US RaceTronics battles it out at Portland
After a Saturday race that saw US RaceTronics drivers Carl Skerlong (#24 King Taco/USRT) and David Garza (#4 Axtel/Tecate/Madisa/USRT) finish eighth and twelfth respectively, the squad was ready for the second and final race of the Mazda Champ Car Grand Prix of Portland presented by Joe's Sports and Outdoors. And while the conditions for Race #1 were cold and rainy, Mother Nature was smiling down on the Portland crowd with cool sunny skies on Sunday.
For the second straight time the start of the race went off without a hitch with the whole field making it through the first turn unscathed. Both USRT drivers however, were relegated back a couple of positions from their starting spots. Skerlong went from eleventh to thirteenth and Garza from twelfth to sixteenth. Skerlong called into the pits to report that he was fighting with the car while Garza was trying to get acclimated with his machine and began to gain ground with his competitors. As the race wore on both drivers settled in and began to set their pace laps.
Garza began to set his fastest laps and by lap # 13, after overtaking positions, Garza found himself racing for the twelfth spot. Meanwhile Skerlong battled his way back to the tenth spot before the Yellow Flag came out for Adrian Carrio (#17 Carrio Cabling Company). Garza and Skerlong looked strong as the race continued and with every lap both drivers continued to gain ground on the cars in front of them. On Lap #20 the forth and last Yellow Flag was displayed for Richard Heistand (#37 Eola Capital Investments) who went off course in Turn #10. The Green Flag was dropped on Lap # 22 and through their on-track passing both Skerlong and Garza found themselves racing each other for the tenth position. Garza spent several laps behind Skerlong trying to set him up for the pass to no avail and finally on Lap #26 Garza was able to take the position at Turn #1 and grabbed the tenth spot from Skerlong. Skerlong was able to put on a short challenge with Garza and the two battled each other for a short while but Skerlong simply ran out of time. The final lap saw Garza finish tenth and Skerlong eleventh. This represented Garza‘s best season finish.
Carl Skerlong now finds himself sixth in the Championship standing with 66 posits, while Garza continues to improve and sits in 17th with 27 points.
Carl Skerlong - "Things just didn't work out for us today. Unfortunately we never really had the car where we needed to be. It's frustrating as everybody worked really hard to build on yesterday's performance, we thought we might have a good thing going but it just wasn't there today in the race. I couldn't get off the corners quick enough and people got me on the straights. I expected a little more given this is my home track but looking at the positives we had a couple of good points scores. We'll learn from the weekend and move on to Cleveland in a couple of weeks!"
David Garza -"After leaving Portland I realized how much I had learned about the Atlantic Championship. I did not have my dream weekend but I did have a good weekend. We scored good points, kept the car in one piece, and I learned a whole lot about driving the Swift in the rain. Overall a great learning experience, I broke the top 10 barrier which haunted me since Round # 1."
About US RaceTronics: 2007 marks the third year of competition in the Champ Car Atlantic Championship Series for US RaceTronics. Led by former Dorricott Racing Team Manager Shane Seneviratne, US RaceTronics enters the 2007 season with Monterrey Mexico native David Garza and American Carl Skerlong. US RaceTronics is part of Pacific Coast Motorsports Jr. Team program
For more information on US RaceTronics and its partners, visit www.usracetronics.com. You can visit David Garza's website at www.david-garza.com and Carl Skerlong's website at www.cskerlong.com
