Eaton Wins Sebring USF2000 Pro Race
Robinson Motor Sports driver Mark Eaton became the first driver in a Formula Enterprises Van Diemen to win in the USF2000 series pro race in the national class.
On March 15th, Robinson Motor Sports entered 3 Formula Enterprises cars to compete in the Cooper Tires USF2000 Road To Indy Powered by Mazda race series. This was the first race where the SCCA Formula Enterprises cars were eligible to compete in the series. Mark Eaton, Paul Alspach and Eric Filgueiras drove the Robinson Motor Sports prepared cars in the event in front of an estimated crowd of 65,000 spectators.
Eaton qualifed 4th in class which also had 3 of the older Formula Continentals cars included. Paul Alspach was 6th and Eric Filgueiras was 8th.
On the start, Eaton caught the front running FE driven by Scott Rettich where they had an epic battle back and forth for the lead. Alspach moved to 4th in class and was running right with Eaton and Rettich with an FC car between them. Filgueiras was taken out in a second lap caution lap incident, where he was hit from behind and damaged his rear suspension.
The finish had Eaton in the lead by 4 seconds when a full course caution came out. The caution was long enough to have the race end under yellow. Alspach had body work come loose and pitted when the caution came out, sending him back to 8th place.
A ton of work and effort went into getting the SCCA cars changed over to the Cooper Tires that the series races on. Robinson Motor Sports did several days of testing to get the cars comfortable. Eaton, Alspach and Filgueiras all did track time on the tires to get the FE adjusted to the new brand of tires.
Eaton thanked his sponsors for the race at the new conference after the race. " I need to thank www.deathtolionfish.org and Robinson Motor Sports for their help with this win. We use Valvoline products in our cars which has helped a lot" Eaton stated.
Also helping with the win were Marque Engineering, Competition Data Systems and their Florida rep. Duane Neyer, Teddy Kempgens with suspension help, David from Cooper Tires and the RMS crew. A job well done by all!
Other sponsors involved with the RMS cars were: Bertil Roos Racing School and Pat Enzman with driver Paul Alspach while Eric Filgueiras had Jim Booth.