Smith grabs another SCCA Majors victory in American Sedan
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA (May 5, 2017) – Phillip Smith continues to be one of the most successful drivers in the SCCA American Sedan division, sweeping the majors tour weekend at Circuit of St. Louis in the infield of Gateway International Raceway. His blue third gen 1991 Chevrolet Camaro has accumulated nearly ten victories across the country since partnering with Ron Sutton Race Technology in 2015.
Smith won the Sunday feature in last May's event at the infield road course facility as well. Smith has won at Mid Ohio, Watkins Glen, and Road America as well at some of the most high profile race tracks in the United States.
The weekend started out wet with rainy conditions throughout Friday practice. Smith tested his rain setup extensively experimenting with different camber settings for the oval portion of the 1.650 mile roval.
On Saturday morning, wet weather was a still factor. After a short stoppage of qualifying due to another competitor crashing on the course, Smith clicked off a 1:18.536 that was initially disallowed for being quicker than the scoring computers were programmed to allow.
During his Saturday win, Smith lowered the track record with a 1:08.123 second lap. His class winning margin was 36 seconds in the 23 lap event. Smith took the lead entering turn one of the oval after the green flag and never looked back in the dominating performance.
Sunday he ran with half of a second of his track record times. He held the lead in the American Sedan class throughout the race before a late full course caution bunched the field up. Smith still put together a 14 second victory regardless to cap a highly successful weekend.
"The car comes off the corner so hard now, that we were gaining three-to-four car lengths in the oval turns three and four," Smith said. "The only maintenance we had to do was a rear brake light. Rules changes allowed us a long ball joint in the rear. We are still not fully there on our swaybar and spring races to compensate for that change."
Smith has consistently lowered his performance in the SCCA Runoffs since partnering with Ron Sutton Race Technology. Smith's long straight, high speed corner acumen came into focus when he finished third in the 2015 Runoffs at Daytona. The runoffs returned to a tighter course in 2016 when he finished second at Mid-Ohio.
In 2017, the Runoffs will take place at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Although the course uses the IMS front stretch, almost none of the speedway's iconic turns are utilized as drivers meander through the infield of the sprawling facility. Smith believes he has the best chance yet to grab a Runoffs victory.
"The car is fully developed and now it is just a matter of tuning," Smith said. "You think you know your setup but this has taught me so much. Its fun! We've got a good basic setup so now we're almost able to be creative. We have the confidence to try different things. We are willing to experiment more because we can always go back to the baseline!"
Smith will compete in a pair of SCCA Majors Super Tour races in June. He will compete at Mid Ohio on June 2-4 and at Watkins Glen on June 23-25.
Philip Smith would like to thank Ron Sutton Race Technology, Hoosier Tire, and Phil Harper at Ilmor Engineering for their support in 2017.
For more information on Ron Sutton Race Technology, visit them online at http://www.ronsuttonracetechnology.com/
ABOUT RON SUTTON RACE TECHNOLOGY
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