Buttonwillow, CA – RJ Racing traveled to the Buttonwillow Raceway Park for the second time this season, this time to contest one of their biggest races of the season: The 6 Hours of Buttonwillow. This was the inaugural running of the event, and as a double-points event in the Western Endurance Racing Champsionship, more than 40 cars made the start. The team added one more member to its crew, youngest brother Dave. All four Gibson brothers were now on the team: Rob, John, Tim and Dave.
John took 4th during qualifying in the highly competitive E2 class. Rob started the race and immediately moved up one spot by the first corner, then settled in for the duration of his stint. The team was experimenting with a harder compound tire for this race, hoping that a tire change would not be necessary while keeping lap times low. But this meant the tires were prone to lockup, which eventually caused a vicious flatspot in the first hour of the race. Rob tried to drive through the problem, but once a tire flat spots, it effectively becomes “square” and any further lockups will happen at the worn area.
By the first pitstop, the team was firmly in second place, and only lost one spot with the efficient work of Tim and Dave during the refueling and driver change. John took the wheel and drove quick and consistent laps, eventually moving the team up to first place. John was driving a double stint, and came in to the pits for fuel only. During this stop, the flatspotted tire was severely blistered, and a tire change was made by Tim and Rob in just over a minute. The team left the pits in second place, again losing only one position. John reported an immediate improvement in the performance of the car. Unfortunately, during the stop a faulty fuel jug caused some gas to spill on the ground, resulting a 2 minute stop-and-go penalty for the team. After the penalty was served, the team lost a full lap to the leader, and eventually pushed the team back to third place.
Just before the team’s third scheduled pit stop, a full course caution came out. Under these conditions refueling cannot be performed. Once the track went back to green, the pitstop was made and went like clockwork, with Rob resuming driving duties. By this time the tires had pretty much given up. Another full course caution came out a few laps later and the team decided to gamble and change tires during the caution period, putting stickier, race-proven tires on for the final hour of the race. But the track went green before Rob could catch up to the slow-moving field, losing almost a lap to the second place car. With the car markedly improved, Rob stayed on the lead lap and closed the gap, but there wasn’t enough time in the race to challenge for second spot. The team finished a solid third place, 14 laps up on the fourth place finisher, and extending the team’s record to four consecutive podium finishes.
With the results from this race, the championship has become very tight in the Western Endurance Racing Championship. DivaSpeed assumed the lead by only 2 points with 357, to RJ Racing’s 355.