Rodney Campo rides Event 6 Win to the Top 10!

Saturday July 26, 2003 played host to event 6 of 10 for the Eckler's Florida Corvette Challenge held at Bradenton Motorsports Park in Bradenton Florida. As you can expect the weather was hot on this last Saturday in July. Attendance was on par with 27 racers attending including two new drivers in the eliminations. When eliminations started 22 drivers made the call. Rodney Campo, from Tarpon Springs, FL prevailed in his Navy Blue Convertible finishing on top of the class taking his first career Corvette Challenge event win. Campo went five rounds and was aided along the way with a ladder bye and a competition bye when his round three opponent, Keith Valone, could not make the call with car issues.

Campo edged out runner-up Paul Byther, from Tampa, FL in a 2003 Torch Red Z06, in the final. Campo cut his best light of the day, .517 and ran 12.878 on a 12.85 dial defeating Byther who ran 12.932 on a 12.88 dial and a .574 light, also his best of the day. Campo made his move to tighten up the points chase by recording wins over contenders Ken Teague and Keith Valone.

Runner-up Paul Byther receives plaque

The points race was not only tightened by Campo's win but some other surprises. Points leader "Mean Green", still without his own Corvette, once again borrowed a Vette but the result was opposite from the previous race win when he went out first round breaking out in the Dan Warren's Corvette. Second place driver, Emily Lewis also suffered a first round loss. Third place driver (coming into the event), Bob Mancuso did not make the event at all, helping friend and fellow driver Marc Fisher back home (get well soon Marc), leaving the door open for drivers to make a move. One of those drivers, Jim Terry was well on his way to making a move but failed to make the call for round three when he found himself tied up with an unexpected personal issue, (ask him to explain at the next race) which left him with 30 points for today. With 4 races left, the championship is shaping up to be a very hard fought one with the early favorites, now struggling.

We suffered a very strange occurrence in the first round when drivers did not settle on lane choice before the first round. Failure to do this almost got both drivers disqualified. It is extremely important that we follow direction of the track official in the staging lanes, including our event organizers as they will direct you into the lane you should be in if cars are uneven when pulled for first round. You may not have a choice in lanes.

To date, the EFCC has hosted 57 different Corvette drivers. If we can get all of these drivers at our events we may be able to use the car count as justification to having the track all to ourselves.

More pictures of today's event at the Corvette Forum.

Stan Dempsey was the winner of the Quick ET award running 11.74 in the first round.
Keith Valone was awarded the Top Speed award with 118.46 MPH in the 1st round.
The Best reaction time award went to Joe Boudreau who cut a .506 light.
The Best package went to event winner Rodney Campo for his finals performance .517 reaction time and running 12.878 on a 12.85 dial for a .045 package. The Florida Corvette Challenge had a friendly competition with the New Jersey Corvette Challenge who also raced today. The challenge was to determine the best finals package. Rodney's package was the winner over New Jersey event winner, Rob Farley who ran a .081 package with a .558 light and 13.673 on a 13.65 dial Click here for NJ Challenge results.

Remember anyone with a Corvette can participate in the Corvette Challenge. The next race in Florida will by Saturday August 23, 2003. We are awaiting at least one driver from the East Coast Supercharging Corvette Challenge in New Jersey and maybe a few more. Be sure and come out to race or watch at Bradenton Motorsports Park in Bradenton, FL. Even if you do not know how to, come on down and meet the racers as we will take the time to teach you about drag racing in particular bracket racing. You can get up close to the action at the track.

If you would like to visit the Corvette Challenge throughout the nation, visit The National Schedule