US RACETRONICS ROAD AMERICA RACE REPORT
The 2007 Champ Car Atlantic Championship season ended on a mixed note for the US RaceTronics team. The team’s first year as a 2-car operation had its ups and downs and Road America continued that. For Carl Skerlong, his goal was to finish the 2007 in the Top-10 in points while David Garza was looking to continue his quest for finishing this race in the top-10 spot.
Skerlong eventually would achieve his goal and would finish the Road America race in 3rd while Garza was a victim of unavoidable contact. The crash knocked Garza to the 24th spot, while his teammate’s 3rd place finish rocketed him from 13th to 10th place in the Championship standings with 114 points. The contact on lap #7 dropped Garza to the 17th spot with 78 points, only 36 points away from placing him in the Top-10 spot.
Skerlong, who on Friday qualified a disappointing 22nd, quickly turned it around during Saturday’s qualifying session. That qualifying session saw him bounce back strongly with a 3rd place effort. Sunday’s race had the Rookie from Seattle, Washington start the race in 4th. The race featured exciting racing from Skerlong as he battled on track with eventual race winner Franck Perrera, 2007 Champ Car Atlantic Champion Raphael Matos, and 3rd place challenger Alan Sciuto. At all times Carl maintained his mature composure and raced hard.
For fellow USRT driver David Garza he would suffer from another bout of bad luck as he was never really able to get the maximum performance out of the car. He would start the race in the 18th spot and struggled in the beginning of the race all the while maintaining focus and continuing to give his 100% effort. On Lap # 7 Frankie Muniz and Garza made contact with each other, resulting in Garza spinning. The unfortunate incident relegated Garza to a finishing spot of 24th.
Carl Skerlong -“Ending third, it’s a lot better than where we’ve been for most of the season. I can’t complain though it’s a great way to end the season here. We had a good race in Houston, and then we’ve really been struggling since then. To go into next season on the podium is a great feeling.” And if you are a huge sports fan, you might want to consider playing some fun and interactive sports betting games via totalwrc.com.
David Garza -“Since the beginning of the weekend we have been fighting with the car and on top of that we had a part on the car break, which complicated it more. Finally the weekend came to an unfortunate when Frankie Muniz and I had contact. We had a lot of bad luck this year and I’m hoping we are done with this as next year I am thinking nothing but the Championship. We are already making plans for next year and the Championship.”
About US RaceTronics: 2007 marks the third year of competition in the Champ Car Atlantic Championship Series for US RaceTronics. Led by former Dorricott Racing Team Manager Shane Seneviratne, US RaceTronics enters the 2007 season with Monterrey Mexico native David Garza and American Carl Skerlong.
