WRPM Race Update

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Round’s 10 and 11 of the 2021 SARRC Championship series was held at Virginia International Raceway and WRPMotorsports driver Willie Phee would finish first in race one and second in race two. Qualifying for the weekend would start Saturday morning with the quickest time in either qualifying or the race setting the grid for race two. Phee would end up qualifying seventh overall and second in class in the mixed group session. “This was the first race in 2021 and it took me a few laps to get comfortable in the car, but I managed to get withing one second of the lead IT car and was 3.4 seconds ahead of the third place car” said Phee. In the Saturday afternoon race Phee would start seventh on the grid but would get a great start when the pole sitting Porsche missed a gear causing the front rows to check up. Phee would go into turn one in second overall and would hold onto second for the first two laps. At the start of lap three the more powerful Corvettes and Camaros would get by dropping Phee to fourth overall but still in the ITS lead. Phee would hold onto the ITS lead until he got into lapped traffic which allowed the second place ITS car to close the gap. On lap five of the 12 lap race Phee would drop into second but stay glued to the bumper of the first place Mustang. On lap nine Phee would make his move back into first and would hold the lead all the way to the checkers. The Sunday race grid would have Phee lining up fourth overall and third in ITS. Phee would get another great start and briefly get into the lead prior to turn one, however he was on the outside and slotted into second behind Jeff Giordano’s Mustang. The Mustang would pull a four second gap by lap six. Phee would bide his time knowing that the Mustang would use up his rear tires and would get into lapped traffic by lap seven. Sure enough on lap seven Phee started to close in on the first place Mustang. By lap 12 oof the 14 lap race Phee was right on the Mustang’s bumper. Phee would make several attempts to get by the Mustang, but couldn’t make the pass stick. It was a close finish at the end with Phee coming up .3 seconds short of the win. “Once I caught back up, I could see that the Mustang was struggling for rear grip. I got alongside in a couple of the turns but the Mustang had better torque out of the corners. I felt like if we had a couple more laps I could have gotten by, but the race ended on lap 14 and I ended up second” said Phee. The next race is scheduled for July 24-25, 2021 at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia. The WRPMotorsports team is sponsored by Optima Batteries, Sparco USA, Total Lubricants, MCS Suspension and OPM Autosports. Photo’s courtesy of F&S Enterprises Photography: http://www.fandsenterprises.com/