HyperFest 05

July 16th - 17th - Summit Point, WV

See the Pictures

Courtesy of:  Finish Line Productions

Any racing champion will tell you that it takes a little luck – good or bad – to make or break you in the chase for a season championship. The critical Summit Point race for the Factory Five East Coast Challenge showed just how fine the line can be as top dogs Tony Buffomante (Baltimore, MD) and Brian Cates (Broad Run, VA) joined a dozen other drivers at NASA’s popular Hyperfest event. The two had split at Kershaw while Cates gave himself the advantage at BeaveRun by picking up two wins. Since teams are allowed to drop two races, Summit Point would determine the points leader going into the final race at Road Atlanta. Making his first appearance of the year was also Marcus Motorsports driver Spencer Pumpelly (Mason Neck, VA), the defending Nationals champion who had been spending most of his time running the Grand-Am circuit.


Pumpelly leads Riha, Schenck, and rookies in practice
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Saturday brought hot temperatures and 100% humidity making for difficult conditions in the cars. Practice showed Buffomante about a second ahead of track record-holder and defending champion Bryan Dobyns (Manassas Park, VA) but when qualifying came around, it was the Marcus cars in front with former Grand-Am and ALMS driver Brian Cunningham smoking the field with a 1:23 and five drivers in the 1:25s including Chris Mitchum (Herndon, VA), Dobyns, Cates, Buffomante, and Dan Elam (Richmond, VA). Rookie Paul Kaiser (Salem, VA) was particularly impressive and qualified his black Challenge car in 10th position just ahead of Road Atlanta winner Sunny Hobbs (Richmond, VA).


Cunningham and Buffomante lead for the fans
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With a Hyperfest crowd of more than 7,000 people, the Cobras came charging down the start and Buffomonte getting the early run. By turn three it was Buffomante, Cunningham, and Cates with a two car advantage over Mitchum, Elam, Dobyns, David Riha (Wareham, MA), Pumpelly, and Jim Schenck (Wareham, MA) all in a row. Elam and Dobyns pushed each other giving Riha and opportunity to move past both of them. Hobbs, Kaiser, Frank DePew (Annapolis, MD), rookie David Hogg (York, PA), and Brian Sanders (Cincinatti, OH) also worked their way through the slower American Iron and CMC cars on the track. The high temps and humidity reduced the power a bit on all the cars and it was important to use every slower car to a driver’s advantage.

Then luck decided to make it’s first appearance over the weekend.

Buffomante made a move coming into turn 1 to take the lead from Cunningham. As Cunningham followed, he had to avoid a slower car and ended up spinning which resulted in a multi-car pile-up as Cates and Mitchum went around. Cates clutch failed just at that point and Elam sneaked through the carnage and past Cates, Dobyns and Riha for three turns before the race was red flagged and the race was ended early.

In a controversial decision, Cunningham was disqualified and since the race was stopped, the standings reverted back to the previously completed lap which meant that the finishing order would be Buffomante, Mitchum, and Cates.


Buffomante, Cunningham, and Cates running up front
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Sunday qualifying showed just how much luck can play a role again. This time it was Buffomante losing a pulley when the bolts broke, Cates having more clutch problems, and Mitchum’s car not even making a single lap. Fortunately it was just qualifying and all of the teams had a chance to make critical repairs and hope that the bad luck was behind them and wouldn’t show up in the race. For Mitchum, it meant he would have to start at the back and work his way up to Buffomante and Cates on the front row. A light rain in the session before wet the track and Schenck made the decision to go with rain tires as he started from the 5th position. The start was delayed. With the track mostly dried out, Schenck realized that his move wasn’t going to pay off and he moved to the back of the field prior to the start.

When the start came it was Buffomante going first into turn 1 with Cates inches from him as the trio of Dobyns, Riha, and Elam stayed in line to try to put a little distance on the fast cars behind them – especially Mitchum who made up huge amounts of track time. With two laps to go the lapped traffic played a role when Elam got a run off turn 10 to get past Dobyns. As the dust finally settled the podium would feature Buffomante, Cates, and Elam all running in the 1:24s. More importantly, it gave a critical edge to Buffomante – winner of his last three races – in his quest for the season title.

The Factory Five Challenge Series field continues to grow and there were a number of students working on their licenses with NASA’s HPDE program. Many of these drivers are well on their way to completing their licenses and being able to race at the end of this year or early next year. Some of the upcoming drivers include brothers Michael and Trey Kite (Chesterfield, VA), Graham McNeil (Naperville, IL), Al Kaiser (Salem, VA), and Philicia Gray (Beafort, NC).

Road Atlanta is only one month away to decide the championship. Teams will be working on their cars and hoping that luck shines on them with the hot Atlanta sun.

Race Summary courtesy of Dan Elam (www.elams.org)