March 15 and 16 were successful first time outings for both Mario Lento and Karl Chicca during a beautiful 
weekend in wine country’s Sonoma Raceway as each competed in their initial races in the rides they will be piloting in US Touring Car this season. Mario achieved two wins in ST3 piloting the #10 Mitsubishi while Karl followed up with two P2s in the #12 M3. They used this track time to familiarize themselves with their respective machines in prep for the exciting USTCC opener at Buttonwillow Saturday April 5.
Dave Brown drove the #96 Camaro to two P4s in the highly competitive Super Unlimited class, which was dominated by prototype cars. He also took a first in Time Trials Unlimited. All in all, this was a great “shake down” weekend for Team Life’s Good Racing!TM.
The weekend was also particularly exciting as we played host to Mike DeFord, HAWK Performance VP of Marketing & New Business Development along with a large team from the extended HAWK family. As you are all aware, we are proud to be in a very long term and strategic relationship with thislargest, most accomplished, and highest quality producer of brake pads, rotors, calipers, and complete kits. We have even begun carrying the entire HAWK Performance catalogue and will be announcing in the near future a web-based store front where you will be able to procure your HAWK Performance products direct from us… the same products we race and use on our daily drivers. We stand behind these products as evidenced by our putting our lives on the line, breaking zone after breaking zone. HAWK…. “What’s Stopping You?TM”
This weekend, we were also happy to have Mark DeShetler and his wicked “Blue Meanie” 1965 Mustang at the track with us after a very long hiatus. This 186mph open road racer beast sports a 750HP CHEVY! 427cu in small block and is nothing short of an engineering and fabrication marvel. We’ll be sharing more pictures on site and on Facebook. Check out the Youtube footage at the Life’s Good Racing!TM Youtube Channel. Brake pads? HAWK!
Also in the Team Life’s Good Racing!TM pits, we were also excited to have Chris Carstens and Eric VanZandt and their rocket ship WORKS Evo with us. Chis and Eric have been working around the clock to prepare this car for NASA HPDE with the goal of securing racing licenses. They ran fast and strong! Congrats guys!
Next on our Agenda is the upcoming USTCC opener at Buttonwillow Raceway outside Bakersfield, CA this weekend. This initial race of the 2014 season will be a two hour endurance race that will run concurrent with the three hour WERC (Western Endurance Racing Championships) race. The race is targeted to start at 6:00pm, which means some night time racing! The Life’s Good Racing!TM team will proudly be fielding four cars, three in Touring Car and one in GT Class. The #96 Camaro will also stay on track to finish the third hour to collect points in the WERC series.
You can see the rundown of cars and drivers for this weekend in the Press Release below. We’re proud to have new drivers and new additions to our team, so please take a minute to read.
And as always, a great big THANKS to all of our partners who work with us behind the scenes and throughout the off-season to make all this happen, including HAWK Performance, Competition Clutch (CCI), Dublin Big O Tires, WORKS Motorsports, Supertech, and Red Line.
Hope to see you at the track, however if you’re unable to, visit Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for weekend updates from trackside.
See You at the Races!
Karl Chicca, Pleasanton, CA