Thunderhill Raceway - April 2014 (Round 1 and 2 West)

Rounds 1 and 2 of the Hoosier Tire US Formula 1000 Championship West kicked off on Saturday with the first and only qualifying session.  Shortly after the cars left the grid, Duane Eitel spun his Phoenix, bringing out a full course caution.  After he was towed in, the now-shortened session resumed and JR Osborne immediately jumped to the top of the chart.  A lap later, Larry Vollum eclipsed Osborne’s fast time but he was soon dropped to second by Gary Hickman.  Osborne was just getting warmed up and by the end of the session had put his Citation back on the pole with a fast lap of 1:43.816.  Hickman retained P2 with Vollum a mere .017 seconds back.   Late in the session, Rod Rice’s shifter broke and as he slowed on the main straight he was hit hard by a sportsracer, ending his weekend.
          

Throughout race 1, Osborne was untouchable.  At the green flag, he took off to a sizable lead.  An early full course caution bunched the field up, but at the restart Osborne once again left the field in his mirrors.  While Osborne dominated at the front, there was a great battle for 2nd .  Hickman held the position for the first half of the race but was constantly pressured by Vollum.  After the halfway mark, Hickman started fading and gave up the second spot to Vollum and later dropping to fourth, allowing Randy Cook to get around him.  Cook began running down Vollum and was closing on him but ran out of laps, settling for 3rd.  John Labrie had moved up to 5th from his 6th place starting position but on lap 13 his tires went away and he spun out of the race, relinquishing 5th to Nicholas Ortiz.  Eitel’s problems continued with a faulty clutch, forcing him to park on just the second lap.

The grid for round 2 was set using the fastest lap between qualifying and race 1.  While everyone went faster in the race, some improved more than others, which shuffled the grid for race 2.  Nobody was able to improve on Osborne’s fast lap of the race so he retained the pole.  However, the second fastest lap of the race belonged to Cook and that was enough to put him on the front row.  Vollum retained 3rd and Hickman dropped to 4th.

Osborne continued his dominance in round 2, winning in even more convincing fashion.  From the start of the race, after he got by Randy cook at the outside of turn 2 he checked out from the rest of the field and was never challenged.  Enroute to victory he also set the Formula 1000 fast lap and won overall.  He left Hickman, Cook, and Vollum to battle for the remaining steps on the podium.  Hickman got a great start from his fourth spot on the grid and got around both Vollum and Cook on the first lap.  The three battled for the entire race and Hickman crossed the stripe in second, followed by Cook, then Vollum.  However, a post-race penalty for passing under a local yellow dropped Hickman’s official finish position to 3rd, promoting Cook to 2nd.  A little further back, Ortiz and LaBrie were dicing for 5th with LaBrie holding off Ortiz until lap 12.  That’s when LaBrie lost control at turn 11 and spun, handing the position to Ortiz.  

Check out the Hoosier Tire US Formula 1000 Championship Youtube channel
for some exciting Replay XD footage from the weekend! https://www.youtube.com/user/USFormula1000