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Thirteen year Old Jimmy Qualifies 2nd in First Formula Car Race!
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Jimmy Moon At Laguna Seca
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Laguna Seca December 2006
December 8th and 9th marked the second race weekend of the Skip Barber Western Regional race series. It was also the weekend of Jimmy Moon’s first race in a full sized Formula Dodge RT race car. The youngest of the Moon brothers, Jimmy’s oldest brother Benny drives for Bill McAnnaly Racing in the NASCAR weekly late model series. Ben is also a driver’s coach in the series and was on hand as a mentor. Jimmy’s brother Justin drove in the Skip Barber National series and drove for Gelles Racing in the Formula BMW series in 2004. This was 13 year old Jimmy’s transition from karts to cars, qualifying 2nd in his first ever qualifying session at the famed Laguna Seca track in Monterey California!
(Sportsman Race 1)
This race had the biggest field, 17 hopefuls clambering for honors on what would be the driest track of the weekend. Alpine Stars U.S. sales guru P.J. Rashidi was on pole, while the third Moon, 13 year old Jimmy (following in the Skip Barber footsteps of Benny and Justin), was alongside. John Thompson and Vladimir Charchiyan made up row two. Way in the back was Gary M. Williams, Jr., and TV and film star Josh Brolin. (Brolin backgrounder: He won the Celebrity class in the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race at Long Beach in 2000 (his Dad James won it in 1978!). Josh beat George Lucas, John Elway and Ashley Judd, who had yet to get some driving pointers from Dario…). At the green Rashidi led from Jimmy Moon, until Jimmy got tagged by Charchiyan up in the Corkscrew. That put Thompson in second, while GMWJ(!), Corey Condit and Brolin(!) rounded out the top five as the field circulated under two laps of FCY. After the lap six re-start, Thompson was fending off GMWJ whilst trying to hassle Rashidi. On the next to last lap, Thompson set fastest race-lap, but on the last lap, he got Turn Four wrong and put it in the fence, making the podium Rashidi, GMWJ and Brolin (who had gotten around Condit on lap seven), with John Potter rounding out the top five.
Unfortunately since Jimmy had been taken out in race 1 according to the rules he started in the rear of race #2.
(Sportsman Race 2)
Rain began falling early Sunday morning stopping shortly before Jimmy’s race. This left the track wet and slick. Polesitter Rashidi fell off the road and got stuck in Two right from the git-go, so when the full course yellow flags flew, the order was GMWJ, Thompson (up all the way from 11 th), Vlad, Max Riddle and Michael Ramies. On the lap-three re-start, Jimmy was able to pass three cars, this put him up from 17th to about 10th. Thompson got the better of Williams, Jr., to lead, but earlier he had passed under yellow and he was brought in to ‘‘serve.’’ So GMWJ had the lead again, Charchiyan second and Ramies third. It stayed that wayuntil we went FCY again on lap six, following Evan Bell’s and Condit’s incidents with sandbags and ditches. Green again to start lap eight, Williams, Jr., was hounded ruthlessly (‘‘where’s Ruth?’’) by Charchiyan, who finally made the pass on the next to last lap. But GMWJ fought right back and regained the lead on the last lap, to score his first SBRS win. While this was happening, Brolin was dispatching car after car, finishing in 3rd. Jimmy Moon made his way from 17th to 4th. A fine finish for his first race in a full race car!
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