Last saturday, five of your fellow Volvo members decided to meet for lunch at Martin’s Resturant in Flagler Beach. Charlie and Patti Pardee, Jerry and Darlene Sira, Chris Short and Kathy, Louie and Elaine Bouchelle and Gay and myself.
Dave Montgomery.
Lexington, Ohio (Aug 5, 2011) – K-PAX Racing, the World Challenge GT Manufacturers’ and Drivers’ champion in 2010, enjoyed a solid day of qualifying at round seven of the Pirelli World Challenge Championship at Mid Ohio, with three out of the four of the teams cars qualifying in the top three in both the GT and Touring Car classes.
The story of the day for the team was Aaron Povoledo’s stellar run for pole in his Volvo C30 Touring Car in the first qualifying session of the weekend. Povoledo qualified with a time of 1:35.00 to snatch the pole from second placed Lawson Aschenbach by over 8 tenths of a second. More importantly Povoledo’s pole earns 1 point for Volvo in the battle for the Manufacturers Championship in Touring Car. While Povoledo was beyond thrilled with his effort, he also understands that it took more than one person to make this result possible.
“I’m just over the moon that we were able to put this car on pole again. It was an all around huge team effort. I think that the work that the guys did back at the shop during the break made all of the difference. They gave me a car that I was able to drive really hard but really precisely, and that’s what made the difference. I’m really looking forward to the race tomorrow.”
Overcoming some difficulties early in the session Robb Holland managed to put his Volvo C30 up into third place on the very last lap. Holland’s was a little disappointed with his time of 1:36.14 and felt that his C30 had more in it then he was able to show.
“We got blocked on our first flying lap by a few cars that passed under the double yellow. I was unable to get my brake pads bedded in properly and they glazed up and it took until the last lap of the session to get them working right. I’m really looking forward to the race tomorrow because, as my teammate has shown, there is a lot more left in these C30’s and I’m confident that we’ll put in a good show for all of the Volvo fans here this weekend.”
On the GT side of things the story was much the same with Alex Figge, in only his second qualifying effort in the series, doing an impressive job by putting his Volvo S60 GT on the second row of the grid in position 3. In setting a time of 1:24.336 that was only 4 tenths of a second off of pole, Figge was looking forward to being able to put pressure on the competition in tomorrows race.
“It was a good qualifying session. Much shorter than the ones I was used to in ALMS and Champ Car. I was a little nervous at first but I was able to get focused and put in a lap that was good enough for P3 and very much in range of the top two. I’m pretty satisfied with my effort and the team did a great job with the set up and I’m confident that we can run strong in the race tomorrow.”
The only sour note struck in today’s efforts by the K-PAX Racing team was that reigning series champion, Randy Pobst, was unable to put in a lap during qualifying due to an undiagnosed issue with his car. The team plans on working hard through the night in order to sort out the problem and get Pobst back on track in time for tomorrows race.
In attendance this weekend is Volvo acting President, John Maloney, who was impressed with the strong results that the K-PAX Racing Volvo’s produced.
“It was a great day of qualifying today. To start the second half of the season with a first and third in Touring Car and third in GT is fantastic. The team obviously worked hard during the hiatus and made some good improvements to both the C30’s and S60’s and we’re running at the front and looking for more good things tomorrow in the race.”
K-PAX Racing Media
mediainfo@kpaxracing.com
We have been invited by FVC to their next Orlando meet. The following is the invitation we recieved. Hope to see a lot of you there!
“Its about that time for the annual Orlando GTG, and in case you guys havent seen it on a few forums yet. We would love to have you out there.
Matt Phi, has been so kind as to post it up on Volvospeed as an anchoring
point since he usually gets this meet going.
Here is some information on the event.
“It’s been quite a while since we had an Orlando mini-meet, so Rob and I got together and figured out a good time and place. If you’ve come out to
an Orlando meet before, you know that we always have a good time. We’ve had a meet here twice in the past and there’s always a nice turn out of people.
The park has pavillions and grills as well. This mini-meet is primarily Volvo, but is open to all makes and models. We’re in the process of putting together a large Euro meet with sponsors and giveaways (like our last Ikea meet), but this is more of a meet and greet. Entrance into the park is FREE.
Date: Saturday June 18th.
Location: Shadow Bay Park. (5100 Turkey Lake Rd. Orlando, FL 32819)
Time: 11am – 2pm (or later)
What can you bring? Food, soda, water. We will have a sign up list when the time gets closer.
This will be the main thread for the meet. If you’re posting this on other
forums, please link to this page here so people are able to add their name to
the list.
Have a look and let us know.
Thanks,
Rob”
Florida VCOA & Volvo Enthusiast Community Spring Meet & Picnic, Philippe Park, Safety Harbor, March 5th, 2011
Perfect weather, great venue, outstanding turn out, nice folks, cute kids and lots of dogs best describes the Spring Meet & Picnic hosted by FL VCOA held on March 5th, 2011 at Philippe Park in the quaint town of Safety Harbor. 56 cars registered for the event and we had a 244 show up after the event had ended. Almost all models were represented and the numbers were spread equally among the vintage/classic RWD and FWD/AWD.
We thank all the FL VCOA members (www.FLVCOA.org), the Florida Volvo Community (FVC) website/forum (www.floridavolvocommunity.net) group and the newly forming Central Florida Chapter of Volvo Sports America (www.vsa.org) for their participation. We were also thrilled to have the Volvo racing community represented with the attendance of several members of the Central Florida Region of Sports Car Club of America (www.cfrscca.org). The event truly was a Florida Volvo enthusiast community event with various clubs being represented.
Numerous trophy categories were awarded. The lone 1965 PV 544 of CFL VSA’s Martin Stickley won the People’s Choice Vintage trophy. FL VCOA’s Roger Patricio won the People’s Choice RWD 1976-1998 trophy with his stunning 1980 242GT-turbo. Francisco Guerra won the People’s Choice FWD/AWD trophy with his modified 2004 S60R Evolve. FVC’s Jaime Seda won the Daily Driver trophy with his two-tone and very sweet 1995 850T5R. FL VCOA/FVC/CFL VSA & CFR SCCA member Tricia Rose won the Golden Rod for Technical Innovation with her modified 1967 122E. The Longest Distance (driven to the event) trophy was awarded to CFL VSA’s Robert Stanton and his beautiful 1972 1800ES who drove 457 miles from Pensacola to attend the event. He was the first to arrive and one of the last to leave, so it made for an extremely long day for him. The Highest Mileage award was won by JCNA’s Todd Gracen and his 1990 240DL with a whopping 346,034 miles. He swears it doesn’t leak a drop of oil!
Other activities featured at the event were two silent auctions and Volvo Jeopardy. Three 3 man teams competed for “R” lapel pins in Volvo Jeopardy with FL VCOA & CFR SCCA’s Bob Haire, Bill Cierebiej and Dennis Joyce winning with 185 points. FVC’s Alan Johnson, Ray Krigger and Robert Cardwell placed 2nd with 100 points followed by the FL VCOA team of Roger Patricio, Dave Montgomery and Louis Bouchelle with 50 points.
The silent auctions featured Driving Zone II DVD’s paired with KPAX Racing 2010 Team Shirt (Lot 1) and 2009 Andy Pilgrim balaclava (Lot 2), all autographed and very kindly donated by the Andy Pilgrim Foundation (APF). Proceeds from the auction will be donated to APF so that they may continue to produce the DZII DVD’s that promote teen driver education and safety. The DVDs are donated for free to schools across the country. Robert Stanton was the high bidder on Lot 1 with $20 while Tricia Rose was the high bidder with $15 on Lot2. In addition to the silent auctions, a donation jar for the APF was set up and raised $43 in cash donations.
Platinum Sponsor:
Kevin Riley and the crew at Volvo Village in Clearwater generously donated money to sponsor 5 of the 7 trophies, pay for site rental and provide water and snack bags free to all participants. A display of 4 Volvo models both current and late in addition to numerous parts for sale was provided. Assistance in advertising the event via a local radio station and personal invites to several of Volvo Village clients. Their support was stellar and they were great partners to work with. The event would not have been possible without their very generous support.
Door prizes were another highlight of the event with all in attendance taking home a Volvo goodie thanks to the generous donations from our sponsors:
Gold Sponsors:
1) IPD Co., Inc
2) Coast Volvo in Sarasota
3) Roger Patricio of RP R Sport Restorations (sponsored Golden Rod trophy)
4) Auto Clinic of Naples, Inc. (sponsored RWD and Volvo Village sponsor trophies)
5) The Andy Pilgrim Foundation.
Silver Sponsors:
1) Jim Haughey of KPAX Racing
2) Gretchen Adams of VCOA
3) FL VCOA member Erik Kessler
4) Classis Motorsports and Grassroots Motorsports magazines.
We extend our sincerest appreciation to the following:
1) FL VCOA, CFL VSA & FVC members Clive “Alive” & Jeannine Dowdell, FL VCOA webmasters and PR gurus for the numerous hours they put in to advertise the event in addition to starting our new blog. Jeannine also did a series of press releases for our platinum and gold sponsors which generated lots of activity for their businesses. Clive posted the event on numerous blogs and also served as our official event photographer. They also served as site liaisons and their selection of Philippe Park Shelter 5 was extremely well received. Lastly, they purchased and transported all the water and snack bags. What a team!
2) We thank FL VCOA’s Mike Cohen and Chapter President Dave Montgomery for providing the most current VCOA member list.
3) Artist Chris Smith did an outstanding job with flyer and trophy artwork.
4) Susie Joyce was our vote tabulator.
5) Francisco Guerra’s lovely son and daughter were our door prize ticket pickers.
6) FVC for their support (their cars ROCK!).
7) FL VCOA, CFL VSA, FVC & CFR SCCA’s Bill and Tricia Rose for sponsorship, the creation and printing of all registration and voting materials, in addition to acquiring event sponsorship and trophy sponsorship.
We had a great team with the end result being a great event that was enjoyed by all. We look forward to getting the groups together again later in the year for another enjoyable day of Volvo doings.
By Tricia Rose
Photos here:
Pictures are now up of the 2011 Spring Meet at Philippe Park on the website at http://flvcoa.org/News_and_Events.html .
If you have any that are hosted we would be happy to link to them. Just e-mail us the link.
The event report will be posted soon.
Thanks for looking.
We welcome another Gold sponsor to our upcoming Spring Meet — Instrument Cluster Restoration by Roger Patricio.
“It’s very satisfying to restore the Volvo instrument clusters for fellow Volvo enthusiasts and contribute to their projects” says Patricio.
You can read the full story of the Instrument Cluster Restoration by Roger Patricio FLVCOA Spring Meet Gold Sponsorship here.
The Press Release for Auto Clinic of Naples (http://www.acnvolvo.com), Gold Sponsorship of the Spring 2011 FLVCOA Meet has now gone live!
Read the full story of the Auto Clinic of Naples Gold Sponsorship for FL VCOA Spring Meet here.
We welcome and thank our NEW Platinum Sponsor of our upcoming Spring 2011 Meet, Volvo Village of Clearwater.
“Volvo Village (http://www.volvovillage.com/) is proud to be the sponsor of the 2011 Volvo Club of America Florida regional show to be held in Safety Harbor FL. We have been the Volvo retailer in Clearwater, under the same owner, for 40 years and stock a nice selection of new and pre-owned Volvos, as well as a complete parts and service department, “says Kevin Riley, General Manager, Volvo Village.
You can read the full story of Volvo Village Named Platinum Sponsor for FL VCOA Spring Meet here!
With the feedback we have been getting so far this is shaping up to be a fun and exciting day.
Also, Gold sponsors for the meet are: IPD, Auto Clinic of Naples, Inc., Coast Volvo, and National VCOA.
We are looking forward to seeing everyone there!
Hallandale, Florida. On Saturday, October 2nd seven members of FL VCOA made the drive to Gulfstream Park in Hallandale, Florida to participate in the Naughty S60 Drive event. The event was the first in the series to allow participants to actually drive the all new 300 hp Volvo S60 T6 AWD featuring City Safety, Pedestrian Detection System, Corner Traction Control and Advanced Stability Control on specially designed test tracks.
Michael Cohen attended with his wire wheeled 1964 1800S, Clive and Jeannine Dowdell with their 1985 245DL, Dennis and Susie Joyce in their 1995 854 and Bill and Tricia Rose in Eli Swetland’s newly restored 1972 1800ES.
The event began with a presentation in the air conditioned tent during which a complete description of the all new S60 T6 AWD features were fully explained. After the presentation participants hit the track and test drove the FWD Audi A4, the RWD BMW 335i and the Naughty AWD S60. Everyone except Tricia (took out seven cones with the Audi on the first run) made it through without hitting any cones or the faux deer. For two hours we had the opportunity to drive the course in all the cars as many times as we wanted. We were all grinning from ear to ear. “This event was a total blast! I highly recommend Volvo enthusiasts participate when the tour comes to their area” said Tricia Rose.
After practice on the first course we were off to the “hot lap” course in which everyone competed for an Apple IPad. Whoever posted the fastest lap time by the end of the weekend was the winner. Sorry to say, our group did not do the fastest lap, but Clive was fastest with a 33.70, Bill with a 36, Tricia with a 38.8, Jeannine with a 39.53 and Dennis with a 40.8. Jeannine Dowdell said of the City Safety and Pedestrian Detection system “City Safety was interesting and the rear camera was really cool. The BMW was luggy and the S60 was the best. This was my first timed trials and it was a blast.”
We had so much fun we decided to plan the next FL VCOA event to be held on March 5, 2010 at Philippe Park in Safety Harbor. Details can be viewed at www.flvcoa.org or email webmaster@flvcoa.org The event will be a family picnic day at a great park with lots of shade and water views of Tampa Bay.
Article submitted by Tricia Rose. Auto Clinic of Naples.
A few photos of the event can be found on the website on the News & Events page .
