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Stars Alum Gabby Chaves Continues Impressive Win Streak |
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Monday, 28 April 2008 |
He's only 14 years old, but 2006 Snap-on Stars of Karting Eastern King Taco Cadet Division Champion, Gabby Chaves has won every BFGoodrich/Skip Barber National Presented by Mazda race he's entered this year. But the young Colombian doesn't lead the points standings. How's that? There have been four SBN races but Chaves missed one - race two, at Sebring in March - to run an FBMW race at Malaysia in front of the F1 crowd. The Skip Barber National ran rounds three and four here at VIR with the Grand-Am Rolex Series and Chaves won both races, each a nail-biter from start to finish. He starred in a Skip Barber National Championship event that also saw strong performances from Snap-on Stars of Karting alumni Josef Newgarden, Conor Daly, Connor DePhillippi, Nick Tonkin, Victor Pedrosa, and Hayden Duerson.
At VIR, if you're fast and you know how to work and time the draft, huge leaps up the order are not unheard of, thanks to three flat-out sections and the Skip Barber F2000's Handford Device. In race one on Friday, Chaves started 18th (gearbox problem in qualifying) but after just five of the race's 10 laps, he was up to third. While Chaves was slicing up through the field, up front was a terrifically entertaining battle between polesitter Fabio Orsolon (his second pole of the young season), Josef Newgarden, Stevan McAleer and Felipe Polehtto. Forget who was officially leading across the line at the end of each lap; it was changing two, three, even four times every two minutes. (Lap times were in the 2:07s, about 2 seconds quicker than usual thanks to BFG's new g-Force R1 slicks.)
With the order dizzyingly different every lap, you just knew it would come down to the last lap. And it did. Leaving Oak Tree, the well-respected double-apex righthander that leads onto the looooooong back straight, McAleer was leading, Chaves locked onto his gearbox, Newgarden third. McAleer was a sitting duck and sure enough, Chaves popped to the outside of McAleer, at the same time that Newgy popped to the outside of Chaves. So what we had was three-wide as the trio neared Turn 14, a difficult downhill righthander with a tricky braking zone. Newgy was out front by a half-a-car length, Chaves in the middle, McAleer inside. Chaves wisely gave it up - and watched as McAleer slid into the side of Newgy as everybody turned-in. Off Newgy and Mac went, both now on a long, fast ride in the grass - and still racing each other, by the way - as Chaves, Polehtto, Mark Bumgarner, Chris Holmes and Orsolon all took advantage. It was good, hard, very exciting racing. Exactly what one would expect from hungry, talented kids, some not even shaving yet...
McAleer nipped Newgarden at the line for sixth (by one one-thousandth of a second), followed by Gustavo Linares, Lee Carpentier and Hamilton Smith, rounding out the top 10. Peter Tucker was the Masters winner, coming home 13th.
Race two was equally frenetic. No, wait, that's wrong... it was even more dramatic. We had a 10-car pack the entire race, with drivers going from first to fifth and back to first - on the same lap. More than once the front of the field looked like they were on the pace lap, at three times the speed, as it was side-by-side-by-side-by-side. well, you get the idea. It had the same players - Newgarden (poleman), Chaves, McAleer, Polehtto, Orsolon, Holmes - but added to the mix were Daly, Duerson, Connor De Phillippi and Tyler Schaal. Oft times, the leader out of T17 was not the leader across the line, while that guy was not the leader into One. And yet another driver was the leader out of One. Nuts.
Suffice to say, it was anybody's race as the last lap started. McAleer somehow held on to the lead from the exit of One up to Oak Tree. But Newgarden and Chaves blast-drafted past heading up to 14. And everybody stayed on the road. Now it was a hair-raising ride down VIR's "Rollercoaster," Newgy leading, Chaves glued to his gearbox, McAleer third. Chaves backed off a bit, then got a brilliant run through the complex. Rocketing out of 17, Chaves popped to the inside of Newgy and it was a drag race to the line. Would it be Newgy or Gabby? Across the line, Gabby grabbed the win by a nose (.082, to be exact).
"In yesterday's race, I saw Josef was better than me through 15 and 16," Chaves said after the race, "so that's what I worked on in the warm-up, to get through there at least as well as him. And it worked."
McAleer, Polehtto and Daly rounded out the top five, all less than a second behind Chaves, followed by Holmes, Duerson (up from 13th), De Phillippi, Schaal and Hamilton Smith. Orsolon finished 12th, behind Carpentier, after a high speed trip through the tulies in 17 on lap nine.
So there you have it. Chaves has won all three of his SBN starts, but Polehtto, with 121, still has the points lead, thanks to two more solid finishes. Newgarden (106) has leapt from seventh to second in the standings, while Chaves has gone from 12th to third. Next up is daunting Mosport mid-June, where none of the top runners have ever been before.
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