Copyright 2001, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

By Beth Wyse

The WERA National Challenge Series ran today at Virginia International Raceway, with a full schedule of 18 6-lap sprint races on the 2.25-mile North Course.

In the Open Superstock race, Scott Harwell shot to the front of the pack with Mark Junge close behind, both coming from the front row of the grid. Chris Ulrich quickly closed the gap between himself and Junge, coming from row five on the grid to take second place exiting the last corner on the last lap. Junge finished third and clinched the Open Superstock Championship. All three were on GSX-R1000 Suzukis.

In 600cc Superstock, David Yaakov was leading at the end of the first lap, but was soon passed by Chris “Opie” Caylor. Lee Acree worked his way up and passed Caylor with two laps remaining. Caylor finished second, followed by John Hopkins, who had started on the 11th row of the grid. Hopkins was racing this weekend to get practice in preparation for the AMA races at Virginia International next week.

Jason Peters only had to win the 125cc GP race in order to secure his Championship. He did just that, passing Brian Kcraget early in the race. Kcraget wound up second while John Hjelm took third.

Randy Renfrow won the F2 race on his TSR Honda RS250, with Mike Himmelsbach second on a Yamaha TZ250 running Pirelli tires.

Starting from the fifth row, John Hopkins got the lead in the B Superbike race on his GSX-R600 and stretched his margin of victory to the length of the entire front straight. Ken Snyder finished second and David Yaakov finished third.

The Formula 1 race was a showcase of AMA racers’ talent, as the top three spots went to Aaron Gobert, Grant Lopez and Damon Buckmaster, respectively. Hopkins was at the front of the field, but an electrical problem and resultant serious misfire forced him to pull into the pits on lap three.