Armida Captures Top 10 Result in Series & Rain Debut

19 year old Mexican driver Jose Armida made a successful F2000 Championship Series debut this past weekend at Mid Ohio Sports Car Course with Group-A Racing team. During his debut weekend he was able to capture a top 10 finish along with valuable experience to build upon.

The weekend started with Thursday Twilight testing, along with more practice sessions on Friday, giving Jose his first sessions at Mid Ohio & in an F2000 car. Armida did a very nice job coming up to speed, making progress every session. After each session he would take full advantage of the video, data, and track notes that the driver coach, Jonathan Scarallo was providing. He would take all the notes on what he can do different and apply it very nicely to help him to go faster every session. With that he would also work with the teams lead engineer Angelo Zarra to work on the balance of the car to help build his confidence to gain more sped as well.

After two days of running in dry conditions the entire F2000 paddock was thrown a curve ball when they woke up to heavy rain Saturday morning. The Group-A Racing team did a great job of changing the setup over from dry conditions to get it ready for a wet qualifying.

As if it was not difficult enough for Armida to be making his series debut with no experience beforehand, he had never raced in the rain before either. But, he continued to pay close attention to the driver coaching from the Group-A Racing team about techniques & lines to be used in the rain and applied them in a very mature manor. The session did not offer many laps due to black flag causing Jose to only be able to place a time for 16th.

In the race Jose started 16th, but drove the race with great maturity. He was consistently dropping his times, as he was getting a hold of the treacherous rain conditions at Mid Ohio. He drove a smart race and patiently moved his way up the field, without making any major mistakes. With this he was able to get all the way up to 10th, to earn a top 10 result in his first race in the series, but also in the rain.

After a good race on Saturday Armida & Group-A Racing team was hoping to carry that momentum into Sunday. Sadly on the second lap of qualifying Jose had a minor off. With the wet grass it caused him to hit the tire wall damaging the car. The Group-A Racing team did a great job of turning the car around to get him out in time for the race. With him only getting 2 laps he was buried in the field in 20th. Armida got a great start to pass a few cars and just like the day before patiently moved his way forward. In the 15 laps race Jose managed to move p from his 20th qualifying spot to a 13th place result. Along with that he set his personal fastest lap of the weekend on the last lap of the race, showing the constant improvement and learning in full motion.

"Jose did a great job in his first weekend in the series." Commented team owner Joe Scarallo Sr. "He was really thrown in the deep end with having never raced in the rain, never driven a F2000 car or driven at Mid Ohio. He did a great job listening to the coaching that was provided, applied what he was told to do and therefore made constant improvement all weekend. He was a pleasure to have & we hope to be back very soon with him."

"It was a great weekend for me" said Jose Armida "I learned a lot about the car, track and also diferent conditios. The team did a really great job with the car, specially after the crash. I want to thank everyone who was involved. We hope to be back soon as we can and fight for the firsts places."

For more information on Group-A Racing you can go to www.GroupARacing.net or contact them GroupARacing@aol.com or (631) 974-4379.