John O'Hair-Schattenberg, Regional Director of NASA-AZ announced today that the legendary Bob Bondurant has been named Honorary Race Chairman for the exciting year ending NASA-AZ racing event at Firebird International Raceway Friday November 23rd through Sunday the 25th. Bob, President of the Bondurant School of High Performance Driving at Firebird will host a special Bondurant Exhibition Race Sunday at 12:30 pm. Factory Five Racing will have a selection of their replica Cobra Race cars for Bob to drive. Bob, who helped Carroll Shelby win the FIA Manufacturers Championship in 1965, ran Formula One in Europe, Drove GT-40's at Le Mans and raced all through the United States in the 1960's to date, is one of the winningest drivers in professional sportscar racing. His school at Firebird International Raceway is the premier road racing school in the USA.
Spectators are invited to this event. You may enter the facility all 3 days through Gate 3. Spectators are encouraged to make a donation to Arizona Kidney Foundation and Team Donor Network at the gate. Spectators will be allowed in the paddock with the race teams and the main grandstands will be open.
The United States Speedway Series featuring Indy Cars will be the feature race at 1 pm. These cars that have run the Indy 500 reach speeds of over 200 MPH down the front straightaway and should set a track record of less than 1 minute per lap on the 1.6 mile road course. Colorado's Ken Petrie expects to sew up the season Championship, but will be tested by Phoenix's Phil Erickson and Colorado's Greg Gorden, a former IRL driver that won the last race at Pikes Peak International Raceway.
NASA will feature the American Stock Cars (ASC) on the road course at 2 pm Sunday. These full race stock cars are real "ground pounders" with lots of V-8 horsepower and the sweet sound to go with it. Arizona natives Ken Stinnet of Tucson and Ed Ohylski of Cordes are in a tight race for the season championship which will be decided at this race.
The feature races will start on Sunday at 10am with the Open Wheel and Sports Racer Cars.
At 10:45 the small bore production based race cars will run the NASA-100 race. This group is made up of BMWs, Porsches, Rx-7s, Ford Focus and other 4 and 6 cylinder cars. This race is almost 2 hours long.
At 2:30pm the Factory Five Racing Series debuts with full race replicas of the Cobra.
At 3pm the large bore, V-8 and V-10 Corvettes, Vipers, turbo Porsches and other big cars head out on the track for their season ending NASA-100 race. Local racers Nelson Garrison, Shannon Erickson, Andrew Sanchez are among those challenging for season championship points in this last race.
Friday is practice all day, Saturday is qualifying and qualifying races and Sunday the Feature Races. This will be an exciting weekend of road racing and spectators are invited all 3 days.
NASA-AZ is also holding a New Driver Orientation Program on the Firebird West Track all 3 days. This program provides the opportunity for people with high performance street cars to learn how to "drive fast with no speeding tickets." Earnhardt Ford is one of the program sponsors and will be there. As part of this program, open track sessions are available for street car drivers that have been through the orientation. There will be time trials for the street cars and for the Corvette clubs on Sunday.
NASA-AZ is the largest autosports organization in the southwest and has a full program of street car track activities to professional racing, all run at the same event. For more information, go to www.NASA-AZ.com or call the office at 480.961.3864. You are welcome to come out and participate or spectate.
