Livengood started on the outside pole and ran second to Audette early before passing the Canadian and stretching the gap for his third F2000 Series win. Local favorite Paul followed; his best career finished to date.

Livengood rebounded from an earlier crash in the first race that cost him valuable points. With just two rounds remaining in the season, a Watkins Glen doubleheader, Livengood is still alive in the title fight but the John Walko Racing/Work Racing driver may need a miracle, some 88 points down on Audette currently. One hundred ten (110) points are available at Watkins Glen.

“We had a clean start, Remy and I kept exchanging fast laps the entire way,” said Livengood. “He got a bit held up with lapped traffic and I was able to get by into turn one.”

Audette, meanwhile, had a successful weekend at Lime Rock with his fifth win of 2011, two poles, and a new qualifying track record. Audette has yet to fail to finish this season.

Said the Canadian: “Chris was pushing us to the limit the entire way, a lapped car messed the race up. The front of the car went away as the race continued, but overall it was a good weekend for Audette Racing.”

Tim Paul was the local story, the Mahopac, New York-native finished third in the SMR/GTP Motorsports No. 06, besting his fourth place effort a few months ago at Watkins Glen.

“I went to the outside on the start and was able to move up to third,” said Paul. “Minor got back by me, but we battled it out until it seemed like his car just go away. I’m happy to break my bad luck streak here after last year’s crash.”

Minor explained after the race that his tires lost grip.

Robert Wright, perhaps in his last race in the Van Diemen before switching to the new Radon chassis, won the Masters Class with a fourth place effort. Peter Gonzalez was fifth ahead of Tim Minor, who ran third early before fading.

Nathan Morcom drove through the field along with Craig Clawson, both starting at the rear of the pack, to finish seventh and eighth. John Walko Racing/Fat Boy Racing teammates Brendan Puderbach and Craig Clawson completed the top ten.

Clawson, meanwhile, had a career day, finishing fourth in the morning race, and taking home CellMark Paper Hard Charger honors in this race, advanced from 23^rd to finish 8^th, gaining the most positions of any driver.

Angel Benitez, after a third place effort earlier in the day, failed to finish for Alegra Motorsports, going off early.

Blake Teeter ended up 13^th in the Radon chassis for GTP Motorsports, following a turn one incident, in the morning race that saw crash damage repaired.

Robert La Rocca did not take part in the race following a penalty for an incident in turn one earlier in the day.

The F2000 Championship Series concludes its 2011 season with rounds 13 and 14, at Watkins Glen, October 14-16.

Hobbs had this to say:

“I just wanted to get comfortable with the car. It was really helpful to have a car that is known to be fast and getting into it and having that information behind me was really helpful. Looking over the data, not just at previous lapping sessions, but also getting good coaching was really great, especially at the end [of the day] when we made a few changes and I was able to experience those on track was really cool.”

Hobbs was able to improve his performance across the test day and set his best lap times during his final testing laps.

Driver coach Steve Welk elaborated:

“I’m very happy with our experience with John Walko Racing. John was great with the car and everything went really smoothly. Andrew responded well to John’s coaching and I’m very happy with how Andrew drove. All things considered, he was able to get the best out of the car.”

John Walko Racing, based out of Trafford, Pennsylvania, currently has three drivers competing in the F2000 Championship Series and has accrued multiple race victories as well as podium finishes. For more information visit www.JohnWalkoRacing.com.

Those plans for 2011 call for expansion to a multi-car F2000 team, according to Walko, who is responsible for the race-prep and at-the-track engineering through John Walko Racing (JWR).

“The goal is to run a three car team between Work Racing and myself,” he explained. “We’re expecting Chris back for a championship effort and want two additional cars.

“We’ve been busy testing at BeaveRun with the #37 car, last week we had Nathaniel Steele and Kyle Knecht run laps and they are both interested. And this week we’ll be there with some more potential drivers.”

And those two additional cars may not be so far off, as Walko said that two drivers were close to signing for 2011.The bigger question mark is what chassis the team will be using, as a potential chassis deal is in the works.

2010

Looking back on 2010, Work Racing was one of the biggest story lines of the year. Running a 1999 bone-stock Van Diemen chassis on a shoe-string budget for rookie Livengood, the team started out the year with a Pinto motor and was very competitive.

The Zetec switch came at Mosport and Livengood went even quicker. Race weekends generally saw the team sleeping in their race trailer in the paddock and on occasion didn’t even set up the scale pads.

“This chassis doesn’t change unless it hits something and there is no reason to mess with it,” Walko explained. “The Hoosiers are super consistent and our notes are good enough that when the cars leaves the shop, we know its right.

“You have to be careful with how much time you spend getting carried away on the wrong things under the awning.”

As the season continued, Livengood wheeled the Van Diemen chassis to pole at Watkins Glen and led most of the race before Daniel Erickson snuck by.

A few weeks later that win would come, as the 24-year old stamped his name on Mid-Ohio with a dominating victory.

“The win at Mid-Ohio was the big highlight, obviously,” commented Walko. “But the start of that ball rolling was leading the race at the Glen. At that point I knew we could win.”

F2000

Walko gave a lot of the credit to Bruce Work, who made the 2010 season possible under the Work Racing banner.

He also said the decision to come back to the F2000 Championship Series for 2011 was a no-brainer.

“The way things are run in the paddock, it’s by racers for racers,” he added. “We do need to remind people that this Series is a destination too, not just a rung on the ladder.”

Walko has run motorsports programs in a variety of series in North America and continued: “The reason I’m running F2000 is the exact same reason that’s kept me away in the past: budgets. I was pitched to come run a team a few years ago and the budgets were too low. At the time I had full-time employees plus my family to support and with what it costs to go F2000 racing it wasn’t possible.

“But now, the budgets are still low and the way the economic environment is: the Series works. You can run it reasonably with a bunch of cars. It’s hard to find customers with mega-dollars to run in some of the other series.”