ON THE BOX IN OHIO

Doug Royce, Tyler Witoshynsky, Brandon Salyer, James Turgeon, Peyton Inge

Round 3 of the N2 Trackdays / WERA Endurance Series would take us to Garrettsville, Ohio to the very fast and flowing Nelson Ledges Road Course. Originally built in the 1960’s it has a long history of endurance racing over the decades. With a late August schedule and clear skies the weather was set to be a beautiful weekend of racing.

After seeing nearly 3 months of down time since round 2, team Topbox had its work cutout for them on getting up to speed. On top of that none of the riders had ever seen, much less ridden at NLRC. For this reason they arrived Thursday night prepared to go to work at the N2 Trackday on Friday.

Friday went well with the riders splitting time between their personal race bikes and the team endurance bike. Despite the lap times continuing to drop all day long there wasn’t anyone on the team fast enough to compete with those of the competition on outright speed. Nevertheless we know from experience that times drop come race time and our riders always perform best under pressure. Despite still having areas to improve on track the team settled into the night comparing notes and preparing the bike for racing the following day.

Saturday morning would see Qualifying start at 9:30am. Peyton Inge was out first on a cool track and would turn 7 laps working through traffic to ultimately throw down an 1:11.828 before pitting. Doug Royce would be up next. He had to work his way through traffic but managed to find relatively clear track on lap 7 putting down a 1:10.861 before pitting due to a red flag that would end the session. This placed the team on the 3rd row and 4th in class to start the race.

At 1:00pm the race would start with Inge settling into 5th place with a full fuel load after getting pinched into turn 1. He would go on to ride the longest stint for the team. When the other teams pit for fuel he moved into 3rd place. Now with a lightened fuel load he began gaining back time before setting the teams fastest lap of the race on lap 64 with a 1:09.197 just before pitting on lap 71 to hand it off. Royce then took the next stint and immediately dropped to a consistent pace and continued gaining time back on the competition. Then on lap 101 he got the signal from pit wall, 1st PLACE! Leading the race and as the fuel dropped he would continue to improve lap times before pitting on lap 131. The team dropping to 3rd place because of the long pit stop for a tire change. From here Brandon Salyer would take over and again settle in for another long stint laying down incredibly consistent times with the pressure of 4th place directly behind him. On lap 167 he moved into 2nd place with one of the leaders crashing out but would then lose it again on lap 172 before pitting on lap 180. From there with a huge gap to 4th place and the race winding down Tyler Witoshynsky would take over to bring it home in 3rd place finishing 199 laps in 4 hours for the team.

Topbox Road Racing came into this round 2nd in the championship. With the points gained in Ohio, Topbox moves into 1st place with an 8 point lead heading into the fourth and final round.

Click the link for the team results here:WERA results.