PTCC Round 3 and 4 at SIR set for June 4 and 5

Rounds 3 and 4 of the Philippine Touring Car Championships are all set for June 4 and 5.

In rounds 1 and 2, Group One rivals Jody Coseteng and Kookie Ramirez battled it out with Ramirez emerging to sweep two firsts.

After round two Coseteng requested that all cars be checked out at scrutineering to make sure that everyone was within spec. It turns out that Coseteng's pistons was just a tad smaller than the rest, perhaps explaining his uncharacteristic sluggishness in the first two rounds. This, and perhaps the fact that Kookie Ramirez was really running faster with a more powerful engine (an EK3 Honda which my source says is the same as the rest which are Honda B16s) and a set up that was on the money as far as the Batangas Racing Circuit was concerned. Plus, may I add and this comes with all due respect, Kookie was having a good hair day as observers noted that he didn't commit any errors in both rounds.

There were a couple of spin outs and runs in the run-off, case in point would be the spectacular red gravel shower by Don Pastor at the double apex turn.

Group 3 was a bit more dicey as Francisco "Pacho" Blanco and Mateo Guidicelli rubbed quite a bit. Guidicelli comes from a victorious karting career but confesses to having a bit of trouble adapting to a much bigger car. He would have said that, compared to carting, driving a production car was like riding moby dick -- a water mammal with a fat ass, if it had one. In anycase, I am wondering if I should sell Guidicelli or Pacho some duct tape come next racing weekend as one of them invariably had a bumper hanging.

A car of note was Lory Uy's pink phantom done up by Auto dress code. It was a beautiful blur streaking the BRC. With some careful tuning by Velocity's Blanco Lory's car squeezed out 10 percent more horsepower, upping its asphalt ripping strength at the wheel to over 110 HP -- if I am not mistaken. She placed fourth in her group, which was not bad because last year she usually ran last -- which was fair considering she had to attend to a whole lot of matters including organizing work for Race Fans which runs the PTCC.