VIPERSPEED\'S ARCHER CLOSES POINTS GAP AT LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
Defending Speedvision GT Champion Bobby Archer and the ViperSpeed Racing team made progress with the performance of their Vipers, and made progress in the points battle for the Speedvision GT Championship, this past weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The race in Las Vegas was the 9th of 10 races of the 2000 Sppedvision World Challenge season. Archer entered the weekend trailing points leader Jeff McMillin by nine points, and was in need of a strong finish to remain in contention for a second consecutive Speedvision GT Championship. With this in mind, the ViperSpeed team arrived at Las Vegas a day early to take advantage of open test sessions before the official practice started on Friday.
Since their last race at Laguna Seca, the ViperSpeed team went back to the drawing board with the suspension of their Vipers and was able to re-gain the handle on their cars' handling. Even though the car was still pushing a little bit, Archer said the No. 32 MotorSport Ranch/ViperSpeed Viper was much better than it had been the last few races. He also said that the engine in his Viper was running as strong as ever, due in part to new upgraded connecting rods and pistons. Archer would need all of the help he could get as, once again, the rest of the field was very fast. Archer, who was also fast in practice, was slowed in qualifications by a cracked wheel and ended up qualifying his Viper in the 8th position.
In the race, Archer was competitive with most of the other front-runners and was able to move steadily toward the front. By mid-race, Archer had climbed up to the 5th spot. A late race caution resulted in a restart on the second-to-last lap that had Bobby licking his chops. In one of his best restarts ever, Bobby rocketed by three other cars and into 2nd place. Unfortunately, just like at Road Atlanta a month ago, his motor kept cutting out on the last lap, causing him to fall back to a 6th place finish. Point leader Jeff McMillin finished three positions behind Bobby, leaving Bobby eight points behind him going into the season finale in San Diego this weekend (Nov. 3-5). The Las Vegas race was taped and will be broadcast on Friday, 11/3 at 8pm EST on Speedvision.
Speaking of the next race in San Diego, for the first time ever, the World Challenge race in San Diego will be broadcast LIVE on Sunday (11/5) on Speedvision at 5pm EST. Archer needs to finish 6 or 7 positions ahead of McMillin to win the championship and the $50k purse. You better believe he'll be pinning his ears back and letting it all hang out! On another note, as the season and ViperSpeed's existence as a race team both near the end, the team comes full circle with Neil Hannemann driving the No. 77 ViperSpeed Viper for the San Diego race. Neil drove in ViperSpeed's very first race three years ago, and now will drive in the team's last race. Welcome back Neil, and good luck!
More information about the ViperSpeed team and the Speedvision World Challenge series can be found at <A href="http://208.50.45.42/new/default.htm">
www.viperspeed.com</a>.
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