Group-A Racing entered rounds 7-8-9 of the 2022 Blue Marble Cocktails Radical Cup with its largest line-up of 5 drivers. Usual full-time drivers of Steve Jenks (Platinum Class), Reece Everard (PRO 1500), Reid Steward (PRO 1340), Jack Yang (PRO 1500) returning after a successful Road America and Aurora Straus (PRO 1500) making her debut with the team. The team would work with relentless attitude to overcome tremendous adversity and still come home arms full of hardware.
Per the norm, Blue Marble Cocktails Radical Cup Series organizers offered an enormous amount of track time to its competitors starting with Thursday promoter test day. Sadly, disaster would strike for not one, but two of the Group-A Racing drivers in the third session at the ultra-fast bus stop complex. Jack Yang would lose control exiting the corner and have a huge crash, followed a few seconds later by his teammate and PRO 1500 championship lead Reece Everard incurring the same incident. Both cars would incur chassis damage forcing those cars out for the remainder of the weekend.
After finishing the test day the team was able to send a crew member home to drive through the night to the team’s shop, (310 miles away) to get their demo car for Reece Evered. Ari Straus (Owner of Monticello Country Club) was coming up Friday evening and able to grab Jack Yang’s back up car for him to finish. Both cars would arrive to Watkins Glen after 8PM on Friday for the team to then prepare for the drivers to enter race 1 early Saturday morning.
Still with three other cars to run for Friday qualifying the team kept its head down. Steve Jenks would earn a solid third position in qualifying for the Platinum Class. On debut, Aurora Straus earned a very impressive outside pole in the PRO 1500 class. Reid Stewart would also earn himself a third place qualifying result in PRO 1340. The adventures did not end, as Reid pulled into the pits after qualifying with a clutch issue which would require the team to do an engine change. After arriving at the track at 5:30AM, the team was at the track until 11PM Friday getting two back up cars prepped after late arrival and an engine change accomplished for Reid.
Race 1 saw Jenks get off to a good start making it three wide for the lead off the initial jump in Platinum. He would slot into 2nd behind Robert Rossi. The two were nose-to-tail, but Steve could not find a way past, but earned a very solid runner up spot. In PRO 1500 Aurora Straus ran an incredibly strong & clean first race to earn a 2nd place on debut. Reece Everard & Jack Yang had to start 24th & 25th after not participating in qualifying the day before while they waited for back up cars to arrive. Everard would get off to a tremendous start in the Group-A Racing demo car cutting through the field at a fierce pace. He would get all the way up to third behind his Group-A Racing team mate Aurora Straus before the checkered flag flew. Jack Yang would have a great rebound race after his crash as well to get back up through the field a bit and rebuild his confidence. In PRO 1340 Reid Stewart would find himself in a back and forth scenario of the top 4 challengers. In the end he would come with a podium in third just two tenths behind 2nd place.
Race 2 had Steve Jenks and Robert Rossi going back at it again for the Platinum class win in their SR10’s. The two constantly reset fastest lap every time by, not giving eac other an inch to gain on each other. Jenks would have to settle for second again. In PRO 1500 Group-A drivers Everard and Straus would start 1-2. Everard would go on to win leading every lap in dominate fashion in his back up car, the Group-A demo car. Straus would drop back initially to 5th in class. She remained calm and muscled her way back to the front in a calm yet professional manner and earned another podium in 3rd. Jack Yang took a massive step forward in regaining his confidence following his Thursday crash setting his best laps of the weekend and earning a top 10. In PRO 1340 Reid Stewart was running another solid 3rd in class before disaster would strike yet again, with 5 minutes to go where he spun and backed it into the wall incurring immense damage. To make matters worse there was exactly 2 hours between the two races leaving not much time. Miraculously the Group-A Racing team worked feverishly yet again and got his car repaired and re set up in time to make the grid for the final race.
Race 3 would see Jenks start on pole in Platinum class. A competitor from the third row would do an egregious jump start (which he was penalized for) but in result would shuffle Jenks back. He put his head down and used his pace to quickly start working his way back forward. In the end Jenks would earn his third 2nd place finish of the weekend. The results also leapfrog Jenks back up to 2nd in the championship as well. In PRO 1500 Everard was out front yet again leading the field. Sadly, in a heart break manner he would have to retire from the lead with an electrical issue. Even with that misfortune, he leaves the weekend with the championship lead in PRO 1500. Aurora Straus was running another solid third and would capitalize on her teammates misfortune to then earn another runner up, making it three podiums on her debut weekend. Jack Yang continued his rebound and earned his best result of the weekend finishing 6th and setting his best laps of the weekend yet again. In PRO 1340 Reid Stewart was in a tight nose-to-tail battle with defending champion Mike Anzaldi. The two ran each other close and hard all race but Stewart would come out on top to earn a 2nd place result to rebound from the crash in previous race. Stewart leaves the weekend 3rd in points of PRO 1340 class.
“I don’t even know where to start with everything that went down the last 4 days” stated Group-A Racing owner Jonathan Scarallo. “Every single team member worked like an animal dealing with a full season worth of adversity thrown at us in just one weekend. Nobody ever complained, everybody just put their head down and fixed each issue as they came at us. With it we were able to keep everybody on track and yet still take home an incredible amount of hardware.”
Rounds 10-11-12 of Blue Marble Cocktails Radical Cup heads west to Utah Motorsports Campus August 12-14. Group-A Racing is a professional race team since 1996 & also a exclusive dealer of Radical Sports Cars in the Northeast. for more information on cars for purchase, arrive-and-drive opportunities with your Radical or using one of theirs contact jonathan via 631-974-4379 info@GroupARacingTeam.com