Hartanto Shines in Hoosier Super Tour in SCCA STU at Buttonwillow
Following a non-stop weekend of work, the Prima Racing team was back in action to further their bid to qualify for the SCCA National Championship Runoffs.
In the sole weekend in between the team’s races, a new engine was assembled and installed, ensuring that the team could make the Hoosier Super Tour round of the SCCA Majors Tour at Buttonwillow Raceway.
QuickJack engaged! The team prepares for another important SCCA Majors race
Using CW25 layout, the track favored more powerful cars, but Hartanto was up to the task. “We haven’t had any testing of the new engine yet, but it feels really good and I’m excited to see how we do,” Hartanto commented.
Hartanto and the Prima Racing Honda S2000 qualified second, 0.497seconds behind pole-sitter, Ian Barberi in his BMW M3.
At the start of the race, Hartanto timed the green flag perfectly, taking the lead from the outside line as the flag dropped. By the time that he had entered Sunrise (Turn 1), he was already under attack by the hard-charging S2000 of Rylan Hazelton.
Hartanto left the inside open for Hazelton and held his line to the right side, setting up his defense for Off Ramp (Turn 2). Hartanto continued to hold the lead on the exit of Off Ramp, but down the I-5 straightaway, Hazelton charged down the inside of the braking zone of Cotton Corners. Contact was made to Hartanto’s right rear wheel, causing him to briefly lose control and run off-track.
Hartanto regained control and re-entered the track leading up to Grapevine, as he trailed behind Hazelton. Hazelton’s S2000 stretched the lead as they navigated the full-throttle Dog Leg section of the track leading up to the high-speed sweeping corner of Riverside.
Unfazed by the extreme toe-in misalignment to his right rear wheel following the earlier contact, Hartanto did not hesitate as he overtook Hazelton on the outside of Riverside.
From there, Hartanto drove at a relentless, yet steady pace. He would take the win, 1.7 seconds ahead of Ian Barberi in STU, plus the overall victory for the race group.
The team surveyed the culprit for the poor-handling S2000 that Hartanto endured during the entire race
With another win secured towards Runoffs qualifying, Hartanto and Prima Racing made the trek back north with a trophy firmly in-hand.
Hartanto stands atop the top step of the podium, celebrating another hard-fought victory
“The race wasn’t easy,” Hartanto explained. “Driving with the alignment out of whack made for some interesting handling, but we managed. The new motor worked fantastic, but it’s become apparent that we are at a power to weight deficit in our class.”
“It’s no secret that we’ve done really well thus far. As a team, we’re happy with the progress this year, but we may need to evaluate how we step up our game leading up to the Runoffs,” Hartanto elaborated.
Prima Racing leaves Buttonwillow with hardware and another valuable qualifying victory towards the Runoffs
The next race on the schedule is this weekend with a NASA ST4 race at Sonoma Raceway. After the engine failure in qualifying during the last event, this will mark Prima Racing and Michael Ostby’s first race weekend towards qualifying for the National Championships at the Circuit of the Americas.
Prima Racing team would like thank its sponsors for the 2018 season; Supertech Performance,QuickJack Portable Jacks, Rota Wheels, G-LOC Brakes, CT Engineering, Hondata, Exedy USA, Wicked Tuning, BlackTrax Performance and Graphtech.
