O’Keefe On Top At Lime Rock Park

Week four brought the iRacing.com Skip Barber Series to the forests of Lime Rock Park, located in Lakeville, Connecticut, USA. The 1.53 mile (2.462 km), 7 turn race track is known for its deadly first corner, where if you touch the grass you will find yourself in the outside wall. This turn took many victims throughout the week. Although not the most popular among the top drivers favourites, Lime Rock is included in the base content provided on iRacing.com, and therefore made this a great week for upcoming drivers to wet their feet in the Skippy. This helped participation tremendously as we saw 1148 drivers enter a race session, 507 place a qualifying lap, and 232 complete a time trial. Topping the qualifying charts this week was Jon Tanko (Iberia) turning a perfect lap of 57.341. He was closely followed by Kenneth O’Keefe (Eastern Canada) and Norbert Sulzer (DE-AT-CH) with times of 57.385 and 57.433 respectively.

O’Keefe leads 4092 SOF field into turn 1

Once the checkered flag flew on Monday evening, Kenneth O’Keefe was the one to rise to the top with a score of 255 points. O’Keefe started from the pole position in the 4092 SOF race and despite pressure from Paul F Grillo (Celtic) was able to lead from flag to flag. O’Keefe brought home the victory with Grillo a mere 0.572 seconds behind. The two drivers put on a clinic with a 9.763 second margin to the next car of Rudi Reinkort (Central Eastern Europe). O’Keefe competed in three other races throughout the week, scoring two victories and a second place finish.

Taking the runner up position was Paul F Grillo (Celtic) with a score of 238 points. Grillo started from the second position in the 4092 SOF race, and was the only driver who made a run at O’Keefe. With a few pass attempts early in the race, he was able to put pressure on the leader all race long. Grillo brought home the second place finish along with the best point payout of his iRacing.com career. He also competed in three other races throughout with one victory and a second place finish.

Concluding the podium at Lime Rock Park was Rudi Reinkort (Central Eastern Europe) with a score of 221 points. In the same 4092 SOF race, Reinkort started from the third position. With a streak of bad luck in his prior three races, Reinkort told us following the race that his goal was to simply, “to finish the race”. He did just that, with a safe third place finish. Reinkort competed in two other races throughout the week, scoring a fourth and eleventh place finish.

Peck (13) and Mike McCormick (9) attack turn 4

The remainder of the top ten included Jairo Via (Iberia), Martin Peck (England), Norbert Sulzer (DE-AT-CH), Jon Tanko (Iberia), Ramon Sprecher (DE-AT-CH), Marcus Hamilton (England), and Mike McCormick (Texas).

Next week the iRacing.com Skip Barber Series will head to the Okayama International Circuit, utilizing the “Short” configuration. Located in Mimasaka, Okayama, Japan, the 1.3 mile (2.09 km) circuit has a few good passing zones that will be able to create great racing. Many drivers from the series are questioning the decision to run this layout rather than the “Grand Prix” layout, but that is part of racing and the best drivers will always rise to the top no matter which track they are on. This week will still be exciting as always in the Skippy series. Be sure to check back next week for updates on Okayama. Also keep your eyes on inRacingNews.com for updates on other series throughout the service, and many other informational articles of interest to any race fan.

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