The Northeastern Ohio Mustang Club

The following was submitted by Norm Clark
Attachments: 2010 schedule  VIR schedule

Hi Everyone,

The Ford Racing Mustang Challenge series wSill be starting its third year in 2010. With the third race of 2010, the Bosch Engineering 250 at Virginia International Raceway, April 25th, Miami Homestead Speedway is the lead off March 6-7. The Ford Racing Mustang Challenge series will have one race on Sunday, April 25th with practice/qualifying taking place Friday and Saturday. Bosch Engineering 250 at Virginia International Raceway will also be hosting the fourth race of season for the Grand-Am Rolex and Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge (CTSCC) series. We would like to invite all of you and your club members to attend and show your support for the Ford Racing Mustang Challenge series. Established in advance of the 2008 season in partnership between Miller Motorsports Park and Ford Racing, 2010 marks the third year of racing for Mustang Challenge, which utilizes the Ford Mustang FR500S as the competition platform riding on g-Force R1 BFGoodrich Tires.

For 2010 we will be increasing or interaction with the Mustang Clubs across the country as we will be introducing our drivers to you through an autograph session, our technical group will be holding a technical session for Mustang Car Club members, to highlight the FR500S and why we have such close racing. We are working with the tracks on our calendar to ensure special Mustang Club pricing along with a Mustang car corral to show off your pride and joys. We will also try to have a parade lap around each track so that you can drive your car on the track we race on. So stay tuned.

Bosch Engineering 250 at Virginia International Raceway, attached is our preliminary schedule. We practice Friday April 23rd, qualify Saturday April 24th before the Rolex and Continental Sports Car Challenge races. We are the feature race on Sunday April 25th. So plan on arriving early, as the car corrals tend to fill up and stay late to enjoy all that Ford Racing Mustang Challenge, the Grand Am Racing and the Bosch Engineering 250 at Virginia International Raceway.

Barrett-Jackson Auto Auctions, the Ford Racing Mustang Challenge was once again represented on one of the coolest stages in the automotive world when the No. 00 FR500S “Media Car” and the Hurst Mustang Pace Car were auctioned off at Barrett Jackson. The Ford Racing Mustang Challenge media car was sold for $275,000.00, with ALL the proceeds going to St Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. WOW!

BFGoodrich Tires, in partnership with the Ford Racing Mustang Challenge Series, provides the specification BFGoodrich g-Force R1 tire for every driver in the series to be able to capitalize on its razor-sharp steering response.  The BFGoodrich g-Force R1 is a purpose-built track tire with a predictable grip limit that has delivered faster year-over-year lap times in road racing competitions including on the FR500S that is run in the Ford Racing Mustang Challenge “Through our partnership with the Ford Racing Mustang Challenge series, we gain the opportunity to showcase the BFGoodrich g-Force R1 and its quick warm-up, superior cornering power and consistent, lap-after-lap grip.  This year’s season-opening Grand Prix of Miami at Homestead Miami Speedway, and additional courses during the season, will once again demonstrate that with the Ford Mustang FR500S, BFGoodrich Tires have race-proven performance on powerful vehicles,” said Roberts Kukainis, BFGoodrich Tires motorsports manager.

Utilizing the Ford Mustang FR500S, the first-ever Ford production-line built race car, Mustang Challenge is sanctioned by GRAND-AM and is a support series to major professional road racing events across North America. 2010 is the third season of competition for the Mustang Challenge, with the Homestead visit marking the second consecutive year of opening the championship at the track, but this year will be the first time for the drivers and cars to take on the unique variable banking that makes Homestead such a racy track. 

“Starting our race season at Homestead is a perfect way for us to kick off the year,” said Mustang Challenge Series Director Lynda Randall.  “Our drivers are very excited about the chance to run on the banking this year and having a double-header race weekend will only add more excitement to kick off the season. BF Goodrich Tires have been a great partner for the series, providing so much engineering support and effort to the series, and we are really pleased to be able to offer our drivers this opportunity. I think we’re going to put on another great show for the fans.”

We are almost a month away from our second event and third round, so I wanted to get something out to you for your March club meetings. As we get closer to the event we will be finalizing the event schedule, figuring out the best location for the car corral and getting your special ticket pricing dialed in. I will be sending out another note as we get closer with all the final details. Please check the Virginia International Raceway website for directions, maps and complete schedules on the weekend’s activities.  virnow.com

Check out our website out at www.mustangchallenge.com to stay on top of the latest event and series news. Our 2010 Mustang Challenge web site will include, LIVE timing/scoring, the latest driver and team news plus much more.

Thank You,

Tom Mikwold
Operations Director