Broken Records, GLTC Battle, Highlight Sold-Out GRIDLIFE Midwest Festival
Matan Rosenberg (#484) leads Eric Kutil (#82), Luke McGrew (#7) and James Houghton (#41) through turn 2 at GingerMan Raceway.
South Haven, MI - GRIDLIFE’s 11th annual Midwest Festival sold out its crowd, and its competition fields at GingerMan Raceway, in an event that featured a fierce battle in GRIDLIFE Touring Cup and numerous TrackBattle record resets.
GRIDLIFE Touring Cup (GLTC) once again started the weekend with a field nearing 60 cars, but early attrition meant that 53 cars qualified for the weekend’s four-race format. Two familiar faces shared the front row for race 1 - Hurricane, West Virginia’s Luke McGrew, and Cleveland, Ohio’s Matan Rosenberg, both in Chevrolet Corvettes. Returning to the grid with some changes for 2024 was Erik Meadows, who picked up the final qualifying point and started 3rd in his #3 Chevrolet Corvette.
Rosenberg established an early lead in GLTC Race 1, clawing out a 1.6-second lead on Luke McGrew and Eric Kutil, before the field was neutralized with a full-course yellow. The #95 of Robby Vierhout suffered an anti-lock braking system failure and collected the #17 S2000 of Tony Marchev. Vierhout’s car was unable to move from turn 10B and triggered the yellow. At the restart, Eric Kutil passed the #7 Corvette of Luke McGrew and moved into second place behind Matan Rosenberg. While Kutil closed the gap to Rosenberg, he was unable to complete a pass, allowing Rosenberg to pick up his first win of 2024.
Race 2 on Saturday morning was shortened by another full-course yellow - this time from contact between the #89 BMW of Steve Pruden and the #350 Nissan of Julio Crispin. Crispin’s car slid through the grass and made contact with other competitors at the opening corner and was stuck broadside, triggering the second full-course yellow of the weekend. Once the race restarted, polesitter Eric Kutil and race 1 winner Matan Rosenberg battled for an entire lap side by side, trading advantages over the 2.2 mile circuit. In perhaps one of the cleanest and best battles in recent memory, Rosenberg cleared Kutil and continued on to snag his second victory of the weekend.
In a spectacle only seen in GLTC, Jason Kanakry’s M3 battles David Rudzinski’s Chevrolet S-10 pickup in a battle for position into turn 3.
After the Top 10 Shootout session on Saturday morning, James Houghton’s #41 Acura TSX suffered a steering rack problem, and with little time to rectify the issue, his team prepared his Falken ClubTR machine, Honda CSX #308, for GLTC. The car was on the dyno moments before the race, but made it to grid in time to start GLTC race 3 in his qualified position alongside Eric Kutil. Lena Chin, who had a strong showing in the Top 10 Shootout, suffered a fuel pump issue and wasn’t able to start where she had qualified. After two laps of racing, the #44 of Kerry James and #71 of Joel Morrison made contact and buried their cars deep into the turn 11 sand trap, bringing an end to race 3 as the recovery team dug the cars out. Eric Kutil picked up a win over James Houghton, Matan Rosenberg, and Luke McGrew.
The weather took a turn for the final race of the weekend on Saturday evening, as a rainshower blew into the area right as the GLTC field gridded up, sending teams scrambling for their preferred tire in case of wet weather. The format-directed field inversion placed Jake Joraanstad on pole for race 4. The track, now slick with water, was treacherous for the duration of the race. Andrew Rains managed to sneak by Joraanstad on the opening few corners; he began to extend a gap in his #98 BMW. Eric Kutil and James Houghton worked through the field in their front-drive Hondas while the rear-wheel drive cars slid around on the challenging surface. 14-year old Aryton Grim, in his first GRIDLIFE Touring Cup weekend, moved up to 14th in his Mazda MX-5, chasing Eric Magnussen and others near the top 10. Dana Basinski, in his first GLTC weekend also, drove up to 6th place in his Subaru BRZ. The #41 of James Houghton caught Andrew Rains with two laps to go, passing the BMW on the outside of turn 11 and holding on to win his first race since Circuit Legends at Lime Rock Park last year. Matan Rosenberg edged Kutil by one point for the weekend victory after an intense fight lasting the weekend between the two drivers.
Jake Joraanstad (#32) leads by virtue of the race 4 field invert, and runs from Erik Meadows, Zac Lovoy, Matt Waldbaum, and others in the rain in race 4.
The NOS Energy TrackBattle Championship entered its 4th round of the season at GRIDLIFE Midwest Festival, with a record-breaking 126 cars entering across 8 competition classes. The Falken ClubTR class reset its own grid size record, set two weeks prior at the Rev-Up event at GingerMan Raceway. 30 cars competed at Midwest Festival, three more than the 27 at the Rev-Up, a new GRIDLIFE TrackBattle record. Sizable grids accompanied the other classes as well, with 18 in Street class and 17 in Falken Sundae Cup.
Josh Halka flashes by a flowerbed during Qualifying for the NOS Energy TrackBattle Podium Sprint.
The record breaking didn’t stop at the field sizes, though - with seven drivetrain class records throughout the weekend in 5 of the 8 classes. These records included Sundae Cup (RWD), by Richard Sawicki, Falken ClubTR (FWD & AWD), by James Houghton and Graham Gaylord, Street (AWD & FWD) by Luca Barberis and Dustin Williams, Street GT (RWD) by Andy Voelkel, and Street Mod (RWD) by Allen Patten.
While the practices and qualifying sessions experienced clear, dry weather, the NOS Energy TrackBattle Podium Sprint competitors faced a challenge Saturday afternoon as weather rolled in. After the Sundae Cup group ran, granting Chris Rice victory in the #411 Honda Fit over Ryan Mukherjee and Richard Sawicki, rain started falling, slicking the track surface for Falken ClubTR. Only two cars, Evan Mclaren and Peter Granberg, were able to make successful runs, as Mario Mirone suffered a mechanical failure and James Houghton was disqualified with two off-tracks in the slick conditions. Stan Fayngold, the fifth competitor in class, was unable to start because of a mechanical issue.
Fez Babar works through turn 2 at GingerMan Raceway. He would miss the Podium Sprint after dealing with a broken brake rotor during Qualifying.
As the session progressed, conditions worsened, but fans braving the rain trackside were delivered a thrilling Street and Street GT session as drivers battled the ever-changing conditions in the Sprint. Joe Mielke topped Street class with a 1:56.261, significantly off-pace from dry conditions, but fast enough to wrestle away a win from Luca Barberis and Ben Lin who picked up 2nd and 3rd place. In Street GT, conditions began to improve, and lap times began to fall once again. Andy Voelkel beat out Ido Waksman as he did at Rev-Up a few weeks prior, but only by two-tenths of a second. Nicholas Hendrix finished third, while Keenan Prusank and Kevin Horn fought just to stay on track with their Camaros in the rain.
Luca Barberis awaits his moment to head on track during NOS Energy TrackBattle Qualifying.
While not completely dry, the track was much quicker for the Street Mod group, and Allen Patten backed up his record-setting performance from Q2 with a 1:33.076 in his GR Supra, winning Podium Sprint over Kal Fortner and Brian van Orsdol. As skies darkened, the spectacle of sound and sparks gave fans some great views as Colton Drescosky’s Viper and Jason Kanakry’s McLaren 720s took to the track. However, it would be Jackie Ding in the #687 BMW M2 that took advantage of the moment and stole a win away from the supercars, marking the first class victory for PhD Racing’s next experimental build. In Unlimited, Andrius Bertulis edged Shawn Bassett and Dallas Reed in his Lexus RCF as rain began to fall once again.
Kal Fortner waits for his run in the Podium Sprint, getting an update from John Raymond on track conditions.
Despite the challenges, cars on course in the rain gave the fans trackside something to watch at the tail end of the competition weekend. With a field of 60 drift cars, 126 time attack cars, and 60 GLTC cars, the sold-out crowd always had something to keep their eye on while they enjoyed the GRIDLIFE Midwest Festival experience. While GRIDLIFE’s next event is at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course June 28-30, the next stop on the Festival Tour is the Summer Apex Festival, at Road America, July 26-28, 2024. GRIDLIFE brings the “big show” to the National Park of Speed for the first time, with a concert headlined by Deadmau5 on Saturday evening. Tickets are on sale now at summerapex.com.
