Willie Phee claims two first place finishes at Round 6 of the South Atlantic Road Racing Championship series at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia  Round six of the SARRC Championship series was held at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta with WRPMotorsports driver Willie Phee finishing first in both races over the weekend. WRPMotorsports is proud to announce a partnership with Acura of Athens for select events for the 2019 race season. Qualifying for both races was held Saturday morning with the best times from either qualifying or the Saturday race setting the gird for the Sunday feature race.  Phee would start race one on Saturday from the fourth position.  This was the first race on a completely different set up for the WRPMotorsports Acura TSX.  The decision was made to prepare the car for Super Touring Under (STU) for the 2019 season. The changes made to the car included a highly modified K20/K24 engine by Nelson Engines in Cumming, Georgia, a Quaife Sequential gearbox and a MOTEC engine management system.  “It’s been a long time since we started this project, in fact the car was just finished on the dyno on Friday afternoon which prevented me from running the traditional Friday test day” said Phee.  “I would have liked to have the additional time in the car on Friday but it just didn’t work out with all of the changes we were making on the car”. Phee would run the car for the first time in the morning qualifying session and would end up first in class and fourth overall on the grid.  “Qualifying wasn’t without some problems as about seven laps in the car just died on the front straight” said Phee.  “Luckily I was able to put in a good lap early in the session and start on the second row”.  The OPM crew determined that it was a bad throttle body, swapped the part out and had the car ready for the afternoon race. At the start of race one the front two cars had contact in turn 11.  The video can be seen here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pC0JptYW4sI&feature=youtu.be “I wasn’t sure if we would get a green flag but we did and I did get a run but there was no place to go and I just slotted into fourth place as we went up the hill to turn two” Said Phee.  Phee would slowly start gaining on the third place car and move into third overall on lap four and hold that position to the finish. Race two was set for Sunday just after lunch and Phee was schedule to start third overall based on his Saturday race times, however there was a problem getting the car to start and Phee would be late to the grid and had to start in 20^th position. “I think there must have been a problem with the ECU tune because the car was very difficult to start, once it started it would run fine”, said Phee.  “Starting at the back is always a challenge but I knew the car was fast and I just had to be patient with the slower cars and work my way up”. Phee would definitely work his way up as he would move up to eighth position by the end of lap one, fourth by lap three and finally into third by lap six.  “By the time I had gotten into third the leaders were long gone but I did manage to run some consistent laps and get a better feel for the car”. Phee would finish the race first in class and third overall after starting dead last on the field.  “As usual The OPM crew did a great job getting the car ready for the weekend and even though we had issues on Sunday before the race Ryan did a great job getting the car ready.  I also have to thank Sam Nelson from Nelson Engines for prepping the new motor and Phil Koch for tuning the MOTEC ECU”.  Special thanks go out to the Acura of Athens associates that came out to the track to see their car run for the first time. The next race is scheduled for September 28-29, 2019 at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach Florida. The WRPMotorsports team is sponsored by Acura of Athens, Optima Batteries, Sparco USA, Total Lubricants, MCS Suspension and OPM Autosports. Photos courtesy of Motorsports Photography by Clark McInnis http://cmcinnis.wordpress.com/ 

July 27 - 28, 2019 – Road Atlanta Raceway, Braselton, Georgia