Chicago race report

Davy Cook
#16 CODi/Reynard-Dodge

New challenges filled the air of the Windy City for Round 8 of the Barber Dodge Pro Series at the Chicago Motor Speedway. The one mile oval allowed for many laps to be run throughout the weekend starting with two test sessions on Thursday. This was a bonus especially for me as it was my first oval experience and will be the last of the season. The following day presented two more challenges as I decided to switch cars permanently to the back-up. Also, we were to run, for my first time, single car qualifying that consisted of one warm-up lap and two-flyers to determine the grid. I was able to put the car 11th quick overall with my rookie rivals Jon Morley and Rafael Sperafico starting 4th and 5th respectively.

Saturday came and so it was race day. With a solid first three laps, I was able to get up to 6th position and in doing so pass Rafael. I ran in lock step with Sepp Koster about 10 car lengths behind as he was the tail end of the front pack led by Nicholas Rondet. I was able to pull away from Peter Boss and Matt Plumb for most of the race, but a spin by Alex Sperafico allowed them to close upunder the caution. After the restart, Plumb was right on my tail as he had gotten around Boss. For almost ten laps I kept him behind me but with five laps to go, he was able to make the pass. That put me back to seventh where the CODi team finished the race.

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Top 15 - Points Standing: 1.Nicholas Rondet - 106 2.Matt Plumb - 91 3.Roger Yasukawa - 87 4.Sepp Koster - 86 5.Ryan Hunter-Reay - 81 6.Marc Breurs - 67 7.Peter Boss - 60 8.Alex Sperafico ^Ö 58 9.Jon Morley - 58 10.Davy Cook - 56 11.Rafael Sperafico - 54 12.Akihira Okamoto ^Ö 50 13.Sara Senske - 47 14.Dave Wieringa - 31 15.Christian Szymczak - 29

Round 9 of the Barber Dodge Pro Series will be at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course the weekend of August 12th.