Series to crown champs at VIR

Published: October 3, 2008

ALTON — Two of America’s premier road racing series will wrap up their seasons and crown their champions this weekend at Virginia International Raceway.

The Grand-Am KONI Challenge Series consists of two individual racing series, the Street Tuner (ST) and the Grand Sport (GS). Both series season will run their season finale this weekend at VIR.

The ST class races today. Jamie Holtom has the points lead and can clinch the title with only a 25th-place finish, and if he does so the 21-year-old will be the youngest champion in the history of the series.

“The whole team is really pumped after our win last race at Miller. We’re lucky to have a lead in all three championships, but we’re not taking anything for granted,” Holtom said. “We’ll be going all-out to win the championships and it should be a fun race.”

His closest opponent is Kristian Skavnes, who considers VIR to be one of his best tracks.

“I’ve had a really great year,” Skavnes said. “Our team has been wonderful. Our goal at VIR, as it is every time, is to go and win the race, and then let the chips fall where they may. Jamie Holtom and the Georgian Bay guys have had a great year and they haven’t had a lot of bad luck come their way, but the season isn’t over yet. It still has six hours left. We’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain. Right now, I think the pressure is on Jamie Holtom.”

The GS class hits the track Sunday, and that point race is a dead-heat between Hyper Sport teammates Joe Foster and Scott Maxwell. The JBS Motorsports team is tied for third and drivers Brett Seafuse and James Gue are only one point behind the leaders. Craig Stanton is fifth and only nine points off the lead.

“We’ve got to go for the victory,” Seafuse said. “There are four teams that are very, very close and several other teams still capable of winning the title if we all have bad races. There’s no holding back. We’ve got to go for it.”

Gue, one of the drivers currently tied for the points lead, has an idea of what it could take to bring home the title.

“The big thing is trying to stay focused on our own plan and own car,” Gues said. “We’re going to treat this as any other race and be professional. To be honest, we struggled at Miller, so we need to prepare our car and have it set up a little better. Everyone in this championship is a friend and we all deserve to be there. Whatever happens, happens. We’re just going to show up and try to enjoy ourselves and be professional.”

The ST series will race at 2 p.m. today and the GS series will race at 11 a.m. Sunday.