Victory at Buttonwillow
After skipping the rain plagued SCCA Majors at Fontana in January, the BHR team headed to Buttonwillow for their first Major event of 2019 on April 25-28. It was a long and hot weekend, with testing on Thursday and temps in the upper 90s all weekend.
Friday consisted of the first official practice and qualifying sessions. With Q1 happening in the heat of the day, everyone was pushing hard to optimize lap time on the hot greasy track surface. When the checkered dropped, Chuck Horn had the fastest lap at 1:55.353 in his Swift DB6. Courtney Crone would post the second fastest time of 1:55.743 in her BHR Piper DL7. Brad Hayes was 3rd, but a bit off the lead pace at a 1:57.052.
Saturday morning’s Q2 session saw cooler temps, and sticker tires. This was the session that everyone expected would set the grid for the first race. Courtney took advantage of the new tires and would lay down the first 1:54 of the weekend, with 1:54.581 to lock up pole position for Race 1.
Race 1 would roll off in the afternoon heat. At the green flag, Courtney would hold the lead from pole position. Brad was able to get a good start and move up from 4th to 3rd. Courtney would struggle with the 3rd to 4th gear shift throughout the race, which would allow Chuck Horn to pull away with the win, and Denny Renfrow to hold off Courtney for 2nd. Courtney would come home with a solid podium finish in 3rd. Brad would spend the closing laps of the race battling with Bill Kephart, but was unable to make the pass on Kephart. The top five at the checkered was 1st Chuck Horn, 2nd Denny Renfrow, 3rd Courtney Crone, 4th Bill Kephart, and 5th Brad Hayes. Chuck Horn also ran a fast lap of 1:55.565, just a tick faster than Courtney’s Q2 lap, which put Chuck on the pole for Sunday’s Race 2.
After the shifting issues encountered in Saturday’s race, the Fast Forward crew made some adjustments to the shift lever location in the cockpit, and worked with Courtney to improve on the shifting problems seen in Saturday’s race. The team approached Sunday’s race with the goal of improving on Saturday’s 3rd place finish.
Sunday Race 2 Podium: 2nd place Denny Renfrow, 1st place Courtney Crone, 3rd place Chuck Horn
Sunday’s Race 2 started with Chuck Horn taking the lead from pole. Midway through lap one Denny Renfrow would slip by Courtney Crone in to second position in the high speed Riverside corner. Chuck would lead the first eight laps. Then on lap nine, Denny would take the lead in the Star Mazda corner, and Courtney would move to second in the Sunset corner leading to the front straight. From that point on, Denny and Courtney would swap positions for the lead several times. With three laps to go, the two went in to turn 1 side by side, and would swap positions three times before getting to the Cotton Corners section of the track. Courtney emerged from that battle with the lead. She then managed to deal with lapped traffic and hold the lead to the finish. Denny would finish second, followed by Chuck Horn, Bill Kephart, and Brad Hayes rounding out the top five.
After the disappointment of slipping from the pole to finish third on Saturday, Courtney put together a great drive to take the victory on Sunday. The team is thrilled with the win, and looking to build on this result as the season moves back north for races at Laguna Seca and Sonoma.