Congrats to Mark Muddiman!!

Back from the Double National at Grattan and I want to congratulate Mark Muddiman on his first National Win in his 22 year racing career! We started off in the wet with the track drying out after about 10-12 laps of the 23 lap race. Mark got by me on the start and then started pulling away. I once again DNF'd because of a completely fogged windshield (dammit). Steve Hines finished second, Scott Schwietzer was 3rd followed by I believe David Ours. Tom Toth sat out due to not having rain tires. But back to Mark, he drove his ass off! He beat many T-1 Corvettes and some SPO Vettes too! I believe he was 5th overall, only a couple GT1 cars with a couple others thrown in there. Mark was rubbing on the car right up to the call to the grid and got it right.

So Congrats Mark! A well deserved and earned win!

Kristian

[Mark Allen]

Congratulations Mark, great job!! Enjoyed meeting you this weekend.

Mark

[koscieldrk]

First Off congratulations to Mark Muddiman on his first National Win

It was definitely a rain race as every one elected to run the rain tires after a morning of thundershowers and wet weather. It did manage to stop after about 5 laps or so but the track was so wet there were enough puddles to go around, err through to cool the tires , it never really dried out. Mark definitely had nerves of steel at the atart as he was able to weave his way through the pack and be in third place overall by turn 1 with Kristian close behind. Cars were being very cautious at the start, Mark can tell it much better than I can. Kristian Smith fogged up and left the track surface a couple of times and finally had to come in after having a corner worker wipe his windscreen so he could make it back to pit road. The real race was between Scott Schweitzer and Steve Hynes who battled back and for the before Steve was finally able to get the edge and pull away. Hats are definitely off the Scott who drove a clean race under the terrible race conditions. Steve and Scott were both gaining on Mark towards the end but ran out of laps. There is allot more but I'll let the real competitors add there own stories.

Mark Muddiman
Steve Hynes
Scott Schweitzer
David Ours
Kristian Smith
Tom Toth DNS No Rain Tires
__________________

[jimwheeler]

Mark,
Way to go. Love new winners, only when they aren't racing against me, however.
Jim

[thomas toth]

I have to admit that race was probably the best A Sedan race that I have watched in a long long time. The conditions with new paving on 1/2 of the track looked like crap! I also have to admit that after seeing Mark blast away on the start and make it through turn one I had to root for him.....it was like Dale Ernhardt winning his first Daytona 500. At one point Mark must have had a 20 or 30 second lead tucked under the tail of an ex-pro driver in a STO C5 Corvette that he later past. I don't think Mark knew the track was wet!! He looked blindingly fast... By the last 3 or 4 laps Steve Hynes had narrowed the gap down to just 5 seconds.....Scott was possessed all weekend driving amazingly hard for a close 3rd.

It was a fantastic weekend with good clean racing and a great bunch of guys. It was nice to be back home in Michigan....

Tom
#38 Camaro

[Scott Schweitzer]

Awesome weekend and an awesome drive in challenging conditions by Mr.Muddiman today. We were joking around in impound about wipers when Mark shows us he doesn't even have them installed on his car.

Steve and I were pushing each other very hard to reel him in but Mark would not be denied.

Great racing on track and a lot of great laughs in the paddock. I'm whooped.

[MarkMuddiman]

Thanks all, for the high praise!
I was just trying to not do anything stupid.

Taking off the wipers is probably a mistake - I couldn't see the start flag, or make out individual cars until their brake lights came on. Luckily, the start was much cleaner than a normal GLDIV big-bore group start.

No one was more amazed than me how much grip I had. Every time someone slowed down more than I had to, I went around them. It helped that most of them tried to stay on the dry line, but the grip was in the marbles.
Suddenly I realized I was running third behind a GT2 and SPO, and we were all alone.
Kris was in my mirrors so I was waiting for him to charge back by, which he surely would have done if he could've seen out the window.
Once I saw Steve catching up I started praying for the "1-lap" board. A few more laps and he would've gotten by.

[thomas toth]

I was timing the interval between you and Steve on the final 5 or 6 laps. I think when you saw him you picked it up a bit because he would be 5 seconds behind, then 7 then 5 then 7 again. Don't know if he would have caught you or not.....the race is 23 laps period, you won! Hell the next thing we can argue about is who would have run out of fuel first.

Great Job!!!

Tom
#38 Camaro

[Danny"TheKraken"Richardson]

Congrats! Great feeling aint it

Nice job Mark... congrats