The National Auto Sport Association (NASA) Western Endurance Racing Championship (WERC) held Round 3 at Buttonwillow Raceway Park. The 3-hour enduro took the racing into the darkness of nightfall. Truck owns it!
There are six different classes in the WERC series, with everything from fast prototypes (ESR Class) to pokey Spec Miatas (E3 Class). Even with the wicked quick prototypes on the track, the overall win went to, of all things, a Jägermeister-sponsored pick-em-up truck.
ES Class
Winning first place in ES as well as the overall title was the number 66 Team Super Truck sponsored by Lynam Industries Inc.
Taking second in ES, and third place overall, was the number 4 GTM of Team Prototype Development Group sponsored by Hooked On Driving.
Earning third in ES was the number 07 Truck of Team Yee Haa Racing sponsored by C A Construction.
E0 Class
Winning E0 and finishing a respectable second overall was the number 95 BMW of Team Bullet Performance sponsored by Strom Racing Tires.
Taking second in E0 was the number 32 BMW of Team WolfKatz driven iron-man style through the whole race by an iron lady. That's right, Wolf proved that girls are tougher than boys, drove solo and finished sixth overall.
Bringing home third in E0 was the number 31 BMW of Team Bimmerworld.
ESR Class
Earning the first place spot in ESR was the number 11 prototype of Team Tool BMC Racing. Go ahead and insert your favorite joke about the team name here: "These guys were a bunch of tools!" Actually they weren't tools at all, they won their class and finished fourth overall.
Taking the second (and final) spot in ESR, and ironically the second to last overall spot after some mechanical problems, was the number 88 prototype of Team Green Alternative Motorsports. In the WERC series this team likes to either win or come in last.
E1 Class
Winning E1 was the number 618 Porsche Boxter of Team Zip Racer.
Earning second in E1 was the number 949 Porsche Boxter of 949 Racing.
Picking up the third spot in the E1 class was the number 55 Mazda RX-8 of RDR – Mother's Motorsports sponsored by Mothers Polish and Safe Racer. This car was featured in the film Survive The 25 about NASA's 25 Hours of Thunderhill.
E2 Class
Winning E2 by a huge margin in the number 175 BMW was Team South Bay Independent.
Taking second in E2 after replacing a half shaft in the middle of the race was the number 44 Ford of Team Lack of Focus.
Earning third place in the E2 class was the Nissan of Team Automobile Magazine. Even though Automobile finished third in their class, overall they still finished behind the Speed:Sport:Life entry of Krider/Kramer Racing. We love it when bloggers whip on the big magazine guys.
E3 Class
Winning the deepest class in the field, E3, was team RJ Racing in their number 23 Mazda Miata sponsored by Weekend-Racer.com.
Taking second in E3 was the number 05 Mazda Miata of Team 949 Racing.
Finishing up on the third and final podium spot in E3 was the number 512 Porsche of Team 944 Elite.
The number 33 Nissan Sentra of Krider/Kramer racing set the E3 pole position during qualifying and was leading the E3 class early in the race when they ran into what the team referred to as some minor tire issues. These minor tire issues is what caused the I/O Port Racing Supplies-sponsored SE-R to slip and slide all over the track late in the race (and make cool-looking sparks with the tires while braking at night). It turns out steel belts and asphalt are not what you are looking for while threshold braking. The team was only able to finish 6th, but still ahead of ole Automobile Magazine.
Round 4 of NASA's 2010 WERC series will be at Thunderhill in August with the finale of the series to be held at the 25 Hours of Thunderhill in December.
The great racing photos were taken by Vanhap Motorsports Photography.