Jason McCarthy (Wide World Ferrari), Dave Musial Jr. (Ferrari of Lake Forest) and Lisa Clark (Ferrari of Beverly Hills) were crowned Ferrari Challenge North America champions in the Trofeo Pirelli AM1, Coppa Shell and Ladies Cup categories, respectively, after incredible season-long efforts that concluded with titles this weekend at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. In a day marked by mixable weather conditions, these champions had to exercise their guile and will to complete their championship charge with two races to spare.
Trofeo Pirelli: The Trofeo Pirelli race on Sunday was marked by a small rain shower that passed over the first three corners of the circuit, necessitating the use of the safety car for the first two laps of the race. McCarthy started the race from pole but spent much of the race closely followed by Brian Davis (Ferrari of Palm Beach) and Enzo Potolicchio (Ferrari of Central Florida). However, a late-race incident between those two forced them both out and dramatically altered the championship makeup in the Trofeo Pirelli AM2 category.
Nevertheless, the AM1 podium was completed by Jordan Workman (Ferrari of Central Florida) and Dave Musial (Ferrari of Lake Forest). In Trofeo Pirelli AM2, the incident involving Davis took him from a nearly certain victory, and importantly allowed the top step to be occupied by Justin Wetherill (Ferrari of Central Florida) and second position to be claimed by Davis’ chief championship rival, Keysin Chen (Ferrari of Beverly Hills). Chen would have otherwise lost significant ground to Davis over the course of the weekend, but in fact minimized the damage. John Horejsi (Ferrari of Vancouver) rounded out the top three in the AM2 category.
Coppa Shell: Jeremy Clarke (Ferrari of Beverly Hills) returned to the top step of the podium with a win in Sunday’s race at Road America. It was a cat-and-mouse affair, as Saturday’s winner Manny Franco (Ferrari of Lake Forest) led for much of the race before succumbing to pressure applied by Clarke.
Franco ultimately finished second and the podium was completed by Benoit Bergeron (Ferrari of Quebec). But importantly, Musial Jr. (Ferrari of Lake Forest) was able to finish in fourth in the category to secure the required points to make it impossible for his nearest challenger, Todd Coleman (Ferrari of Denver), to close the gap in the remaining races.
In Coppa Shell AM, John Cervini (Ferrari of Ontario) took another win in the category, while the podium was completed by Brett Jacobson (Ferrari of Houston) and Roy Carroll (Foreign Cars Italia).