Corvettes win Group 6, Group 10 and Vintage Enduro races at CoTA SVRA season finale
In Group 6 Edward Sevadjian hopped into # 36 big block Corvette that Duntov Motors built for Jim Kitzmiller and showed his driving prowess once again by winning the feature race over a large 53 car field of Corvettes, Mustangs, Camaros, Cobras, Porsche & Jaguar.
Edward turned a fast lap more than 1.5 sec ahead of frequent rival and second place finisher # 42A Peter Klutt who was running a small block. Other Corvette notables # 33A Bob Lima, # 46 Jody O’Donnell, # 28 Mark Hilderbrand, # 37 Clair Schwendeman and # 33 Mike Donohue small block finished in the top 10.
In Group 10 the popular pro driver Boris Said set the pace all weekend driving a 1999 C5 Corvette built and prepped by Joe Huffaker. It was a guest appearance in the car raced in SCCA GT1 by the late Bud Thurston that Huffaker customer Pat Lind acquired a few years ago.
Boris autographed his winners medal and hat to present to Thurston's widow.
Side note: The Corvette Boris raced replicates the original # 88 Tommy Bahama that Butch Leitzinger drove for Tom Gloy’s Trans Am team. Famous actor turned racer Paul Newman (PLN) later bought the original and had it repainted to resemble the Datsuns PLN raced in his heyday for team owner Bob Sharp. The original Huffaker Corvette, re-numbered # 83 for his age, served as PLN’s “last ride” before he died in 2008. It is now proudly displayed in Rochester NY at the plant of LiDestri foods, a major supplier to Newman’s Own line of condiments. All profits are donated to Paul’s “Hole in the Wall Gang” charity.
For the Vintage Endurance race, SVRA chief Tony Parella tapped Edward Sevadjian to co-drive, winning against mostly smaller displacement competition. Tony’s # 05 C3 small block is also prepped and looked after by Duntov Motors.
Alan Sevadjian, President of Duntov Motors just restored and plans to run this unusual C3/C4 SCCA GT1 Corvette that he raced earlier in the 1980s. The car has C3 suspension and chassis. According to Alan this latest C4 body was supplied by Gary Pratt (of Pratt & Miller fame) back when he had a company called Protofab that race fans may recall.
# 56 Tony Parella led fellow straight axle racers # 58 Louis Gladfelter and # 51 Dan Reuhs in Group 4. # 3 Lance Miller was disqualified for hitting a Porsche 356. Lance accepted the blame admitting that he tried spinning the car to slow it down right after the brakes suddenly failed.
Thanks to # 46 GT1 driver Michael Zoch for providing photos.
SVRA announced its 2017 schedule ending at CoTA on Nov 2-5.
