USGPRU East Coast Round 3 Results — Carter Doubles at Mid-Ohio
Odenton, MD. — July 21, 2005 — The USGPRU powered by AlwaysOnline.net held the third East Coast region event at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio this past Saturday. With very little practice time before the qualifying session, Garrett Carter captured pole position in the Acid Cigars 125GP session. Scott Smallwood and John Hjelm filled in the rest of the front row in a field of 24 riders. Sean Wray rode the wheels off of his Yamaha 250 to set the fastest time in the DialitinTracktime.com 250GP qualifying session. He narrowly out qualified Garrett Carter on his Aprilia and Joshua Day on his Yamaha.
At the start of the 125GP race, series President, Stewart Aitken-Cade, catapulted his Honda RS125 from the second row to lead the pack into the first turn. This lead didn’t last long as Garrett Carter pulled the trigger on the Aprilia and sucked the paint off the side of Aitken-Cade’s Honda down the back straight. As Carter checked out, this left a great 6-way battle for second place. Texan, Will Gruy, broke away from the pack finally, but couldn’t get close to Carter. Smallwood and Day banged bars in the fight for the final podium position. Finally, Smallwood overshot his brake marker at the end of the back straight and crashed out of the race. Garrett Carter went on to win the race aboard his Stargel tuned Aprilia. Carter set what is believed to be a new 125GP track record at Mid-Ohio of 1:36.235 seconds.
The Dialitintracktime.com 250GP race was dominated by Carter again on his Rocky Stargel tuned Aprilia RSV250. Regional points leader, Josh Day, rode his Yamaha to a second place finish followed by Geoffrey Maloney. Pole setter, Sean Wray, destroyed a motor in morning practice and had to ride a borrowed bike and start at the back of the pack. Wray rode a great race and worked his way up to 4th place.
The USGPRU would like to thank Stephanie McIntyre and Doug Newbauer of AMA Sports, the WERA staff, and the Mid-Ohio corner workers for hosting the event this weekend. The USGPRU hopes that this weekend was as memorable for the AMA as we look toward next years’ calendar.
Acid Cigars 125GP results: 1. Garrett Carter 2. Will Gruy 3. Joshua Day 4. Ryan Clay 5. Stewart Aitken-Cade 6. John Hjelm 7. David Celento 8. Tom Swager 9. Dominic Jones 10. Dennis Woods 11. Glen Pison 12. Larry Cohee 13. William Doran 14. Rich Kjar 15. Merle Eschman 16. Joe Melchionda 17. John Troutman 18. Rebecca Henn 19. Duane Hixon 20. Patrick McCabe 21. Amanda Cornelius 22. Paul Hoyt Nelson 23. Scott Smallwood 24. Alessandro Acquisti
DialitinTracktime.com 250GP results: 1. Garrett Carter 2. Joshua Day 3. Geoffrey Maloney 4. Sean Wray 5. Ryan Clay 6. Jim Bonner 7. Stewart Aitken-Cade 8. Paul Hopkins 9. Dennis Woods 10. Erik Jokinen 11. Richie Kjar 12. Joe Melchionda 13. Zacharia Seasly 14. Paul Hoyt Nelson 15. Will Gruy
More, from a press release:
Garrett Carter – Returns from the CEV National Series in Spain to Dominate the USGPRU 125 and 250 Races at Mid-Ohio July 20-21.
The third round of the Spanish 125 National CEV Series came to Cataluya last weekend, July 16-17. Garrett and his Ecurie Sports team continued to search for the competitive setup they have been looking for all year. The team had spent a number of days practicing leading up to the race just outside of Barcelona and had made some gains. Garrett qualified 13th for the B race and was out after loosing the front 3 laps into the race. The Ecurie Motorsports team look at this as their home race as they make Barcelona official headquarters for the season.
Garrett left Catalunya and went straight to the airport to make qualifying for the Mid-Ohio USGPRU races, July 20-21. He was met by famed tuner and mechanic “Rocky Stargel” and the two of them headed for Mid-Ohio to meet up with the rest of the team.
Garrett put Catalunya behind him, got his head down and quickly established his position as one of Americas fastest young 125 racers. Under the guidance of Rocky and team manager Stuart Carter – Garrett ran away with the 125 race winning by more than 25 seconds and breaking the 125 lap record in the process with a 1:36:23.
Not to be outdone and on Rocky’s 250 Aprilia – Garrett went on to win the 250 GP race as well, in commanding fashion.
The 125 win puts Garrett 3rd in the USGPRU National standings for the 125 class.
The wins are a much added boost to the team and for Garrett when he heads back to spain for the September 4th races in Jerez – a track Garrett knows well.
Ian Edwards, Garrett’s Ecurie Sports – Spanish team manager, will be making a trip to visit Garrett as he races the next round of the USGPRU August 12-14 at Barber Motorsports. Equally exciting is the agreement to have Rocky Stargel travel to Spain with Garrett in the fall and bring Garretts highly competitive USGPRU Aprilia to contest the last two races of the CEV series.
Check out his site for diary postings, race reports and schedule at www.garrettcarter.com