA Championship. Amico went into the final race with a twelve point lead over Walker for the Championship but was taken out on lap three and the resulting DNF and no points handed the Mo's Gold Ring to Walker

In V8 GT2, Raeford, North Carolina's Chris Ingle took the overall, TCC class, and V8 StockCar GT2 wins Saturday, Ingle's margin of victory was just 2/10's of a second over Bob Mayer in his C6 Corvette. Mayer, who had started on the pole with a new V8 Series track record, had led every lap, but Ingle never lost contact and as the two began to work lapped traffic, Ingle closed in.

As the pair came down the hill on the twentieth and last lap, Ingle got a great run and worked to the inside of Mayer, driving it in there deeper than ever, made it stick and just edged Mayer at the checker. Mayer did get the STO class win as well as becoming the first V8 StockCar series V8 GT2 champion, winning by just three points over Cape Coral, Florida's Doug Wilson in his BMW M3. Wilson came into the final weekend with a seven point advantage over Mayer, but down about 100 horsepower and in his first weekend of racing at Road Atlanta, Wilson and his Bimmer just couldn't hang with the Vette's. Ed Lewis finished third in the V8GT2 class for both the race and the points battle giving CrossRoads Motorsports Sam Power two of the top three spots in the Championship. Power preps both Mayer's and Lewis' Vette's.  Mayer took home the Mo's Gold Champions ring for his season efforts.


The V8 Series thanks the Atlanta Region SCCA, it's workers, and the ARRC committee for the outstanding job handling the events logistics. It was truly a "professional event."

A giant thank you to Joe and Trish Mobley of Mo's Gold for their continued support of the series and for sponsoring the beautiful silver rings for our Champions.

The V8 Series partners are instrumental in the continued success and they are: Mo'sGold, GoPro, SCCA,Atlanta Region SCCA, RaceTalkRadio.com, TrackTek Race Fuels,Hoosier, Goodyear,Howe, FiveStar, RaceCar Engineering, DRP, RacingJunk.com, Roehrig-Enders, GrassRoots Motorsports Magazine, Racing Limo's, Dash Racewear, SaferRacer, Randy Lajoie and Hess Racing Products.