May 31, 2006

MINI leads at Lime Rock Park

Dear Corporate Partners, Friends, Family and Fans,

Lime Rock was our fourth race in six weeks. Between April 21st and May
28th our team crisscrossed the country twice putting some fourteen
thousand miles on our new transporter. The MINI racecars logged about
one thousand hard fought track miles each. The crew and drivers didn't
need any health clubs, they all worked extremely hard, sweating and
unwantingly shedding many pounds along the way.

Lime Rock Park is very picturesque; it looks more like a country club
than a racetrack. This the closest track we will race at this season,
You can call it our home track although this is the first time Grand Am
Cup has ever raced here. While the track is only 1.53 miles in length,
this 7-turn racecourse is very technical. Unlike a Phoenix, this track
has many elevation changes; there is the obvious uphill where you can
launch all four wheels off the ground if you wanted to. And the
downhill, which is a short steep drop, leading onto the front straight
and takes a lot of bravado not to touch the brakes during your decent. A
mistake here can cost you dearly in time or sheet metal. Put a wheel
wrong and you are uncontrollably catapulted across the racetrack into
the tire barrier, and like many before your car will be towed away and
retired for the day. The front straight is extremely bumpy due to the
winter frost and the limited amount of traffic it gets. This may seem
trite but when a racecars wheels are off the ground the driver is not in
control and control is everything. Braking into turn-1 "Big Bend" a
sweeping decreasing radius turn, is one of the best passing zones of all
the tracks we race on. Turn-3 is an off camber left hander with very
little grip. A miss here in the dry and it will cost you a position or
two, do it in the wet and it'll cost you a lot more. Next is the right
hand esses, then onto "No Name Straight" which brings you to the uphill,
then a fast right-hander "West Bend" and back down the hill. All this in
just 61 seconds.

This weekend two of our drivers Randy and Shane have never raced here
before. Trevor and Tony have turned many laps here. The one thing is for
sure Lime Rock is brutal in the wet. The first practice was a dry
session. Shane and Trevor started this session expecting to turn over
the cars to Tony and Randy, but the session was cut short when someone
decided to see if their car could bounce off the tires coming out off
the "Down Hill". The thunderstorms rolled in before we could roll out
for the afternoon practice. Shane went out to find the wet line in case
it rained for the Saturday race. During this time Randy; being from
sunny, Arizona had never raced in the rain before, so he got his first
rain laps ever at the same time he got his first Lime Rock laps ever.
Yea, both cars came back without a scratch.

Qualifying went well Shane had qualified fastest and Trevor 5th when the
session was stopped because of a crash, the cars were brought into the
pits in single file and waited. Usually the session would be ended by a
crash but this wasn't bad and was cleaned up quickly. Qualifying resumed
for two more laps. Traffic was a factor and the MINI's would finish 2nd
the outside of row one and 6th which the outside of row three. Good
positions for the race start. The 20 car was impounded and passed with
no issues.

The cars lined up on the straight for two pace laps before the start of
the race. The announcers and crowds
are talking about the underdog MINI's and how well they are running and
how much fun it is to see them beating all those higher powered cars.
The safety car roles and the pack behind it scrubbing tires to get them
warm at the same time figuring what your first move will be. The safety
cars lights are off and it pulls into the pit entrances and the green
flag waves to signal the race start, the cars accelerate and the MINI
passes the Turner BMW at the start line to take the lead, Big Bend is a
right-hander so the MINI has to tuck back in behind the leader. Trevor
got shuffled back to 8th at the start but this is no problem. The 20 car
is ******* the leader all the way around the track and Shane keeps
looking for his spot to overtake. By lap two Shane is only nine one
hundreds of a second behind the leader, that's ".094". On lap 8 he is
only .047 behind and this time he passes to take the lead and it sticks,
Trevor has moved up to 7th. By lap fourteen, we had opened up almost a
full second lead over the second place BMW. You could hear the crowd
from the other side of the track let out a collective sigh of disbelief
when the announcer said the race leader has a problem and is slowing
down. In the pits, we saw that we had picked up a piece of debris and
damaged the drive belt causing it to break along with some other parts.
We took this thoroughbred back to the paddock and concentrated on the 22
car, which was moving to the front.

Trevor was on a tear and had moved into 3rd. We had to make a pit stop
under green for fuel only and this sent us back to 13th. Trevor went
back to work and worked his way back into 4th. While entering Big Bend
on lap 76 a tire problem cause a spin and he had to drive the entire
length of the track to get back to the pits where under green we changed
tires took fuel and made a driver change. A long stop. As soon as Randy
exited the pits, in 16th position, a full course caution came out and
this put us down two laps. Randy worked hard and by race end had moved
back up to 15th.

This was a fun race weekend; the race itself was an emotional
rollercoaster. We're all exhausted.

It was nice being close to home having family, friends and VIP's show up
to see what we do on a race weekend and to cheer us on.

Many thanks go out to our crew who did a great job under dry and wet
conditions.

Thanks to Jeff at Hawk Performance Brakes for helping sort out some
issues. Thanks to Red Line Oil family of products, which keep our
engines operating smoothly under extreme conditions.

Thanks to Peter at Cole Motorsports for helping with our Racing Optics
tear-offs.

A special thanks goes out to all the MINI fans that stopped by and gave
us their support, we could not do this without you!

Thanks to Rich and Jeff for coming up to show their support.

Thanks to Casey and Al for coming out to lend a hand.

Thanks to all our drivers for putting on such a great show.



Watch for coverage of all of our races in MC2 magazine.

Our next race is Mid-Ohio June 25th.

Nuzzo Motorsports 2006 campaign would not be possible without the
support of our sponsors:
UNICHIP, MINI USA, MINI Financial Services, G-Dezine, Ltd, Hawk
Performance Brake Pads, Red Line Oil, The Driveshaft Shop, Cole
Motorsports, BOSCH, Autosport Image, Moton Suspension Technology, BBS
Wheels, Marren Fuel Injection, Habberstad MINI, North American
Motoring.com, Motoring File.com, Hoosier Racing Tire

UNICHIP http://www.UNICHIP.us
MINI USA http://www.MINIUSA.com
MINI Financial Services http://www.MINIUSA.com
G-Dezine, Ltd http://www.GDEZINELTD.com
MC2 Magazine http://www.mc2magazine.com
Hawk Performance Brake Pads http://www.HawkPerformance.com
Red Line Oil http://www.REDLINEOIL.com/team_gear.asp
BOSCH http://www.BOSCHUSA.com
Cole Motorsports http://www.colemotorsports.com
The Drive Shaft Shop http://www.DriveShaftShop.com
Autosport Image http://www.AutosportImage.com
Moton Suspension Technology http://www.MotonSuspension.com
BBS wheels http://www.BBS.com
Marren Fuel Injection http://www.Injector.com
Habberstad MINI http://www.HabberstadMINI.com
North American Motoring http://www.NorthAmericanMotoring.com
Motoring File.com http://www.Motoringfile.com
Hoosier Racing Tire http://www.HoosierRacingIire.com

For further details, please contact Tony Nuzzo at 516-972-3454
In addition, visit www.Nuzzomotorsports.com for race news, photos, and
video.
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Tony, thanks for that nice write-up! Felt like I was there...

Sorry to hear about the drive belt issue. How the heck did something get up in there? I'm guessing the wheel well liners are removed...

Best to you and your Team the rest of the season! I hope you had a chance to meet Greg (onasled)...

 

.... hmmm, that belt was screaming when the car headed out for practice #2. It was curious that no one seemed to give it a second thought.

 

Great write-up.

Let me just say what a class act this team is - and especially Shane Lewis.

Shane had plenty on his mind right for the race, I'm sure, but he still found a moment to let my son sit in the #20 car and give him a Nuzzo motorsports poster.

My son, he's 6, was very excited when the #20 got out in front!

We are going to try and make the journey to another race this year, we had a blast.

Thanks guys and good luck for the rest of the year.

 

Man, I wish I could've gone to this race. I'm bummed that you guys were leading and then had mechanical issues. What are the Nuzzo's thoughts about Miller here in Salt Lake? Do you think the Mini will have a rough time with the more gradual turns??

 

ok so when is the race going to be on speed.

 

This was one of two races that are not televised.

 

Why must they be so mean and not televise this race - I wanted to see it so bad!

Oh well, I will wait to see the next one on 7/9 and I will see you guys at Barbers!