Nelson Ledges National
Mark Carpenter – F-Production Class Competition

The SCCA national at Nelson Ledges, Ohio marked the debut for the GGS Racing Acura Integra.

It was my first time at this track and the first time on track with the new car.

The weekend started with heavy rain on Friday for the open practice day. Valuable track time was lost and only two 20-minute sessions were used in drying track conditions.

Saturday’s weather improved and was mostly sunny for the two qualifying sessions leading up to Sunday’s race. The Team GGS Acura qualified 8th out of 14 in F-Production after both sessions, not a bad start for a new car and a new track!

Sunday’s race saw 42 overall starters for the Group 3 race – E, F, G, H Production and GT-Lite. The race got off to a good start, and the GGS Racing Acura was handling very well. I settled into a decent pace, just looking to finish and get some valuable points for the championship. After moving up a few spots through the middle part of the race, the attrition rate went up and a lot of cars began to fall out. Our Honda reliability was never a question, easily lasting the whole race!

Towards the end of the race, I had a great battle with Mark McMahon for third place in FP. We were very evenly matched and each of us was strong at different parts of the track. Coming towards the end of the front straightaway, I attempted to pass Mark on the inside. Unfortunately, the car lost grip and we made contact. We were both able to continue on and didn’t lose any positions.

A few laps later, we came across the line for the checkered flag, with Mark in 3rd and our GGS Racing Acura in 4th place in FP. I did go over to apologize to Mark after the race and he was cool with how things had turned out and thankful for the apology. Overall, the weekend was a success and a very good result for our first time out!

We ran competitive and had some close, hard racing and showed that our team has a lot of potential as the season unfolds.