Ruman Racing faces a reckoning with 8th place finish in TA at VIR

# 23 Amy Ruman was nearly 5 seconds off the winning pace, completing 26 of 30 laps in the penultimate race of the 2023 season at Virginia International Raceway.

The question for this venerable family run team is whether to throw more money to compete in a class populated by cars that are technological dinosaurs compared with almost every other type of pro racing, including NASCAR. 

TA cars have 850 HP push rod engines fed by massive carburetors that require costly re-builds between races. 

Amy was handicapped with a tired backup PME SB2 engine at VIR and was forced to sit out the previous race at the WWT Gateway circuit east of St. Louis.

 There are usually fewer than 10 TA entries vs 5 times that for the TA2 class.

 Could it be that TA2 spec Camaros and Mustangs cost less to race, are technically up to snuff, are exciting to watch and go nearly as fast?

Decline was also evident a week earlier at VIR where the SCCA Runoffs race for TA/GT1 cars was canceled due to insufficient entries.

Connor Zilch, age 17 easily won his first TA race in a token outing against a smaller field of mostly older drivers past their prime.  His harder fought win against 33 TA drivers that same weekend is more likely to better serve his career.

Richard Forsyth was 2nd in the SGT class, finishing on the same lap but 2 seconds off pace of the season-leading # 84 Viper of Lee Saunders.  Richard’s # 58 C6 Z06 served as a back-up car for Justin Oakes, 2021 SGT champ and was prepared by GForce Racing, a C6 specialty shop based in Cresson TX.

Photos courtesy of Chris Clark