Star Mazda makes the rounds in Milwaukee

The Star Mazda Championship series made it's long awaited return to oval racing this weekend at the historic Milwaukee Mile. With the top tier of American open wheel racing now unified, it's season and circuits diversified over several genres, it stands to reason that the junior formulas would also want to diversify as much as possible to prepare their young drivers for their run up the ladder. The Star Mazda series is doing just that, and this Saturday they contested the first of two oval races on their schedule this season, in dramatic fashion.

The race got underway with a first-lap, first turn melee which saw the two top qualifiers, teammates Richard Kent, who was on pole, and Conor Daly, get tangled up with each other while attempting to pass, ending up in the turn one wall.

"I got together with Conor in Turn 1 on the first lap," said Kent. "The car isn't too bad. It wasn't a big crash, really; it's just very disappointing." Daly echoed Kent's sentiments adding: "Before that, I really enjoyed it. We were running strong and were in position to have a good run. It just didn't work out that way."

AIM Motorsports rookie Jorge Goncalvez assumed the lead on the restart for 27 laps until Anders Krohn got around him for the lead and never looked back, his only challenger being Peter Dempsey, in his first drive for his new team Juncos Racing, who carved his way up through the field from ninth to the tail of the leader. Dempsey would get shuffled back to fourth by the end, but set the fastest lap of the race (28.652) prior to that.

The final tangle on lap 86 set the stage for some exciting dicing and a late-race shootout. But when the dust cleared, it was still Anders Krohn leading the field across the finishline to take his first series win, with Adam Christodoulou and Alex Ardoin taking second and third respectively.

"It was an unexpected win because we started in seventh and we weren't quite sure how it would be passing the cars, but our car was hooked up early on and I could stay down low and just drive past people wherever I needed to," said Krohn, the 2008 F2000 Championship Series champion. "From there it was fairly easy pulling out a gap, but then by mid-race when I started passing back markers it was so difficult to stay in their draft and get around them that the fast cars behind me caught up a little bit. I got a really clean re-start from that last caution and managed to pull out a gap that I was able to maintain to the end of the race. I just kept my head down, key was to do consistent laps and not take too many risks when passing the back markers. I wanted to run a clean race and that's what I managed to do. I had Larry Nash on the radio, a very experienced guy and he just kept me cool and calm and we brought it home. It's a great feeling."

Vancouver native and defending Expert Series Champion Chris Cumming took the Expert Series (drivers 30 – 44) win.

Following Saturday's race, the championship hunt is as follows:
Adam Christodoulou regains his points lead with 211 points.
Peter Dempsey, who came to Milwaukee in the lead, drops to second with 207.
Joel Miller is third with 194.
Alex Ardoin is fourth with 187
and Ciao Lara is fifth with 186


Star Mazda Championship Results from Milwaukee:

1. Anders Krohn Mundill -
2. Adam Christodoulou JDC MotorSports 1.223
3. Alex Ardoin JDC MotorSports 1.777
4. Peter Dempsey Juncos Racing 2.275
5. Jorge Goncalvez AIM Autosport 2.985
6. Rusty Mitchell Mitchell Motorsports 3.445
7. Billy Goshen Goshen Motorsports 5.002
8. Caio Lara JDC MotorSports 5.866
9. Taylor Hacquard Kester Racing/Team 3G 7.409
10. Michael Furfari Juncos Racing 8.881
11. J.C. Kester Kester Racing/Team 3G 9.867
12. Mikael Grenier Andersen Racing 10.656
13. Denis Navarro Andersen Racing 11.769
14. Joel Miller JDC MotorSports 12.152
15. Kristy Kester Kester Racing/Team 3G 1 Lap
16. Chris Cumming (E) Kester Racing/Team 3G 1 Lap
17. Toshi Deki (E) Goshen Motorsports 4 Laps
18. David Ostella AIM Autosport 15 Laps
19. Kevin Toledo Eliseo THL Motorsports 52 Laps
20. Gustavo Linares JDC MotorSports 87 Laps
21. Richard Kent Andersen Racing 99 Laps
22. Conor Daly Andersen Racing 99 Laps

The series takes a brief break now then resumes on July 10, with Round Seven at the Iowa Speedway.

Star Mazda, Milwaukee Mile 2009

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