Kumho’s Robert Stout Sets Track Record at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course
Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., July 24, 2009—The sold out race weekend for the NASA series Great Lakes region took place at the historic Mid-Ohio Sports car course. Robert Stout, who has had a phenomenal season on Kumho Tires, continued his success as he wheeled his Lucas Oil backed Pro-Challenge TRAXXAS Charger to a second place finish on Saturday and first place finish on Sunday.
Equipped with a new set of Kumho tires Stout started the weekend off by qualifying on the pole in the Performance Touring A class with driver Matt Carlyle in a close second in his Corvette. The start of the race the 45 car field was massive. Carlyle got the better of the deal as he took the lead position into turn one. For the next 40 minutes Stout and Carlyle swapped the lead as both put on what race director Brian Cohn called the “best race of the year”.
Although he finished second in the race, Stout captured his fifteenth Podium of the season and set a new track record for the Performance Touring A class with a time of 1:35.826.
Sunday brought great weather and Crew Chief Todd Bellew and car Owner Ken Stout made changes to the Lucas Oil machine based on information from the data logger. The changes paid off as Robert again shattered the track record by nearly a second as he laid down a 1:34.636 in qualifying.
“Again Matt was right there with us in qualifying,” said Stout. “I went 1:35.07 and was close to a: 34. I pushed it hard and earned my second Pole position for the weekend.”
With the race underway and two laps past the half way point, Stout used lap traffic to his advantage to dive under Carlyle and rail the next 10 turns to gain enough room to keep the lead and bring home win number 12 on the season.
“This was a good weekend as Mid-Ohio has not been kind to us,” said Ken Stout. “Our last two races here we knocked a rod out of two engines. We were beginning to wonder if things would ever go our way here. The car responded to everything we did and we went faster all weekend. Todd made some good decisions on the Kumho Tire pressures and Robert did the rest.”
Robert heads to Joliet, Illinois for his next event this weekend at the Autobahn and is planning on nothing less than a pair of wins.
For more info go to www.Robertstoutracing.com
