On October 9th and 10th the Bertil Roos Racing School held its annual Rookie Runoffs on Pocono Raceway’s South Track.

Group 1
Race 1
The race started with pole sitter Tim Hannen being passed by Gary Peck at the start. Gary would lead until lap 4 when Tim re-passed for the lead. Tim would open up a commanding lead until lap 10 when an incident between Paul Moore and Jeff Valeo brought out a full course caution and saw Paul dropping out. On the restart Gary timed it perfectly to get the jump on tim going into Turn 1 and would hold it till the end.

Race 2
With the first race down Gary would start on pole for Race 2 and would hold the lead all through the race while Tim held down 2nd place in a very smart drive. Jeff Valeo would pick up one position on the start to finish 3rd while behind him Paul in a replacement car would battle with Ben Corson. The pair would finish 4th and 5th respectively.

Group 2
Race 1
The pole for Group 2 was won by Peter Cellino with a gap to second of .2 seconds. The race started with Peter leading the first lap but on the second a charging Michael Wu would take the lead. Michael would take his lead all the way to the finish. Behind him however Peter was coming under pressure by Paul Alspach and would be overtaken on lap 4 by young Paul. On lap 8 Peter made an error and spun, he would rejoin and 5th.  That error opened the door for Justin Fierro to move up to 3rd and Keith Humphris to 4th.

Race 2
Michael Wu would make a great start but going into the Hairpin would spin allowing Paul to take the lead. Michael would rejoin last but wouldn’t give up. From about 15 seconds back, Michael pushed lap after lap to catch Keith Humphris and on lap 15 would pass to take 4th. Paul, meanwhile, was opening up a lead that he would hold all race bringing him the win. Justin Fierro had a quiet race and would come in 2nd while Peter Cellino recover from starting last to charge up to 2nd only to get a black flag that would see him serve a stop and go penalty and end up 3rd.

The Idea of the Rookie Runoff:
The idea behind the Rookie Runoffs is to have people that have minimal Roos Race Series experience or those that have graduated a rookie camp to have a chance to compete against others with roughly equal experience. The winners of the races would then receive a free race weekend of their choice in the 2010 Bertil Roos Race Series. In doing this, the Bertil Roos Race Series hopes to jump start the career of aspiring Racers.

We at the Bertil Roos Racing School would like to congratulate all those that took part in our Rookie Runoffs and especially Paul Alspach and Gary Peck who both won a free race weekend for 2010.