Aaron Telitz: Chalk One up in the “W” Column

Birchwood, Wis. – Hey everybody! Back at the keyboard again today after an awesome weekend in Alabama.

Barber Motorsports Park is one of the most fun tracks to drive I’ve ever been to. It flows so well you don’t realize you’re actually just zig-zagging back and forth. If you stood on the back straight you could walk about 50 yards to the right and be standing on the front straight again! Nearly every corner has a bit (or a lot!) of elevation change. This makes for lap after lap of fun and excitement whether you’re just out for a test session or in the middle of a race.

So let’s get down to it. I rolled into Barber with about as much momentum as a beached whale. As you may have remembered I had an early retirement from NOLA Race Two when my half-shaft failed. But believe me, I was ready to right the ship!

Both test sessions on Thursday went well. I had the car dialed in and in first official practice on Friday I set the fastest lap. When qualifying rolled around in the afternoon my car had developed a bit of understeer and I was never able to get the speed out of it I needed. I ended up qualifying fourth (only .1 seconds from first).

We then raced Friday evening at a time that is usually reserved for dinner. The opening lap was short-lived when Victor Franzoni and my teammate, Nico Jamin, got together in Turn Two which resulted in Nico taking an unwanted vacation to the beach and needed to get pulled out. When we went back to racing I stalked Jake Eidson and Victor for a long time. As much fun as Barber is to drive, it does lack in passing zones. With about five minutes left in the race I decided I needed to get aggressive and try to make some something happen. I had a decent run on Jake down into Turn Five (the only hard brake zone on the entire track) and broke pretty late up the inside and Jake, thankfully, didn’t turn in on me and I made it through! I caught up to Victor and on the next lap I had a great run on him down into Turn Five. I’ll let this video do the rest of the work for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_7-MKqikd0. Incidentally, that pass earned me the RePlay XD Move of the Race Award, which was pretty cool.

I then cruised around the last lap for my first win of the season! Not only that, it was my first win on a road course in the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda.

Race Two at Barber did not take place for another 24 hours! By that time mother nature decided to pay us another visit because she just can’t leave us alone this year! The race was full wet and I started from fourth and drove a pretty dull and boring race to bring it home in fourth. I was never in attack mode and it showed! But sometimes you aren’t on your game and you’ve still got to bring it home as best you can.

It was an absolutely amazing weekend overall – a big win and now have some great momentum heading into the month of May in Indy!

Giant thanks to Cape Motorsports with Wayne Taylor Racing for the awesome car all weekend. You can safely bet you’re going to see the Rice Lake Weighing Systems/Mazda/Cooper Tires/Team USA Scholarship/SAFEisFAST! car back in victory lane real soon!

So fortunate to have such a great group of supporters behind me allowing me to continue to follow my dream.

And as always thanks to all of you.

You guys rock,
Aaron