Olitho

http://vimeo.com/23558415

I start from the pole and I get into turn one first. I lead every lap and every turn until the checkered. It is nice to win, but more dicing would have been more fun. Ken Davis pressures me the second half of the race and Roy Benedetti is coming for the two of us, but he tangles with Leroy Shaver and they both crash out.



Oli

Olitho

2011 BF Goodrich Tire Super Tour T1 Race at Buttonwillow Raceway on Vimeo

The racing today was great. We ran close and fast.

I had a great race going. I was P3 at the start behind Roy Benedetti and Ken Davis and inside of Aaron Bailey. I blew the start as I was just going to third gear when the green flag came out. I drove with a vegeance on lap 1 and made an exciting pass to second place at Turn One of lap two at the 2:30 minute mark. It was my most exhilarating pass of the whole weekend . It was definitely an aggressive move, but I pulled it off as I was sliding sideways up to the outside curbing while feeding in healthy amounts of throttle.

Roy, Ken and I have a great race going for about 25 minutes until my car falls into an electronic "limp mode." The computer detected something wrong in the ECM and cut the max throttle to 16% and retards the timing. Then a fuse burned to the right hand side fuel injectors. I went down two laps and came in last.

It was cool to see Roy, Ken and Carl up on the podium spraying the champagne at the awards presentation. Roy even got to take Ethan, his crew chief, out for a victory lap. That was very special for the two of them. Topeka even sent over an announcer guy to interview the winners and Roy did a great job with the interview.

With the essential support of the following organizations and individuals I won on Saturday and ran up front on Sunday (for a while). I extend my appreciation to all my race supporters and crew:
- Pre-race car prep by John Schertzer
- Performance tuning and car prep by Charlie Williams at RPM Motors
- Trackside crewing and radio spotting by Steve Potter
- Car appearance maintained by Didrik Thordarson
- All the workers and crew at Cal Club
- My ever patient and loving wife Teresa
- And my cheering children Kristjan, Silaine and Didrik

And appreciation for sponsorship and race hardware from:
- Alvaka Networks
- Elite Auto Body
- Coin-Op
- 949 Racing
- Mechanix Wear
- HardbarUSA
- AP Brakes

Olitho

Here is video from the second row start on Saturday from Roy's car:

http://youtu.be/TrzNNKbh4os

L98Terror

Congrats on the win

redtopz

Nice job Oli! I enjoyed watching Roy's video too with that surprise ending. He was doing a nice job catching up and it's too bad he dropped those wheels off. It's amazing how fast it will pull your car into the track when that happens. I'm impressed that he came back and won on Sunday after that!

Olitho

and the Rat Bastard was using the part I loaned him to fix the car!!!

Never again I tell you....

redtopz

Yeah, that was generous to give him your only fuel injector fuse and run on 4 cylinders yourself.

drbenne

It was a weekend filled with ups and downs for sure and some really great racing. I was pretty bummed after screwing up trying to pass a HP car in riverside after fighting the whole race to catch up to Oli and Ken. The dirt outside of riverside is so soft I couldn't ride a bike in it that evening looking for body parts I lost. Once my tire got in the dirt I just shot to the left across the track and into the HP car.
I was fortunate to have my racing buddy Ethan and Oli's parts store so I could get the car ready for Sunday. There is nothing finer than a new set of A6 hoosiers to make for some quick lap times. Oli hounded me most of the race.

Olitho

You drove great on Sunday. After Saturday's mishap your Sunday win must have extra sweet.

I am never loaning you a part again!

Oli