USTCC: Reno results

Tom Lepper, driving the Impact Engineering/Eagle Awards Honda Accord, became the first multiple winner of the yearat the USTCC race at the new Reno Raceway in Reno, Nevada. Lepper did not have the fastest car of the weekend. The car at the top of the charts was the pole sitter, Neil Vanni in the Hopkins Honda Civic. Next fastest and starting second was the Subaru of America/Cobb WRX of Gary Sheehan. Lepper qualified third. At the start, the AWD of the Subaru launched Sheehan into the lead while Vanni got a poor start and losing many positions. A full course yellow due to a bumper cover that was sitting on the track, bunched up the field around lap 15. After the restart, Vanni took the lead with Sheehan second. The pair started to pull away from Lepper and it looked like one of them was going to win. But with about 9 laps left, Sheehan and Vanni touched and both went off the track. Vanni got the short end of the stick, rolling his car about five or six times. He was OK but obviously not very happy. Sheehan fared better managing to bring the Subaru back on the track but not until Lepper had already passed by. With not much time left in the 45 minute race, Lepper held on to take the win and stretched his lead in the championship points.

Andrew Gillis, driving the Focus Central Ford Focus received the top Rookie award.

Albert Butterfield, driving the Metric Motorsports Honda Civic, received the Castrol Syntec jacket award for a hard fought race that netted him 8th place finish.

Tom Pitre, driving the Gogogear.com/Hasport Acura Integra GSR, won the Fluidyne Cool Move of the Race for a great battle with Andrew Gillis. Rich Woo, driving the Gogogear.com Acura Integra, won the Speedtoys.com Stop Short award for a great braking move to pass Ali Arsham's Honda Civic. Neil Vanni, driving the Hopkins Honda Civic, scored the fastest lap of the race by .047 seconds over Gary Sheehan winning the Castrol Syntec Motor Oil award.

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