Records Fall in TrackBattle, GRIDLIFE GT Debuts at Packed Midwest Festival
South Haven, MI - Thousands attended GRIDLIFE’s 12th Midwest Festival at GingerMan Raceway in South Haven, Michigan, entertained with an all-new festival layout and intense on-track competition. A number of TrackBattle Time Attack track records, some years old, fell all weekend, while a full Eibach GRIDLIFE Touring Cup cars battled on track. The debut of the GRIDLIFE Grand Touring series featured some intense battles throughout the grid, and the GRIDLIFE RUSH Series once again was dominated by the championship leader with fierce fights in the midfield.
GRIDLIFE GT Debut Entertains With Exciting Lead Battles
GRIDLIFE’s all-new wheel-to-wheel series, GRIDLIFE GT (GLGT) raced first on Friday afternoon, with a grid including Eibach GLTC front runner James Houghton in a Honda Civic touring car, Allen Patten in a Toyota GR Supra GT4, and a host of others in home-built cars. AJ Hartman brought a high-downforce Ford Mustang to go up against the factory racecars. During qualifying, Luke McGrew, driving a Chevrolet Corvette, suffered a differential failure, covering GingerMan Raceway’s turn 8 with gear oil, sending cars behind him into the grass. Chris Delucia’s BMW 3-Series went off course and broke the front splitter on the #40 car, but it was repaired in time for the race later in the day.
In the first race on Friday, James Houghton started on pole and elected for the driver’s left starting position in his #41 Honda. Allen Patten’s #606 Thunder Bunny Racing GR Supra started on driver’s right - and the two contested the first two corners side by side. Patten pulled ahead and led the race by turn 3, but over the course of the race, Houghton tracked him back down and pulled an outside pass at turn 2, holding on for the first ever race win in the new class. Behind them, the #77 Corvette of Hans Horpedahl, the #333 Nissan 350z of Tony Barber ,and the #174 MX-5 of David Calzada fought a fierce fight for fifth place. Early weekend mechanical challenges plagued Jeremy Boysen’s #22 Honda Civic Type R TC and the #7 Hyundai Veloster N of Jordan Wisely.
James Houghton (Honda) chases Allen Patten (Toyota) through turn 2 at GingerMan Raceway.
The remainder of the weekend proved to be a mano a mano brawl between Patten and Houghton, with the two coming very close together on the first lap of race 3. The two leaders attempted to stay side by side through the fast left hand kink at turn 4, forcing Houghton to drop his tires in the grass, and filling the cooling ducts with grass. Though the #41 Honda put up a fight, Patten won the three remaining races, with Houghton scoring two seconds and a third, finishing behind AJ Hartman’s Mustang in the final race of the weekend. The new category will see more entries at the next round of action at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, with several contemporary C8 Chevrolet Corvette builds still seeing construction and development. Allen Patten won the weekend with three wins and a second over James Houghton and AJ Hartman.
Eibach GLTC Sees Two New Winners at Midwest Festival
GRIDLIFE’s first wheel-to-wheel series, Eibach GLTC, had over 40 entries for the third round of the season at GingerMan Raceway. While all eyes in qualifying were on championship leaders Eric Kutil (#82 Honda Civic sedan) and Matan Rosenberg (#484 Falken Chevrolet Corvette) heads turned when the gold BMW M3 of Eric Magnussen snagged pole in the #330. Matan Rosenberg spent the first lap of the race side by side with Magnussen, but the battleship of a BMW pulled clear and led the race while the fight for second continued behind. 7th place was contested early on between two Honda S2000s, the #90 of Matt Waldbaum and the #17 of Tony Marchev, just ahead of a three way fight for ninth between rookie Blake Korth, Lena Chin, and Jackie Ding in the Eibach Toyota AE86 Corolla. Erik Meadows and Paul Darling spent a lap door to door in a fight for fifth behind Andy Smedegard. Later in the race, Lena Chin battled hard with the #109 Subaru BRZ of Dana Basinski for 10th. Eric Magnussen held off Matan Rosenberg and Eric Kutil to claim his first ever Eibach GLTC victory.
Eric Magnussen (#330) runs from Eric Kutil (background Honda Civic) and Matan Rosenberg at turn 1 at GingerMan Raceway. Magnussen claimed his first ever Eibach GLTC win on Friday afternoon at Midwest Festival.
Races two and three of the weekend featured the same battle at the front of the field, but this time with Eric Kutil grabbing 2nd place over Rosenberg. The different strengths of Magnussen’s BMW and Kutil’s Honda were well on display at GingerMan Raceway, with Kutil hounding Magnussen through the twisty and serpentine middle sector, while Magnussen’s LS-swapped M3 recovered the lost ground on the backstretch between turns 10 and 11. Kutil’s strengths, however, proved a challenge to use successfully to overtake, despite finding overlap several times in high speed corners. Magnussen went on to win two more races, never by more than 0.7 seconds.
The final race of the weekend featured an eight-car invert, placing rookie Blake Korth on pole. Korth was piloting the #614 Porsche Cayman, a race-winning car previously owned by 2020 championship runner-up Aaron Leichty. Alongside him, longtime competitor Erik Meadows started on the outside of the front row. At the green flag, a fuel pump failed for the #155 BMW of Michael Pagano, leading to a stack up causing suspension damage for the #462 MX-5 of Natalie Latoz, who came to a stop on the front straight. For the first time in the weekend, the full course yellow was displayed and the field was reset behind the safety car. The race restarted with under five minutes to go, with Korth still in the lead. With two laps to go, Erik Meadows overtook Korth in turn 11, bringing Rosenberg and Kutil with him. Meadows fended off an attack from Kutil and claimed his first ever victory in the Eibach GRIDLIFE Touring Cup Championship after competing for six seasons. Eric Magnussen scored the weekend victory over Eric Kutil and Matan Rosenberg, and solidified himself as a championship competitor in the season standings.
The Eibach GLTC field approaches the green flag in Race 4, with rookie Blake Korth (Porsche Cayman) leading three other race win hopefuls.
Records Fall in 5 of 7 TrackBattle Time Attack Classes
GingerMan Raceway has long been the battleground for GRIDLIFE’s TrackBattle Time Attack Championship, and with clear skies and relatively cool weather, the track was primed for record-breaking times. A number of track records fell across five of the seven classes, before 35 competitors battled for podiums in the Podium Sprint on Sunday afternoon.
Falken Club SC was led by David Best for most of the weekend, after he set a track record time of 1:50.995, two tenths faster than the prior record set by James Smith two years earlier. Reigning champion Chris Rice qualified for Podium Sprint, but was the fifth seed and was unable to advance forward. Club SC is usually one of the closest classes in times on track, and this was reflected in a hard-fought Podium Sprint, where Best led the first lap, but was beaten by Mike Janssen in his #156 Honda Civic for the class victory in the final session of the weekend. Sam Deuling snuck in and stole second from Best at the last moment, earning a 1:52.274, just one thousandth of a second faster than Best’s 1:52.275, illustrating the incredibly tight margins in GRIDLIFE’s 25:1 power-to-weight class. Ryan Mukherjee and Chris Rice rounded out the top 5.
Falken ClubTR also featured an upset of sorts during Podium Sprint, but not before Mario Mirone and Stan Fayngold reset records in the FWD and RWD subcategories. Mirone scored a 1:37.751 early in the weekend, claiming the new FWD class record in his #727 Honda Civic EG and seeding him as P1 in Podium Sprint. Stan Fayngold lapped GingerMan Raceway at 1:38.370, a tenth quicker than Dana Basinski in 2023, earning him the RWD record. In Podium Sprint, Mirone slid off the track while attacking the first corner, immediately disqualifying his efforts. Though he was able to complete some quick laps in the session, any off disallows laptimes in this high-intensity session. The mistake left the door open for Peter Granberg’s #511 BRZ, Mike Bryant’s #94 MX-5 Miata, Jerami Bailey’s #13 FA24-swapped FR-S, and the #326 K24 swapped Toyota 86 of Fayngold. While Bailey got close, he was unable kindle the magic of his first weekend victory from South Carolina and settled for 2nd behind Fayngold, but ahead of Bryant, Granberg, and Mirone.
Street Class also saw a record reset, this time by Andy Holst, by a whopping 0.8 seconds in his #443 Mitsubishi Evolution. Brad Moore and Willem Drees also reset drivetrain records, with Moore scoring a 1:37.055 in his RWD Porsche Cayman and Drees with a 1:38.612 in his Hyundai Elantra N in the FWD category. In Podium Sprint, Holst laid down a 1:35.730, a respectable laptime just out of reach of 2nd place finisher Josh Halka, who trailed by a tenth of a second. Charles Miller, whose #55 Mitsubishi Evo sported a new engine after a failure at Road Atlanta last month. Brad Moore and Mike Coons completed the top five.
Luke McGrew, again pulling double duty in a wheel-to-wheel class and TrackBattle Time Attack, won Street GT by a tenth of a second over Ryan Mathews. The entire Podium Sprint session was comprised of Chevrolet Corvettes, three C6s, one C5, and one C8, the #22 of Dallas Reed. Reed’s AWD Corvette scored a 1:37.901, setting a benchmark record in the AWD subcategory of Street GT. McGrew, nor Mathews, was able to match Voelkel’s 1:33.881 from last season. Nicholas Hendrix, Seth Brown, and Reed finished third, fourth, and fifth in class.
Street Modified was packed with competition at Midwest Festival, featuring entries from points leader Ryan Mathews, 2017 champion Graham Gaylord, reigning Street class champion Luca Barberis in a GR Supra, Kal Fortner, Andy Smedegard, Kyle McKiou, and Dewey DeWitt. With one of the strongest fields in memory, two drivetrain records were reset, 1:30.973 by ASM’s SuperK S2000 with Andy Smedegard in the RWD class, and a blistering 1:30.604 by Dewey DeWitt in AWD. While DeWitt was aiming the crosshairs at a sub-1:30 time, the 1:30.604 was still 0.8 seconds quicker than the prior record of 1:31.444 set by RS Motors in 2020. Had track conditions been optimal, DeWitt may have been the one to beat in Podium Sprint, but the #70 Impreza L known as “Bogeyman” scored a 1:31.937, a time that would end up three tenths shy of the 1:31.655 from Kyle McKiou, picking Dewey’s pocket and scoring the win at Midwest Festival. Andy Smedegard, Ryan Mathews, and the #51 Mazda MX-5 of Jon Roed finished out the top 5.
Eric “Dewey” DeWitt scored a new Street Modified track record and earned a 2nd place in TrackBattle Podium Sprint.
Allen Patten, who was also campaigning in GRIDLIFE GT in a Toyota Supra GT4, showed up with the Louis Gigliotti built C7 Corvette that has been annihilating records across the country so far this year. Patten smashed the previous Track Mod record held by Jason Kanakry’s McLaren 720S by over two seconds, pushing Track Mod’s overall record to a 1:28.894. In Podium Sprint, Patten didn’t match that time, but was still north of Colton Drescosky’s Dodge Viper, Chris Smith’s BMW 1-Series, Justin Peachey’s Corvette, and Austin Barne’s Corvette, and claimed his second first place trophy of the weekend.
Allen Patten’s Louis Gigliotti-built #304 Chevrolet Corvette is quickly becoming the most-feared Track Modified weapon in GRIDLIFE.
Unlimited class had some attrition early in the weekend - Shawn Bassett’s Datsun 240Z, Mark Johnson’s Honda Civic, and Steven Luca’s Ford Mustang never made any laps. Jeremy Lowder’s Chevrolet Camaro, set to run the Pikes Peak Hill Climb in just two weeks, managed to score a third over Luis Zendejas’s C8 Corvette. Ernestas Puzelis won Podium Sprint over Andrius Bertulis by over five seconds, with a time of 1:30.656.
GRIDLIFE RUSH Series Races at Midwest Festival for First Time
After skipping the GingerMan Raceway round in 2024, the GRIDLIFE RUSH Series entertained fans trackside all weekend long with a 33-car field of RUSH SR entries. Championship leader Ryan Leach entered the weekend with a perfect points score, with four wins in South Carolina, and four more in Georgia at Road Atlanta. Blair Hosie, after competing in the new RUSH SRX at Road Atlanta, qualified second to Leach in his RUSH SR. Andy Voelkel, who entered Midwest Festival second in the standings after finishing second 7 times to Leach this season, qualified in the middle of the top 10.
The GRIDLIFE RUSH Series field rips through turn 2 at GingerMan Raceway.
The battles all weekend long at the front of the field featured the aforementioned drivers, and front runners James French, Nico Bratz, and more. In Race 3 of the weekend, Nate Hamilton’s #144 RUSH SR made slight contact with the rear of the #33 of Ethan Alexander, causing the front bodywork to dislodge and fly into the sand trap at turn two. Hamilton, unphased, continued on with no front aero, but lost several spots due to the loss of downforce and an increase in aerodynamic drag. Each race featured a battle between Ryan Leach and Blair Hosie, but Hosie was never able to complete a pass on the race leader. With surgical precision and efficiency, Leach won all four races again, continuing his winning streak of winning all twelve races so far this year.
A new festival layout and stage brought an all-new feel to the GRIDLIFE Festival experience.
GRIDLIFE Midwest Festival once again brought out thousands to watch grassroots racing, time attack, and drift, building on the successes of the prior eleven years of festivals. A new festival layout, with the stage on spectator hill, brought energy further around the 2.2 mile course with a massive new stage build. With records set and quality racing to watch, the rest of the 2025 season is poised to be the most competitive ever. The next event for GRIDLIFE competition is at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course June 27-29, 2025, but the event will feature no live broadcast. The next livestreamed event will be the Summer Apex Festival at Road America in Wisconsin, July 25-27. The music lineup has just been announced, and tickets are on sale now!
