Feature Friday: Grand-Am Sports Car Challenge, A @Smokyburnout Report

Over Memorial Day Weekend Lime Rock park hosted it's Memorial Day Classic race. Our friend Smokyburnout, a frequent contributor to the Jalopnik commentariat and a compelling twitter follower was able to make it to the race. We've compiled some of Smokyburnout's photos below for your viewing pleasure, and have included commentary from Smoky to give you a taste of what the weekend was like. If you would like to contribute to The Daily Hoon please drop us a line TheDailyHoon@gmail.com . Now, enjoy the hoonage coverage, courtesy of Smoky:

The Memorial Day Classic is the first big event on Lime Rock Park's schedule. At the last minute, I decided to make the trek up there for Saturday's Grand-Am Continental Sports Car Challenge race. A pro-tip for a hoon on a budget: AAA was still selling tickets at the advance sale price minus the AAA discount on the day of the race.
We now join the CTSCC ST race already in progress...

Kinetic Motorsports brought Kia their first ever motorsport victory in the CTSCC race at Barber in April, but they were not so lucky this day.

Adam Burrows parked the #12 car with brake failure not long after I arrived at the track, but the Barber-winning #10 managed a top 5.

Freedom Autosport's #28 Mazdaspeed3 was not smiling when it retired due to a fire.

"Rubbin's racin" in CTSCC.

You can only hear the PA system at Lime Rock Park between the frontstretch and the esses, so I was in the dark at the end of the race. The word on Twitter was that Freedom Autosport's #26 Miata and RSR Motorsports' #198 Mini made contact battling for the lead on the frontstretch. The #26 rolled and both cars retired from the race. Freedom and RSR still took the top two steps of the podium, with the #73 Compass360 racing Civic in 3rd. 

Arty shot of the winning car of Derek Whitis and Tom Long.

Ian Baas and Ryan Ellis are the championship leaders in their APR Motorsport GTI.

Lime Rock always has an open paddock, and I always take advantage of this opportunity to see the cars and crews up close.

Lots of fake headlights in this class.

Salut Gilles!

It may wear a BMW roundel, but there's no time to be messing with lug bolts during a pit stop. Lug studs and nuts all around.

Stevenson Motorsports was one of the few teams who had already unpacked the Rolex Series car for Monday's race. Not much stock about those GT cars. That's a rear transaxle on a Camaro!

Leh Keen was driving for Magnus Racing in the GS class, and his vinyl buddy Kill was along for the ride.

Serious attention to detail at Kinetic Motorsports.

One of many nice tribute stickers on the cars.

I-Moto Racing is prepared to make quick bumper cover changes.

Rubbin'!

Note the decaled-over fuel door on the Mazda. CTSCC cars run trunk-mounted fuel cells, and the filler necks are within the trunk.

Anyone got a smarty-phone?
Also, note that there's chrome windshield trim on a race car.

Sport Chrono package, because race car!

BMW is the official vehicle of Lime Rock. No exceptions!

Gulf livery, because race cart.

RACE EPIC

The #6 dominated the MX-5 Cup race.

These two made it interesting.

LIKE A BOSS

The open paddock extended to an open pitlane before the start of the CTSCC GS race.

Like Steve McQueen!

What the RacewithRP.com team lacks in actual sponsors, they make up for with their sense of humor.

This spin was probably the first incident of the race.

The most interesting lap of the race happened about 15 minutes in. The #35 Subaru closed in on the race-leading #15 Ford...

They definitely made contact in the esses and there was an OH from the crowd as they went out of sight...

Meanwhile the Stevenson Camaro went around coming off Big Bend...

Tire off the rim...

Don't think he noticed...

Tire ejected into orbit...

And, scene!

The leaders come back around. The #35 has more damage, The #15 got the short end of the stick, and BMW M3s driven by Hugh and Matt Plumb made the most of it.

Ominous skies on the No Name straight. It drizzled for about 5 minutes.

Thanks to some marketing synergy by Office Depot, my #14 Stewart-Haas Racing NASCAR cap was "close enough" to get a picture with Doran Racing Office Depot BMW driver Tim Bell. Yes, I call that smiling!

Nobody really had a chance once the #13 Rum Bum M3 took the lead.

The #35 Subaru Road Racing Team STi, a little worse for wear.

Double vision.

The only halfway decent photo I have of the #50 Finlay Motorsports Mustang. You'll see why that's important in a bit.

Moments after I took an arty shot of this damaged ARMCO...

The #50 car put it to the test. This race won't be televised and I can't find any amateur footage of this online, which is too bad because all I remember was seeing the car sliding towards me, thinking "OH SHIT," and backing up a bunch, then seeing it slam the barrier and get a good two feet of air before settling back onto the track.

Driver Steve Cameron walked away.

West Bend is a great place to take photos. probably the closest you can get to the track without an orange vest.

The #35 wasn't done shedding parts yet.
At this point I was tired and just sat down on one of the lovely spectator hills and didn't take many more pictures. Sorry!

CTSCC GS Victory Lane! Your winners, Rum Bum's Matt Plumb and Nick Longhi, second place Bill Auberlen and Paul Dalla Lana for Turner, and third place Jack Roush, Jr. and Billy Johnson for Roush Performance.

The winning car. Note the Go Pro 3D in the windshield.

Rubbin' = Racin'.

Rubbin' = Racin'.

Rubbin' = Racin'.

One of the Turner cars had a major suspension failure.

Well that's it folks! Thanks for reading, we hope you enjoyed all of the photos and the associated commentary provided by Smokyburnout, be sure to follow him on twitter @Smokyburnout and us @TheDailyHoon . Have a great weekend, stay safe, and happy hooning.