FONTANA, CA – Team LMR was ready to compete against the best Formula Mazda teams and drivers during the 2015 Pacific Coast Road Racing Championship (aka the Pacific Coast Runoffs) at Auto Club Speedway on October 17-18. Practice, qualifying, a qualifying race and main event after a morning warm-up would set the stage to find out who’s the “Best in the West.”
After rebuilding the Auto Diagnostic Services Team LMR Formula Mazda race car from a heavy shunt in July, the team was looking for a bit of redemption. After a couple of shakedown test days to make sure everything was good to go, the team felt confident heading into the weekend.
Larry and crew chief Tom Engelsman decided on a strategy of scrubbing a new set of tires in the first practice session and save those for the main event while using a set of harder compound tires for qualifying and the qualifying race. As it turned out, the strategy only partially worked out. After qualifying third, Mason was able to jump into second place early and then chased the leader, however, the car started to get loose in the corners and the resulting oversteer slowed Mason’s progress. As the situation worsened, Mason went backwards and was sliding sideways as the other competitors were able to get by. He finished up in fifth place. At this point Team LMR made the decision to run the morning warmup on the freshly scrubbed soft compound tires just to make sure that the balance was right for the main event.
In the main event, Mason was ready to jump on the loud pedal as soon as the green flag dropped. However, during the pace lap, another competitor hit the SAFER® barrier in Turn 2 due to a suspension failure. Two more laps behind the Pace car and then it was time to go. Mason had a good start but was having a hard time keeping up in the draft. Even so, he was able to jump into third place. On the next lap, he had a great run coming out of the last turn leading onto the front straight and was able to take over second place! Unfortunately, that was short lived as he was out-powered down the back straight and was soon demoted to third, then fourth and so on as the tightly bunched pack of snarling Formula Mazdas started trading positions furiously. It was a highly aggressive group with some contact and lots of close calls happening. Mason just didn’t have an answer on the high-speed oval section as it seemed like he just didn’t have enough horsepower. After being demoted to sixth, Mason was having visions of déjà vu from yesterday’s qualifying race. “At that point, I had had enough!” explained Mason. “The problem is that if you get passed by one car, you lose momentum and hence are easy ‘pickins’ for those behind.” He put his head down and started picking off the competitors one by one. Unfortunately, an interloper from another class with superior horsepower went by Mason on the oval section, but then would hold Mason up in the infield. Mason finally got by him and started stalking the leader but by that time there weren’t enough laps left for Mason to catch the leader and he ended up in second place. Considering where he started and all the drama in the middle of the race it was a very strong finish.
All of the Team LMR VIP guests in attendance were treated to an exciting race whereby their driver got to hoist a trophy in their honor on the Victory podium. That podium finish completed a streak of being on the podium in every race run this year! The other bonus is that hundreds of dollars were raised for the Justin Wilson Children’s Fund and the Challenged Athletes Foundation courtesy of multiple donations, auction items, and signatures on the Auto Diagnostic Services Team LMR Formula Mazda.
Looking back at the result, it was an amazing finish as the Team determined that they had a mechanical issue that caused a loss of power. The onboard data proved this as a discrepancy was found when compared to “normal” data.
Stay tuned to www.LMRUSA.com or the team’s FB page at Facebook.com/TeamLMRUSA for the latest news.
# # #
| Larry Mason is shown sixth in this line of cars after locking up his brakes trying to avoid being
passed. He was able to pass all of these competitors except for one at the finish! |
 Photo by Brad Bernstein |
Back to top