Published: July 19, 2016
Courtney drawn back to GTS racing competition
JACKSON — For Jeff Courtney, the season is just beginning. So is his push toward a championship in 2017.
The 50-year-old Hartford native enters the next race in the GTS class of the Pirelli World Challenge on July 29-31 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio, with optimism and confidence.
In his last race weekend June 23-26 at Elkhart Lake’s Road America, Courtney placed eighth and second, his best finish of the season.
“We expected to win,” Courtney said. “We did some testing up there and we felt like the car was really strong.”
Given how his season was up to this point, especially at the start, Courtney found a positive with finishing second.
Courtney drives the Maserati GranTurismo MC entry for Jeff Courtney Racing, with help from sponsors RecStuff.com, Kenda Tires and Speedseat Factory.
The 1982 Hartford Union High School graduate hoped for a better start than what he got.
“The Maserati program was a new deal and we got the cars from Italy about a week before the start of the season at (Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas),” Courtney said. “So basically they threw them on a container in Italy, sent them here … we virtually got the cars here in Jackson and we had three days to load them to go to COTA.
“So no prep, no development time. We really started off bad.”
He managed seventh place in the season’s opening round March 5 and 10th in the second round March 6 — both at COTA. Though managed is putting it lightly.
Courtney limped to a pair of eighth-place finishes March 11-12 on the streets of St. Petersburg in Florida. He missed the first race of the series’ doubleheader April 22 at Barber Motorsports Park inBirmingham, Alabama. He was 13th in the second race that weekend.
He missed the next two race weekends.
“It just didn’t make sense for us to keep running the way it is,” Courtney said. “In hindsight, we should’ve skipped COTA and St. Pete, went out and tested, developed the car and then start at Barber.”
“We didn’t expect to get the cars that late,” he added.
While disappointed to not win at Road America, Courtney believes the issues the team had in figuring out the new program are resolved.
“We think we have the cars dialed in to where they’re competitive,” Courtney said. “I’m pretty excited to finish off the season right now.”
Courtney hoped to challenge for the 2016 championship. But this season isn’t a complete wash.
Next year, some rule changes in the GTS class look to work in Courtney’s favor. The remainder of the season is focused on getting the best result possible, but also to collect notes and momentum for 2017.
“We have to kind of consider this a development year,” Courtney said. “Next year sounds pretty exciting.”
Courtney got into racing because of his family. His father is a former motorcycle racer. His brothers also raced.
Mixed in there was getting his professional life going. Courtney also owns Badger Tire and Wheel in the industrial park off Highway P. For about 10 years, ending in 2000, Courtney stayed out of racing.
When he returned, he dabbled with SCCA Pro Miata racing, and Panoz Racing Series and School, racing GT cars. He won the 2005 Panoz GT Pro winter series championship as well as the Miata Cup Sunoco Hard Charger award at Mosport.
“It was a lot of fun and I met a lot of cool people there,” Courtney said of his time at Panoz Racing Series and School.
In 2006, his first season with Pirelli World Challenge, Courtney won the Touring Car class Rookie of the Year title with four top-10 finishes. In 2007, he moved to the GT class and placed seventh in the championship.
He has made 102 career starts in Pirelli World Challenge, with 45 top-10 finishes and six topfives.
“Sports car racing has always been my thing,” Courtney said. “I also always liked racing something I could see on the road, a Corvette, a Ferrari.”
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Dale Nottestad, the points leader at Jefferson, won the 50-lap King of the High Banks limited late model feature Sunday at Slinger Super Speedway.
It was his first limited late model feature victory at Slinger.
Jordan DeVoy was second, followed by Ryan Farrell, Kyle Chwala and Kevin Kneuse to round out the top five.
Jay Kalbus won his first career area sportsman feature, Eric Lingford won the midwest sportsman feature, Jakob Hassler won the Slinger Bees feature and Scott Goetzke won the Figure 8 feature.
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Jeff Steenbergen rallied from a 10th-place starting spot to win the sport modified feature Saturday at Beaver Dam Raceway.
It was the second victory of the season for the 2010 and 2013 track champion and his second in a row.
Roger Lee won his fourth grand national feature of the season, Justin Pearson won his second career legends feature, Jon Schultz won the modified feature and Mike Winters won the street stock feature.
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Jeff Lammers won his first career grand national feature Saturday at the Plymouth Dirt Track.
Kenny Richards won the “B” modified feature, Tim Buhler won the late model feature and Tim Haddy won the 360 sprint car feature.
Kewaskum’s Donny Goeden was third in the 360 sprint car feature. The defending track champion and Hall of Fame leads the points standings by 62 points over Haddy.
Richards, Lammers and Buhler also won a heat race in their respective divisions.
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