Jim Best Wins Pre-Season ILMS Points at Road America, Fryman and Palmo Race Winners

newsbot · 02-08-2008, 10:20 AM

Our final Pre-Season race of the ILMS Series was last night at Road America and it proved to be an extremely interesting finale. (Note the regular season GT Challenge, 4-Class, and Team Enduro Races starts on 2/21/2008). Coming into last night's race we had four drivers who all were in contention for the Pre Season Championship. Jim Best was leading over Rich Lee, David Anderson, and Tony Boynton. In the end Jim Best would overcome major adversity in the race to claim winner of the points -- but it certainly was not easy.

Cars shown above at the start of the Road America Race
On the very first lap of the race Jim was caught up in an accident going into the 3rd turn, and sustained pretty major damage to several parts of the car. Luckily the engine was ok for the most part, but he would have to finish the rest of the race without a rear wing as it could not be repaired and some suspension damage to the BMW. The accident is showed here with Jim sideways in his BMW -- seeing the Championship slip.

Jim Best gets caught up in lap 1 wreck with several cars at Road America (above).
However, Jim would get the car back to the pits, and have the crew do the best that they could to repair the problems. This would allow him to continue on, and by night's end he was actually 4th in class and 9th overall in the race. This was enough for him to beat David Anderson for the title. Anderson had finished 3rd in class. Rich Lee would suffer an early exit in the race after an accident of his own. Tony Boynton would have a nice run in the GT1 Class, but it was not enough to move enough up the points ladder. Congratulations to Jim for hanging in there, showing what it means to fight through adversity.
In the race overall we had great runs from several cars. The winner of the GT-1 Class and overall race winner was Don Fryman. Don was very fast in his Corvette, and would benefit from problems of several of the other GT-1 Class cars in the race. Road America proved to be a most challenging circuit as only 14 of the 26 cars which would start the race would be able to finish. Behind Don in the GT-1 class was Richard Hylands in 2nd and Dwayne Jans in 3rd -- both with fine runs of their own.

Don Fryman in the Monster Energy Corvette Wins at Road America in GT-1
In the GT-2 Class it was apparent that Wes Tribble would be the winner of the race. With Claro Palma in 2nd. But in a very dramatic finish, Tribble had to come to pit road on the final lap of the event as he was running out of gas. He was unable to get to his pit stall to be fueled, and would actually run out of gas dropping him to 2nd place. Claro Palma who had run a great event of his own and overcome some early problems in the race would take his BMW around the Circuit one final time for the victory. Tribble would maintain 2nd with David Anderson rounding out the GT-2 Class Podium.

Claro Plamo wins at Road America in the GT-2 Class
The full race results from the event are available HERE

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