Northwest
Autosport Season Finale Week
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA, Canby Oregon based Northwest Autosport
Inc., capped off their 2006 Star Mazda Championship Season
this past week with a top 5 finish from both of it's team
drivers.
The
team started the week off on Wednesday with two team
members, Ronnie Swyers and driver Ryan Justice making
appearance’s at the Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at
Stanford, with the organization Racing For Kids®. Like many
other visits the team makes, this one enhanced the spirits
of many children and teens that were temporary residents of
the hospital. “We got a comment from a doctor on this visit
that I will never forget, said Ryan”. She told me that this
is the first time in several days that this particular
patient has spoken, and when he heard that a racecar driver
was coming to visit him…well, he spoke to me. That’s what
these visits are about, bringing up the spirits of the kids,
said Ryan! Also in attendance at the visit was Co-Founder of
Racing For Kids®, J. Patrick Wright and event manager, Debby
Muzingo.
Racing
For Kids®. Founded in 1989 at Children's Hospital of
Michigan, Racing For Kids® is designed to use the increasing
popularity of motorsports to bring public attention and
funding to the health care needs of children. The hospital
visits form the heart of the program. Each Racing For Kids®
driver and rider visits children in Children's Hospitals
where they race. They spend time with each sick youngster
answering questions about their sport, handing out the
distinctive Racing For Kids®/Aventis hats and signing
autographs.
Racing For
Kids® representatives have visited with more than 15,000
young patients in over 240 hospitals in the United States,
Canada, Mexico, Japan and Australia. In addition, over $2.5
million has been raised through donations and specific fund
raising events for children's hospitals across the country.
Thursday the on track events started with team drivers Ryan
Justice and Phil Fogg Jr. rejoining the team after a 3 race
sit-out. Both drivers were up to speed quickly with Fogg Jr.
running in the top 5 of the expert division and Justice
running in the top 3 of the 41 car field. As rain set in the
evening before qualifying, the drivers were faced with a
very slippery and difficult qualifying session Saturday
morning. With Fogg Jr. starting from the 20th position and Justice starting 11th, the drivers
had their work cut out for them as the 28 lap; 66.5 mile
race would not leave much time for them to achieve a
respective finishing spots.
The
main event was plagued with caution laps starting on lap
one. With incredible starts from both Phil and Ryan, the
task of finishing up front quickly became obtainable. But
with over half the race being ran under yellow Phil Fogg Jr.
had to settle for a season best of 13th overall,
5th in the expert division and lead driver Ryan
Justice finishing an overall 5th in round 12 of
the Star Mazda Championship Series. The top 5 finishing
position from Justice jumped him from 9th in the
overall championship point standings to 6th respectively. Those 3 positions in the championship were
worth nearly $10,000.00 in prize money. Ryan finished the
2006 season with 7 top 10’s and 2 top 5’s in the Pro
division and Phil Fogg Jr. with 5 top 5’s in just 6 starts
in the expert division.
As round 12 of the
championship series was ending, within an hour, Northwest
Autosport’s Ryan Justice was on a plane heading to Southern
California’s Orange Speedway to qualify for his 4th event in his ASA Speed Truck Challenge Series. A police
escort delivered Ryan in time for him to put his #38 Rich’s
Motorsports Dodge in the second row of the 28 truck field.
“This challenging, flat ¼ mile course just suited my driving
style”, said Ryan Justice. You really have to be aggressive
with the truck and other drivers around you. On a track with
no banking, it puts much more work onto the driver. After a
mid race collision and going to the back of the field, Ryan
fought his way back into the top 5. Officials at that point
declared Ryan a lap down and sent him to the back again.
With nothing left but determination and 15 laps, the
aggressive Justice vaulted back into the 10th spot by race end.
The team heads back to its satellite shop in Buttonwillow
California now to begin its focus on winter testing and the
2006 Championship Season. Check their website at www.northwestautosport.com for a
complete 2006 schedule. Also view the remaining 3 races of
the 2005 championship season on Speed Channel, October 23rd at 1:00pm from Mosport Canada, October 30th at
5:00pm from Atlanta Georgia and November 6th at
1:00pm from Monterey California. All times listed are
Eastern Standard Time.
Listed below are the Top 10
of 47 drivers that competed in the 2005 Star Mazda
Championship Series.
1.) Rafael Matos,
Brazil
2.) Robbie Pecorari, PA
3.) James Hinchcliffe, Canada
4.) Graham Rahal, PA
5.) Marco Andretti, PA
6.) Ryan Justice, OR
7.) Adrian Cario, CO
8.) Ross Smith, TX
9.) Pablo Donoso, Chile
10.) Mark Wilkins, Canada
For more information on all
the championship standings visit www.starmazda.com Based in Milwaukie, Oregon, Northwest Autosport is one of the top teams participating in the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear, which will feature twelve races across the United States and Canada supporting the American Le Mans Series, ChampCar and the GrandAm series. For more information please visit www.northwestautosport.com.
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