Mark Eaton, the Robinson Motor Sports Crew Chief, dusted off his Spec Racer Ford and entered the Thanksging weekend races at Sebring in the SCCA Turkey Trot Race Weekend. Along with doing trackside work with the rest of the RMS crew on 6 customer cars, Mark was going to race too.
The SCCA Central Florida Region's final race of the year had 31 cars entered in the SRF class. Mark was hoping to do well since he had't race his SRF in almost 3 years. "I did a test race weekend at Palm Beach a few weeks ago to get the car back to race condition and by Sunday had it dialed in pretty good, won the race there in fact, but it was against a week field" Mark said at Sebring. "There are 10 really fast guys here, I hope to see if I can stay in the front of the field."
He did well, Mark qualified on the pole for the Saturday race. After a stirling race with Jean Luc Loverato, Lee Hill, Dakota Donovan, Hector De La Torriente and John Annis, Mark lead the race wire to wirefor a .2 second win in a very heated race! "It was just like it always has been in the SRF's, tons of great competition."
Mark had driven the Robinson Motor Sports Formula Enterprises (FE) Van Diemen for the past 3 years, winning back to back national championships. He has decided to return to the Spec Racer and see if he can do well with that class. Several SCCA Pro Spec Racer Ford racing events are on the calendar for him in 2011, along with some races at tracks that he did not get to drive on with the FE.
Robinson Motor Sports has switched over to the Valvoline VR1 engine oil recently. "It's the first time he has used it in his SRF, and it is great! Engine temps are down slightly, and he's pulling good revs on the long straights" team owner Mick Robinson stated after the Saturday win. "We are very pleased with the new oils and we use the Valvoline ATF in the cars too. Everything is running cooler and working really well".
Sunday was just like Saturday, Mark on the pole, Lee Hill front row with Jean Luc Liverato and Dakota Donovan in the second row. All 4 of them broke away from the pack by a 3 second gap, with Mark leading again. With 3 laps to go, Mark and Dakota pulled out a slight lead over Hill and Liverato, so the battle was down to Mark and Dakota. "Dakota got my me in the back section, but I made a good move on him going into 17, he went just wide and I was able to slip through and lead him to the flag. Another great race!! I love these cars!!" Mark stated after the sweep of both weekend races.
