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Jesse Prather Wins
Second-Straight SCCA National Championship
TOPEKA, Kan. (Oct. 14, 2007)
-- Jesse Prather took another step toward joining father Kent in SCCA
immortality by winning his second-straight F Production National
Championship at the SCCA Runoffs Presented by AT&T at Heartland Park
Topeka.
 In
what was described as one of the best Runoffs lead battles ever, Jesse and
his No. 1 Prather Racing Mazda Miata topped the MG Midget of Brian Linn
after a scrap for all 18 laps that had the two often side-by-side for long
portions of the 2.5-mile circuit.
“Last year when I came into this [interview] room I said that I had
never driven harder in my life,” Prather said. “This year, guess what?
It was ten times as hard! Brian is a phenomenal driver. It was a great
race. He had a better handling car, I had a little more power, and we went
back and forth. It was very interesting, the way I could pull him on the
straight and he would pull up on me and he was killing me in one and two.
I didn’t think that I could go much faster through one and two without
going off. We went side by side through three, then four, then five, then
six, then seven. You know, when you race with a clean driver like that, it
is a pleasure. The side-by-side was such fun, I adjusted my shifts, and I
could hear his engine, he could hear my engine, that was such fun. That
was the best race of my career, for sure.”
“The first few laps I did not know if I could catch him,” Linn said.
“He was maintaining a gap to me and I was starting to get concerned.
Then it seemed that his tires began to go off a little bit before mine did
and I was able to close up on him. I was faster through two and three and
he was faster down the straights. We had a very good battle. It was very
clean. For as many times as we were side-by-side through multiple corners.
We made it through them all. One time one guy would be off line in the
marbles and the next corner the other would be. It was incredible how even
it was. It was really fun racing.”
Jesse's second-straight win was not the only success by Prather Racing
on the Runoffs week. Four Prather Racing cars finished in the top nine,
with Eric Prill (Lotus) in fourth, Bob Bramlage (Miata) eighth and Andy
Hauck (Mazda) in ninth.
Kent Prather's quest for his seventh, and likely final, G Production
title was thwarted by a bad spark plug. He started Saturday's race third,
but faded to ninth at the finish as the car soldiered on with only three
working cylinders.
In other Prather Racing action, Andy Hauck finished fourth in his
Porsche 911 Cup car in GT-2.
Finally, Chris Bovis scored his first National Championship, taking the
GT-Lite race in his Honda CRX. Prather Racing did the final prep on Bovis'
Honda before the Runoffs.
For full Runoffs information, including results and race recaps, go
here: www.scca.com/runoffs.
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