GOTO Racing : 7/08/2005 - Sonoma, CA

Saturday had no major eventualities for GOTO, and had them sitting in 3rd spot behind Rookie of the Year contender Dale Sievwright after the first qualifying. What most concerned the team was the fact that while Lock had placed the Subydude.com WRX only scant hundredths behind Sievwright's BMW, the points leader, Dave Brown, had put his RSX over 2 seconds ahead of both. While confident he could catch Sievwright in the next days qualifying, Lock needed more from the car to have a chance at Brown.

"The Spoon car has just been getting faster all year long. Dave is on such a streak right now, he is going to be hard to catch", remarked Lock before Sunday's qualifying run. A brand new set of Hankook tires were enlisted to help close the deficit between him and the pole sitter, and to give him the edge he needed to have a go at Sievwright's second spot. This proved to be just the thing he needed, for at the conclusion of Sunday's qualifying, Lock had stolen P2 from the MPACT BMW, but Dave Brown would still lead the field to the green flag that day, over a second and a half ahead of Lock. "The goal for this race is going to be simple," said Lock, who had done battle with Dave Brown last year at Sears Point, "He knows this track very well, and he is a very experienced racer. I need to get ahead of him on the start, then try to hold him off the whole race. If I can't do that, then I am just going to have to try to keep up and hope he makes a mistake".

At the drop of the green flag, the WRX and it's All-Wheel-Drive launched Lock out ahead of Brown, but unlike the Buttonwillow start earlier this year, Brown was able to maintain track position on the inside as they went up the Turn 1 hill, and the RSX had enough power up the grade to beat the WRX to the first braking zone by inches, forcing Lock to shuffle in behind Brown. This was a position the team did not want to be in, for even though Sievwright and the rest of the field were not matching the pace of the leaders, they knew that Brown now held all the cards. Lock was going to have to force him into a mistake, and soon. The WRX's extra 400lbs would mean that Lock's tires would go off much earlier in this race than Brown's, so any move would have to be made as soon as possible.

Lock pushed the RSX relentlessly all the way to the half point of the race. "Brian forced me to drive alot faster than I was comfortable with to keep my lead," said Brown later that day, "he pushed me the whole race". With about 3 laps to go, a full course yellow came out, forcing the field to regroup. Andrie Hartanto was now in the 3rd spot behind Lock, as the MPACT BMW had dropped out with motor problems. On the restart, Hartanto nailed the restart and made an attempt of Lock's position, but the WRX found much more speed through turn 2, and held Hartanto off. Brown and Lock quickly began to pull away from the field as they did earlier, Lock hoping that Brown was out of his rhythm with that restart. But as the race wound down, the tires of the WRX began to give up, as predicted. Lock was in no position to make any more attempts on Brown, but still took the checker only 1.2 seconds behind. Hartanto took 3rd 7.8 seconds behind the leader to round out the top 3.

This second place finish marks Lock's 3rd podium and 4th Top 5 in five races. The points gained in these last few rounds have made for a huge rebound from the points loss of the Phoenix DNF earlier this year, moving Lock into a season high 2nd Place in the Driver's Championship. But that is not the only good news, as Lock remarks, "With this second place finish, we're leading the rookie of the year points, and winning the Apex-I Rookie of the Year Award has been my goal this year”. So with this performance, GOTO:Racing is right on track for meeting or exceeding the goals it set at the beginning of the season. Only 102 points now separate Lock from the Championship. With two more races and a double-points round at Hallet next month, an overall Championship is still a tantalizing possibility.