RANDY’S TAKE: KONI DAYTONA RACE

Randy’s exciting Daytona experience started out on Friday when Randy, with co-driver Christian Miller, finished twelfth in the three hour KONI Challenge Fresh From Florida 200 in the #74 Compass 360 Racing Honda Civic Si. In a one race deal, Randy joined Compass360 and its field of three cars, hoping to further extend the team’s success in recent years in the KONI Challenge.

“This was a crazy race! The racing competition was among the most intense and satisfying of my entire career! The racing was so close, with four or five cars racing back and forth for the lead. Really great stuff. I was working with Travis on a Compass360 express to the front, but with 10 minutes or so left in the race, my Honda started misfiring and we had to pit. That was disappointing but yet I was so thrilled and exhilarated from the close racing. Ray Lee is really good at what he does. The car was so well set up. It was fun to be in a Honda again with the high reving VTech engine. It howls like a race engine. I love that sound.”

On Thursday, Randy posted the fastest ST lap time of 2:09.101 (99.271 mph) in practice. Co-driver Christian qualified the car in fourth position and started the race, with the other two team cars following in fifth and sixth.

“The car handled so well in practice. Few cars handled that well. Something happened between practice and the race because the handling wasn’t as good. Maybe the weather changes or something. In practice, I could kill them in the turns but in the race the car was more challenging to handle and we lost the advantage. We went from faster to about the same pace and then it became a real race. Ha ha. I want to thank my co-driver Christian Miller and his father Grant. Christian drove a good race and kept it up front. I am working on doing more races with Compass360 in the future. I hope it happens. I would like to thank my personal sponsors Team Janica Racing, Prairie Hills Motorsport Club, ChaseCam, and saferacer.com for their continued support.”

Teammates Travis Walker and Matt Pritiko finished on the podium in third position while old racing buddy Peter Schwartzott and Bo Roach finished tenth. Randy and Peter had great success in the 1980’s and 90’s, winning many races and championships, including four consecutive Watkins Glen 24 Hour races, a record that is not likely to be broken. Compass 360, led by Team Principal Karl Thomson and Team Manager Ray Lee and based in Toronto, Canada, will be a force to be reckoned with in the 2009 KONI Street Tuner class.

The KONI Challenge Fresh From Florida 200 will air on January 31 at 4:00 PM EST on SPEED. Randy says they got a lot of coverage at the end and that it’s a must see. Randy’s next race will be at Sebring International Raceway on March 20 where Randy will begin to defend his Speed World Challenge GT championship.

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